A book with a title “The Wealthy Gardener: Life Lessons on Prosperity Between Father and Son” deserves some amount of skepticism from potential readers. I was skeptical about this book before I began reading it. Is the title implying that mothers and daughters are not capable or worthy of subjects like prosperity? That would be … Continue reading The Wealthy Gardener
Category: Entrepreneurship
Measure What Matters
I have a confession to make. Two actually. Few people in Silicon Valley have not heard of the venture capitalist John Doerr. I watched John Doerr’s TED talk some time ago. Then I gave this book Measure What Matters by John Doerr to my best friend, but I ended up reading it first. For some … Continue reading Measure What Matters
The Art of Scalability
The second edition of the Art of Scalability is my book this week. It is coauthored by Martin Abbott and Michael Fisher. As its subtitle suggests, the book is about building scalable web architecture, processes and organisations for the modern enterprise. In this book, the authors argue that the three key components of that … Continue reading The Art of Scalability
The Startup Owner’s Manual
My book of this week is The Startup Owner’s Manual: the Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company, by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf. Thanks to Jim Terranova for recommending this book to me. Jim has been an awesome mentor, not only for his generosity of sharing his own vast knowledge about the startup world, … Continue reading The Startup Owner’s Manual
Venture Deals
My book this week is Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson. The most valuable lessons from this book to me are demystifying the funding process, sharing the “secrets” about the venture capital industry in a plain and clear way, and providing many very concrete recommendations on what matters more and what does not … Continue reading Venture Deals
The Founder’s Dilemmas
In the last a few years, multiple friends recommended The Founder’s Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman to me. I did not pick it up till my recent trip returning from Canada. One evening, a friend, A.J., compared the startup environment in Canada with that in Silicon Valley. He commented on how this environmental difference affects the … Continue reading The Founder’s Dilemmas
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
The Hard Thing About Hard Things is written by Ben Horowitz. This book is hard for me to summarize. The lessons learned from the book are invaluable, but by not reading the stories themselves, you would only comprehend its gist with a large discount. In fact, most of the advice offered in the book might … Continue reading The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
This book came out of a course about startups that Peter taught at Stanford in 2012. My overall experience of reading this book front to back once and selected passages twice has been a very unsettling one in a positive way. It would be an understatement to say it is thought-provoking. Many opinions shared in … Continue reading Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future