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The Idea Factory

Jon Gertner

2 readers recommend it across 3 discussions

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THE WORD OF MOUTH

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Original Hacker News comments, in the readers’ own words.

lanstein
Advice to Founders and CEOs - Dear Founder (Maynard Webb) - The Hard Things About Hard Things (Ben Horowitz) - Straight Talk for Startups (Randy Komisar and Jantoon Reigersman) - The Founders’ Dilemmas (Noam Wasserman) - The Entrepreneur’s Daily Nietzsche (Brad Feld and Dave Jilk) - Build (Tony Fadell) - Zero to IPO (Frederic Kerrest) - The Great CEO Within (Matt Mochary) Finance - Wharton's Introduction to Financial Accounting course: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton-accounting](https://w... (https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton-accounting]%28https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton-accounting%29) - How Finance Works: The HBR Guide to Thinking Smart About the Numbers (Mihir Desai) - Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs: What You Really Need to Know About the Numbers (Karen Berman and Joe Knight) Open-Book Company (Employee Ownership, Financial Literacy, Goal-setting) - The Great Game of Business (Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham) Legal - Acceleration (Ryan Roberts) - The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Law and Strategy (Constance Bagley and Craig Dauchy) Company Strategy and Direction (post-product/market fit) - Crossing the Chasm (Geoff Moore) - Zone to Win (Geoff Moore)…

Also recommended in this reply

ivanmaeder
Great question, I will come back to see what ideas people have. Thanks for the Turing book suggestion too. I have read lots of non-fiction books about programmers and engineers that have been very inspiring, they're just not technical: "Masters of Doom", "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels", "Coders at Work", "The Idea Factory", "The Soul of a New Machine", "Dealers of Lightning"...
ivanmaeder
Right now: "Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction" (Judith Grisel) Recommend. Addict turned neuroscientist who doesn't hold back, so a good mix of gritty details— > After I got sober, it took me a little over a year to go a single day without wishing for a drink, but it was more than nine years before my craving to get high abated. —and science. Before that: "Educated: A Memoir" (Tara Westover) Recommend. A good break from typical non-fiction books: easy to read, sometimes thrilling, and emotional. Before that: "The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America" (Margaret Pugh O'Mara) Don't recommend. I really wanted to like this book, and I believe some of the themes are important and aren't often discussed. E.g., the support the Valley received from politicians, the lobby groups, the size of military spending back in the day… It's possible my expectations were in the wrong place—I wanted to be inspired like with "The Idea Factory" (Jon Gertner), "The Soul of a New Machine" (Tracy Kidder), "Dealers of Lightning" (Michael A Hiltzik), etc.