Review: The hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz

Ben tells you his real life challenges while running multiple startups. There are instances of moral, financial and social dilemmas that are really hard to solve. Ben talks about the ifs and buts and what he action he finally took. E.g. how to lay off or demote people (including execs), how to handle politics, ambitions and promotions, how to handle ambiguities, etc.

Ben provides the solutions but is clear that these are not prescriptive. What works at a given time and place may not work at another. Still these open up the mind to possibilities. Ben clearly innovated his way out of multiple holes - including multiple near-death instances of his startups. 

All hard problems. No sugarcoating. In your face. Only someone with multiple real life battle scars can write a book like this. And the rest of us can only be grateful.

This book is essential read for all entrepreneurs (and everyone else!). While the primary audience that will gain the most out of this book is the senior/exec level, for non exec levels it provides a great insight into the dilemmas at the top-office.


 

Book Review: Bold by Peter H Diamandis and Steven Kotler

Read this book last month so its not fresh in my mind. But what i liked about this book was that it really does open up your mind to bold ideas and how to think at scale. There is practical advice on how to benefit from Moore's Law and make a good guess-estimate of technology markers for the future. Thats part one of the book; and the most interesting.

Part 2 of the book is less interesting - it does give a large number of anecdotes about going big - but i believe that the conclusions usually suffer from hindsight bias.

Part 3 of the book is something i would recommend to anyone trying to raise funds - specially via crowdfunding. Very practical advice on how to go about raising funds with a list of do's and dont's.