HackerNews Readings
40,000 HackerNews book recommendations identified using NLP and deep learning

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The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

Ben Horowitz, Kevin Kenerly, et al.

4.7 on Amazon

3 HN comments

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!

Robert T. Kiyosaki

4.7 on Amazon

3 HN comments

Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business

Gino Wickman

4.6 on Amazon

3 HN comments

Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies

Reid Hoffman, Chris Yeh, et al.

4.5 on Amazon

3 HN comments

Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You

John Warrillow, Erik Synnestvedt, et al.

4.7 on Amazon

3 HN comments

The Professional Chef

The Culinary Institute of America (CIA)

4.8 on Amazon

3 HN comments

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

Patrick Lencioni

4.6 on Amazon

2 HN comments

Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell

Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, et al.

4.6 on Amazon

2 HN comments

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life

Scott Adams

4.7 on Amazon

2 HN comments

The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness

Morgan Housel, Chris Hill, et al.

4.7 on Amazon

2 HN comments

SPIN Selling

Neil Rackham

4.5 on Amazon

2 HN comments

The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Christian Brose and Hachette Books

4.6 on Amazon

2 HN comments

The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

Josh Kaufman and Worldly Wisdom Ventures LLC

4.6 on Amazon

2 HN comments

Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't

L. David Marquet and Penguin Audio

4.6 on Amazon

2 HN comments

Basic Economics

Thomas Sowell

4.8 on Amazon

2 HN comments

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bwh2onMay 30, 2021

The Hard Thing About Hard Things isn't exactly what you're asking for but close because rather than describing the good times, Ben Horowitz writes mostly about the bad times. You can read some of it online like Peacetime CEO / Wartime CEO.

wenconJune 25, 2021

* Fooled By Randomness (NN Taleb): Taleb is a complicated personality, but this book gave me a heuristic for thinking about long-tails and uncertain events that I could never have derived myself from a probability textbook.

* Designing Data Intensive Applications (M Kleppmann): Provided a first-principles approach for thinking about the design of modern large-scale data infrastructure. It's not just about assembling different technologies -- there are principles behind how data moves and transforms that transcend current technology, and DDIA is an articulation of those principles. After reading this, I began to notice general patterns in data infrastructure, which helped me quickly grasp how new technologies worked. (most are variations on the same principles)

* Introduction to Statistical Learning (James et al) and Applied Predictive Modeling (Kuhn et al). These two books gave me a grand sweep of predictive modeling methods pre-deep learning, methods which continue to be useful and applicable to a wider variety of problem contexts than AI/Deep Learning. (neural networks aren't appropriate for huge classes of problems)

* High Output Management (A Grove): oft-recommended book by former Intel CEO Andy Grove on how middle management in large corporations actually works, from promotions to meetings (as a unit of work). This was my guide to interpreting my experiences when I joined a large corporation and boy was it accurate. It gave me a language and a framework for thinking about what was happening around me. I heard this was 1 of 2 books Tobi Luetke read to understand management when he went from being a technical person to CEO of Shopify. (the other book being Cialdini's Influence). Hard Things about Hard Things (B Horowitz) is a different take that is also worth a read to understand the hidden--but intentional--managerial design of a modern tech company. These some of the very few books written by practitioners--rather than management gurus--that I've found to track pretty closely with my own real life experiences.

mrongeonMar 26, 2021

Here's a list of some of my favorite books dealing with crisis:

- In Thin Air - About a mountaineering expedition that turned into disaster on Mount Everest.

- Black Hawk Down - The story of hundreds of US special forces trapped in Mogadishu overnight after a mission went completely sideways

- Leadership in Turbulent Times - About different US presidents leading through crisis and how there is no one singular type of leadership

- The Hard Thing about Hard Things - Leading a startup on the verge of failure to an eventual massive acquisition

- The Sledge Patrol - How a small group, outgunned and out manned fought back Nazi invaders in Greenland

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