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Resources

24-Aug-2025

This page is a collection of resources I find myself recommending the most often.

While the topics are listed in alphabetical order, the content under each topic is roughly listed from more introductory to more in depth.

Topics

• Apple
• Biography and Memoir
• China
• Design
• Finance
• History
• Managing
• Medical Device Design
• Negotiation
• Organization
• Planning
• Strategy

Apple

• Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson (2011)
  • A fascinating biography of a visionary design and marketing leader who built one of the most influential companies and brands in history
• Creative Selection - Ken Kocienda (2019)
  • An insider's account of how interfaces, small teams and design iteration were used to create the now iconic Apple touchscreen keyboard interface
• Build - Tony Fadell (2022)
  • An exceptional product manager's view of how to build great products including his work on iPod and iPhone
  • If you like this, it is worth searching for Fadell podcasts from around the time of the book release
• After Steve - Tripp Mickle (2023)
  • An independent account of Apple's later evolution focusing on the exceptional operational leadership by Tim Cook and design leadership by Jony Ive
• Apple in China - Patrick McGee (2025)
  • A compelling account of how Apple built and benefited from its Chinese supply chain, and how Chinese suppliers used their work with Apple to advance their own capabilities

Biography and Memoir

• Sam Walton: Made In America - Sam Walton (2003)
  • Amazing history of Sam Walton and his approach to building Walmart
• Elon Musk - Walter Isaacson (2023)
  • One of history's most innovative leaders. Worth reading for his emphasis on first principles thinking and "Elon’s algorithm” for creating new products and scaling for production
• Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson (2011)
  • A fascinating biography of a visionary design and marketing leader who built one of the most influential companies and brands in history
• The Last Lion Vols 1874-1965 - William Manchester
  • The incredible life of one of the most important world leaders in modern history
• Poor Charlie’s Almanack - Charles T. Munger, P. Kaufman (2023)
  • Mental models and wisdom from one of my favorite first principles thinkers
• From Third World to First - Lee Kuan Yew (2000)
  • The creation and governance of Singapore from first principles and pragmatic experimentation
• Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China - Ezra F. Vogel (2013)
  • History, Philosophy and Strategy of one of the most influential modern Chinese leaders
• Kelly - Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson, Maggie Smith (2019)
  • Life of the innovative founder of Lockheed Skunk Works
• Boyd - Robert Coram (2004)
  • The life of a remarkable fighter pilot and military strategist who advocated, among other ideas, distributed team decision making and the OODA loop

China

• How Asia Works - Joe Studwell (2014)
  • Recommended by Bill Gates
  • Global industrial policy strategies across several asian countries and the importance of avoiding local regulatory capture
• The China Strategy - Edward Tse (2012)
  • Success in China requires adaptive long-term thinking including balancing government relationships, local partnerships and rapidly changing customer expectations
• China's Disruptors - Edward Tse (2016)
  • Among other topics, the many stakeholders involved in developing business in China with Industrial policy and political policy underpinning
• Apple in China - Patrick McGee (2025)
  • A compelling account of how Apple built and benefited from its Chinese supply chain, and how Chinese suppliers used their work with Apple to advance their own capabilities
• Can China Lead? - R.M. Abrami, W.C. Kirby, F.W. McFarlan (2014)
  • An older book emphasizing the importance of innovation to long term competitiveness in the context of how China is prioritizing developing innovation capability as part of its industrial policy
• The Culture Map - Erin Meyer (2014)
  • A great book on the default interaction differences between different cultures including between Americans and Chinese
• The New China Playbook - Keyu Jin (2024)
  • Works to explain the Chinese hybrid political and governance system that is not ideologically anchored, rather anchored on practicality
• Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China - Ezra F. Vogel (2013)
  • History, Philosophy and Strategy of one of the most influential modern leaders in China
• HBR on China Strategy
• WEF on What the West Gets Wrong About China
• HBR on What the West Gets Wrong about China

Design

• The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman (2013)
  • Dense and thoughtful guide to human centered design
• IDEO Design Thinking, Webpage
  • A detailed description of design thinking by one of the best design studios
• Competing Against Luck - C.M. Christensen, K. Dillon, et al. (2016)
  • Informing product design intention by framing a product as doing a job for the customer
• Build - Tony Fadell (2022)
  • An exceptional product manager's view of how to build great products including his work on iPod and iPhone
  • If you like this, it is worth searching for Fadell podcasts from around the time of the book release
• Evolved Double Diamond - The British Design Council()
  • Designing the right thing before designing the thing right
• Continuous Discovery Habits - Teresa Torres (2021)
  • A structured approach to identify and validate unmet customer needs from a software product point of view
• Hard Points, Youtube - Scott Robertson
  • A tool for enabling design team creativity while also ensuring core requirements will be met
• Don't Make Me Think, Revisited - Steve Krug (2013)
  • Human interfaces should be intuitive enough for users to accomplish tasks without hesitation or confusion
• Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey A. Moore (2006)
  • Informed by his early experience at Intel, Moore describes how different customers have different expectations from technology and why misunderstandings can lead to failure
• The Lean Startup - Eric Ries (2011)
  • Presents a systematic approach to building successful businesses through rapid iteration, validated learning, and customer-centric strategies.
• Creativity, Inc. - Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace (2023)
  • Inspiring biography on the creative process developed at Pixar, one of the most highly awarded creative studios of all time

Finance

• Financial Statements - Thomas Ittelson (2022)
  • The best introduction to accounting vocabulary and concepts for non-business trained people
• Vital Truths About Managing Your Costs - Ames and Hlavacek (1990)
  • Business as a system with self reinforcing feedback loops. One way of explaining why departmental productivity is important for the long term health of any company
• Underpants Gnome Business Plan, Youtube - Southpark Creators
  • A group of gnomes describe their feasible and viable business plan, youtube
• How Finance Works - Mahir Desai (2019)
  • Great executive education level book on finance for non-finance professionals with good examples across a wide range of businesses from banks to airlines to consumer electronics
• Aswath Damodaran, Web and Youtube – NYU Professor of Finance
  • Prof. Damodaran is often cited as the greatest professor of Finance. Most of his courses on Corporate Finance and Valuation are available online for free.

History

• Biography
• Skunk Works - Ben R. Rich (1996)
  • Inspiring account of a highly innovative hardware development organization
• The Alchemy of Air - Thomas Hager (2009)
  • The inspiration and perspiration behind one of the most essential plowshares / swords in modern history
• The Everything Store - Brad Stone, Pete Larkin, Hachette Audio (2013)
  • Account of the early days at Amazon with similarities to Sam Walton's approach at Walmart
• The Wizard and the Prophet - Charles Mann (2019)
  • Amazing accounts of Borlaug and Vogt who represent two poles of modern philosophical positions on technology and the environment
• The Acquired Podcast - Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
  • Well told histories of many of the most influential companies in history with a final analysis through the 7 powers framework

Managing

• High Output Management - Andrew S. Grove (1995)
  • My favorite book about leading engineering organizations by a very successful practitioner
• The Manager's Path - Camille Fournier (2017)
  • Introduction to management for technical contributors
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Patrick M. Lencioni (2002)
  • A parable illustrating common issues that limit team effectiveness
• Being the Boss - Linda A. Hill, Kent Lineback(2011)
  • Learn to manage yourself, manage a network and manage a team
• Storytelling with Data - Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic (2015)
  • A great reference on how to communicate effectively with data
• Made to Stick - Chip Heath, Dan Heath (2007)
  • Human factors that make communication more effective
• Mythical Man Month - Frederick Brooks (1995)
  • Early software managers were surprised to find that adding people to projects would often slow them down instead of speed them up
• PeopleWare - Tom Demarco, Tim List (2016)
  • Highlights the critical importance of considering the human factors and specific people when managing teams
• The Culture Map - Erin Meyer (2014)
  • A great book on the default interaction differences between different cultures

Medical Device Design

• Design
• Biodesign Textbook - Paul G. Yock et al. (2015)
  • Focuses on medical device specifically including regulatory, IP, clinical trials etc. Like the lean startup, the focus is the whole product development with less emphasis on particular feature development
• The Quintuple Aim - Dipti Itchhaporia (2021)
  • The evolution of healthcare value priorities. Essential reading for anyone designing products or services for the healthcare system
• Hidden WOMBAT - Topher Kinsella, Rush Bartlett (2023)
  • Without a significant and validated unmet need, focusing on the product solution is a waste of valuable resources. From two leaders of the Stanford Biodesign program.
• Complications - Atul Gawande (2003)
  • A outsider to insider view of surgery. A great perspective for the non-medially trained for the candid descriptions of problems to be solved
• Better - Atul Gawande (2007)
  • Candid examples of lower performing and higher performing systems in healthcare from a surgeon's perspective
• The Emperor of All Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee (2011)
  • A history of cancer and how the medical profession has evolved to treat it. The history, strengths and weaknesses of clinical trial design and execution is particularly important

Negotiation

• Influence, New and Expanded - Robert Cialdini (2021)
  • 7 first principles of influence critical to understand for any negotiation
• Negotiation Genius - Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman (2008)
  • Comprehensive introduction to the negotiation process
• 3-d Negotiation - James Sebenius (2006)
  • The importance of shared value creation and how some asks or gives may be more valuable for one party than the other
• Barbarians at the Gate - Bryan Burrough, John Helyar (2009)
  • Behind the scenes of a dramatic and high profile leveraged buyout in 1988

Organization

• The Culture Code - Daniel Coyle (2018)
  • The importance of fostering collaboration and aligning team members to shared mission
• Scaling People - Claire Hughes Johnson (2023)
  • Fantastic operational perspective on building organizations from a leading practitioner
• The Art of Action - Stephen Bungay (2022)
  • Organizational effectiveness through distributed decision making
• The Leadership Pipeline - R. Charan, S. Drotter, J.L. Noel (2011)
  • Organization and talent planning from the earliest stages of managing ones self to creating a sustainable company
• The HP Way - David Packard (2006)
  • Intentional and sustainable company shaping by founders of one of the first great silicon valley companies
• Working Backwards - Colin Bryar, Bill Carr (2021)
  • Good examples of how to organize and lead that worked well for Amazon
• Barbarians to Bureaucrats - Lawrence M. M. Miller (1990)
  • Strengths and hazards of leadership styles common to different stages of company evolution
• Organization Life Cycles, essay - Lawrence M. M. Miller
  • An essay corresponding to "Barbarians to Bureaucrats" available online
• Zone to Win - Geoffrey Moore (2015)
  • Organizing by product lifecycle
• Loonshots - Safi Bahcall, William Dufris, et al. (2019)
  • Innovation and Production have fundamentally different operating systems for world class performance. This book describes why product development groups will change from embracing new ideas to rejecting them as the product or the company matures. A similar theme shows up in Creativity Inc.
• Elon Musk - Walter Isaacson (2023)
  • Worth reading for his emphasis on first principles and "Elon’s algorithm” for creating new products and scaling for production

Planning

• A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge - Project Management Institute (2021)
  • Principles over process to accomplish business objectives, not create process for its own sake
• Project Planning, Scheduling, and Control - James Lewis (2010)
  • Step by step examples for planning and scheduling with standard tools such as work breakdown structure and critical path analysis
• Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook - Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez (2021)
  • More executive level alignment focused. Introduces the project canvas rendering and emphasis on value delivery, not process or milestones for their own sake
• HBR Guide to Managing Strategic Initiatives - Harvard Business Review (2020)
  • The importance of stakeholder alignment, prioritization, cross functional thinking, building credibility, complementary team composition

Strategy

• 7 Powers - Hamilton Helmer (2016)
  • First principles description of competitive strategy from an investor's perspective
  • This really must be read and does not present well as an audio book
• The Acquired Podcast - Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
  • Well told histories of many of the most influential companies in history with a final analysis through the 7 powers framework
• Better, Simpler Strategy - Felix Oberholzer-Gee (2021)
  • A nuanced look at strategy by one of my favorite professors with multiple modern case studies
• The Innovator's Dilemma - Clayton M. Christensen (2011)
  • One of the most influential mental models for anticipating and identifying relevant competitive entry before it is too late. Also a model for how new entrants can think about competing with incumbents
• Stratechery, Blog and Podcasts - Ben Thompson
  • Former Apple and Microsoft, he writes and podcasts on the business side of technology and media
• Only the Paranoid Survive - Andrew S. Grove (1999)
  • Emphasizes the criticality of low noise, low latency information for strategic decision making, especially when things appear to be going well
• Competition Demystified - Bruce Greenwald, Judd Kahn (2007)
  • An older book on competitive strategy by one of the best teachers from the Columbia investment school
• Good Strategy/Bad Strategy - Richard Rumelt (2017)
  • A practitioner's take on what constitutes strategy and what may appear to be strategy but is not
• Understanding Michael Porter - Joan Magretta (2011)
  • A good introduction to the most popular business strategy framework for those without a formal business education.