The Pragmatic Programmer
A classic for a reason. Read it early in my career and it stuck. Pragmatic over dogmatic. "Good enough" software that ships beats perfect software that doesn't.
Reports from the experiment
Books, essays, and podcasts that shaped how I think about building things. The best code builders are great readers and writers — I really believe that.
A classic for a reason. Read it early in my career and it stuck. 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.
Some find Uncle Bob preachy, but the core ideas are solid. 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. Zero to one, not one to n.
Build, measure, learn. MVP. Validated learning. These concepts are so embedded now we forget someone had to articulate them. A bit dated, but the methodology still holds.
No bullshit advice about the parts of building a company no one wants to talk about. Layoffs, demotions, when things fall apart. Real, hard-won wisdom — not aspirational startup porn.
A fable that makes the framework easy to digest. Trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, results. When something feels off, I go back to these five layers.
The biology of leadership. Oxytocin, cortisol, tribal instincts. Create safety for your team and they'll do extraordinary things.
Lives up to the hype. "Begin with the end in mind" and "seek first to understand" are principles I come back to constantly.
Quick read, actionable advice. One-minute goals, praise, redirects. Sometimes the simplest frameworks are the most useful.
A tiny book about dealing with change. Read it in an hour, think about it for years.
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, creativity, and learning.
Understanding AI alignment isn't just for researchers. 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. Perhaps overhyped, but the core framework is genuinely useful.
Title is clickbait, some advice is dated. But the underlying ideas — questioning assumptions about work, automation, delegation — planted seeds for the "one person + AI" experiment now.
Understanding how your brain actually works — the biases, the shortcuts, the two systems. Took me months. Fundamentally changed how I think about thinking.
Not about getting rich — about understanding your relationship with money. Short chapters, each one hits.
Counterintuitive advice. Choose your struggles. Not everything matters equally. Sometimes you need someone to tell you to stop trying to be positive.
Scared me into sleeping more. Sleep deprivation destroys memory, creativity, immune system, decision making. Convinced me to protect it.
The concept of "buyback rate" — calculating whether a task is worth your time vs. hiring someone else (or AI) to do it.
Knowledge management for the digital age. Capture, organize, retrieve. Don't follow PARA religiously, but offloading your brain to a trusted system is solid.
Simple tactics for protecting time and attention. The "highlight" concept — choosing one thing each day that matters — has stuck with me.
Productivity shouldn't feel like punishment. A nice counterbalance to hustle culture.
How to talk to customers without them lying to you. Essential for anyone building products. Your mom will tell you your idea is great. That's not validation.
How to create offers so good people feel stupid saying no. Alex's framework for packaging value is eye-opening.
The follow-up to Offers, focused on getting attention and generating leads. Practical, tactical, no-BS. Gives away more than most people sell.
Stop overthinking and start doing. Refreshingly action-oriented. You don't need months of planning — test your idea this weekend.
Business school in a book. Marketing, sales, finance, systems — without the $100K tuition.
Montessori isn't just about schools — it's a philosophy of respecting children's autonomy and following their natural development.
About breaking cycles. Uncomfortable in places, but important. The goal isn't to be perfect — it's to be aware.
Mindful parenting for the reactive moments. When your toddler melts down at 6am and you haven't had coffee yet.
How to divide domestic labor fairly. Being a good partner is part of being a good parent.
The godfather of startup essays. "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule" changed how I structure my days. I revisit these regularly.
DHH and Jason Fried have been writing about software and companies for decades. Opinionated, sometimes controversial, always thought-provoking.
My go-to dev podcast. Great interviews with people building interesting things in open source and software.
If a book changed how you think, I want to know about it.