Book list

The number of self-help/business books out there is overwhelming. This is the list of the ones I think are important. If you disagree with this list, that's great, it just means we're not aligned on preferences/views. In that case, the list of books I actively dislike, might be useful to you.

Most of these I actually read. As in, viewed the words. This is because, for most books, audiobooks just don't work for me. Especially for business books, where this is the pattern:

1. Have an interesting point/perspective
2. Have an example
3. Have another example
4. How about an example with your example

This kills me. Even at 2X they go too slow. I think Team of Teams was 12+ hours. Even at 2x that's 6+ hours. In "physical" books (which I scare quote because I actually read almost all of them electronically) I can just skip through the next N sections skimming. I can't do the same with audiobooks. (It turns out that this is probably actually due to the way books expenses work/compensation works. Authors end up having to write ~200 pages, so you have a lot of filler).

Must Read

These are in no particular order, so don't make too much of it

Extreme Ownership - Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

• This is a great book. I do think it goes too heavily on the military side of things, and as a result will lose a large number of people who could benefit from it.
• Summary: You need to own all of your outcomes. Do not blame others. Instead, figure out how you could have changed an outcome.
• Honestly, it won't always work. You can't always get there. But if you really work at this, you will be orders of magnitude better than the mean.

A Random Walk Down Wallstreet - Burton Malkiel

Factfulness - Hans Rosling

Give and Take - Adam Grant

Lean In - Sheryl Sandberg (but only the last half)

• I spent the first 50% of this book wondering if it would be useful, and it wasn't. Until the second 50%. The discussion on how women automatically make choices to compromise their careers, because of their perception of what society wants, is fantastic. Now, maybe you end up in the same place, but if you do it conciously that is far better than people who never think about it.
• It's not just a book for women. I think every male leader should read it too, in order to understand the problem and be able to facilitate for women who haven't read the book, to encourage them to think of these things.

Normal Accidents - Charles Perrow

• This is likely the book on the list that the fewest people have heard about. I don't even remember how it got on my radar, but it is foundational. I actually built a presentation based off of this, for software systems. The presentation is built with the idea that, well, I'm going to be presenting it, so there aren't a lot of notes. Let me know if there is demand to improve that, otherwise here is Jot's presentation on Normal Accidents and how it pertains to large scale internet systems and software development
• Summary: If you have a complex, tightly coupled system, you are going to have accidents. They aren't going to be extraordinary, they will be normal. In this context it evaluated nuclear power plants, and the realizations of the inevitability of issues should be eye opening.

Outsiders - William Thorndike

Superforecasting - Philip Tetlock

• Every time I hear someone say "this is going to happen" or "this won't happen" or "there is an X% chance of Y happening", I think back to this book. I also think 98% of the time people haven't read it. ¹

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

Team of Teams - General Stanley McCrystal

Checklist Manifesto - Atul Gawande

• I know what you're thinking. "I get that checklists are useful, but my job is too complex, or too important." Stop. It. Read this book. It does a great example of pointing out a few things:
  • It can work for any business. If it's important enough when an airplane has stopped working, it'll work for you.
  • If it works for surgeons it can work for you.
  • The goal isn't to have an end all/be all checklist. It is also to provide a process for human communication.

Thinking in Bets - Annie Duke

• This is one of the foundational books for my Decision Making philosophy, so it has to be here too.

Meh Read

Anything by Nassim Taleb

• I get it, this is not going to be a popular viewpoint. He's clearly thought of some really interesting stuff, and I appreciate that. Both Black Swan and Antifragile are really good inquisition into a way people haven't thought of, and I think he's right.
• But, his writing style (for me at least) is more opaque than Vantablack. I've made hearty efforts at reading them both, end to end, and have been rebuffed more than once. So, I get the concepts, but the books, heck, read the Wikipedia pages and be done.
  • Black Swan
  • Antifragile

Originals - Adam Grant

Shoe Dog - Phil Knight

• Story drags on about the early years. Then suddenly, "Hey, here we are today."

The Better Angels of Our Nature - Steven Pinker

• Bill Gates says this is one of the most influential books of his life. There is no doubt that Pinker is doing some interesting stuff and some great writing. But, holy hand grenades, it's about 50% too much text without enough interest.

The Dichotomy of Leadership - Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

• Following up on Extreme Ownership, this addresses the challenges that if you own everything, you'll get bogged down. Let me help you out: Don't be an idiot. Make honest efforts to own outcomes, but recognize when it is, that other people will be involved and you can't own everything.

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing - John Bogle

• If you made the case that Jack Bogle has done more for investors than anyone else in the last 50 years, I think you'd have a pretty strong case. Index funds. Lower costs. Math matters. The book however, makes the same mistake of asserting an opinion, having some examples, and then repeating itself. Instead of reading this book, spend more time on Bogleheads and you'll be better off.
• I guess you could look at my investing documentation too, but given that it's heavily biased toward the Bogle process, might be repetitive.

The Upside of Stress - Kelly McGonigal

Warren Buffett

• There are multiple books about him. In general, it's pretty clear, he's way above the rest of us. The books about him, maybe not so much.

  • The Snowball (Warren Buffett and the Business of Life) - Alice Schroeder

    This is a long book about his life. Interesting. A lot of detail. I guess useful background information?

  • The Warren Buffett Way - Robert Hagstrom

    I found his description of the principles interesting. Then they take the examples and try to twist the principles to make them match, when they don't. I have an idea: Maybe Warren sees things better than we do and we should quit trying to back justify his decisions.

A Waste of eInk

The Advantage - Patrick Lencioni

• Let's start with an opinion based in consulting instead of real world experience. Then let's season it with the astrology that is Meyers-Briggs. Then let's go do something productive, like not reading this book

The One-Page Financial Plan - Carl Richards

• If you need more than 30 pages to explain a one-page financial plan, you're doing something wrong.

The Phoenix Project

• A crappy DevOps book masquerading as a novel. Your time would be better spent watching soap operas.

Audiobooks

"What the hell?", you say. I thought you said you couldn't listen to audiobooks. Generally, that's true. But there are a few that I've been able to listen to. Maybe worth it. Maybe not.

The Three Signs of a Miserable Job - Patrick Lencioni

It really helps that this is a fable about leadership and business, instead of simply a book. This is the first audiobook I've listened too that I thought was informative and entertaining.

Bad Blood - John Carreyrou

Damn, this is a hard listen. It's tough listening to chapter after chapter of horrible behaviors and decisions. I could only stomach about 30 minutes at a time. Still, well written and a great cautionary tale. I think most of the things I took from this just reinforced my biases.

• Make sure you do things you can sleep with at night. If you're not sure, don't do it.
• Force of personality and charisma can achieve amazing things. If it's not backed with integrity, it is actively harmful.
• Bullies can win, but only if you let them. Might not be true in the rest of the world, but is in the U.S.