Books

Reading paths

Curated reading curricula by role. Each path is a hand-ordered sequence of 3–7 books that build on each other — start with one and you'll have a coherent reading agenda for the next 6 months.

• If you're a first-time founder

  The 4-book core curriculum I'd hand to anyone starting their first company. Order matters: discovery, then strategy, then the hard middle, then the operating cadence.

  1. 01The Mom Test
  2. 02Zero to One
  3. 03The Hard Thing About Hard Things
  4. 04The Great CEO Within

• If you're an engineering leader

  For first-time engineering managers and tech leads. Grove for the foundations, Larson for the modern systems view, Singer for a tactical operating cadence, Orosz for the modern career landscape.

  1. 01High Output Management
  2. 02An Elegant Puzzle
  3. 03Shape Up
  4. 04The Software Engineer's Guidebook

• If you're a senior IC engineer

  For senior engineers debating whether the staff-plus IC track is real and how to grow on it. Read in this order: craft, then design, then career, then career-in-context.

  1. 01A Philosophy of Software Design
  2. 02Designing Data-Intensive Applications
  3. 03Staff Engineer
  4. 04The Software Engineer's Guidebook

• If you lead B2B go-to-market

  Positioning, segmentation, network effects. The strategy stack for anyone moving a B2B SaaS company from early adopters to mainstream traction.

  1. 01Obviously Awesome
  2. 02Crossing the Chasm
  3. 03The Cold Start Problem
  4. 04Amp It Up

• If you're raising venture capital

  Read both Venture Deals and Secrets of Sand Hill Road before your Series A. Pair with Zero to One for the strategic frame you'll be evaluated against, and Inspired for the product narrative VCs are scoring against during the pitch.

  1. 01Venture Deals
  2. 02Secrets of Sand Hill Road
  3. 03Zero to One
  4. 04Inspired

• If you lead product

  A product leader's curriculum: the organizational shape, the discovery method, the planning cadence, and the foundational behavioral-economics background that informs every product decision.

  1. 01Inspired
  2. 02Competing Against Luck
  3. 03Shape Up
  4. 04Thinking, Fast and Slow

• If you want the honest founder memoirs

  Hagiography-free founder narrative. Knight on Nike's two-decade middle, Brennan-Jobs on what it cost to be raised by one of the cultural archetypes, Horowitz on the worst months of being CEO, Stone's outsider biography of Bezos and Amazon.

  1. 01Shoe Dog
  2. 02Small Fry
  3. 03The Hard Thing About Hard Things
  4. 04The Everything Store

• If you've read every business book

  For operators who've worked through the standard founder canon and want the orthogonal books — philosophy, fiction, and history that recur in serious operator reading lists for non-obvious reasons.

  1. 01Finite and Infinite Games
  2. 02From Third World to First
  3. 03Mutiny on the Bounty
  4. 04The Art of War
  5. 05The Republic