David Thomas & Andrew Hunt
The Pragmatic Programmer
A classic for a reason. Pragmatic over dogmatic. "Good enough" software that ships beats perfect software that doesn't.
Books, essays, and podcasts that shaped how I think about building things. The best builders are great readers and writers — I really believe that.
A classic for a reason. Pragmatic over dogmatic. "Good enough" software that ships beats perfect software that doesn't.
Changed how I think about product development. At Picap we moved from Scrum to Shape Up and productivity went through the roof. Free to read online.
Dense but essential. When you're scaling to millions of users, you need to understand distributed systems, consistency models, replication. The reference I keep coming back to.
Code should be readable. Functions should do one thing. Dependencies should point inward. These have saved me countless hours of debugging.
"What important truth do very few people agree with you on?" That question haunts me. With Brainz I'm trying to build infrastructure that doesn't exist yet.
Build, measure, learn. MVP. Validated learning. A bit dated, but the methodology still holds.
No-BS advice about the parts of building a company no one wants to talk about. Real, hard-won wisdom — not aspirational startup porn.
Trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, results. When something feels off, I go back to these five layers.
The biology of leadership. Create safety for your team and they'll do extraordinary things.
"Begin with the end in mind" and "seek first to understand" are principles I come back to constantly.
Quick read, actionable advice. Sometimes the simplest frameworks are the most useful.
The most practical book on working with AI I've found. Mollick actually uses these tools and thinks deeply about what they mean for work.
If you're building products with AI, you need to understand what can go wrong and why.
Systems over goals. 1% better every day. The compound effect of small changes.
Understanding how your brain actually works — the biases, the shortcuts, the two systems. Fundamentally changed how I think about thinking.
Not about getting rich — about understanding your relationship with money. Short chapters, each one hits.
Scared me into sleeping more. Convinced me to protect it.
How to talk to customers without them lying to you. Your mom will tell you your idea is great. That's not validation.
How to create offers so good people feel stupid saying no. The framework for packaging value is eye-opening.
Stop overthinking and start doing. You don't need months of planning — test your idea this weekend.
Business school in a book. Marketing, sales, finance, systems — without the tuition.
"Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule" changed how I structure my days. I revisit these regularly.
DHH and Jason Fried, opinionated and always thought-provoking on software and companies.
My go-to dev podcast. Great interviews with people building interesting things in open source.
If a book changed how you think, I want to know about it.