Books, apps, and tools people actually name.

recommends / book

“The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. Actually read it quite some time ago, but I found myself recommending it to other product managers most often. It's actually illustrative that to be a great product manager, someone needs to strive to being a great CEO. And besides this book emphasizes the importance of building systematic solutions and scalable solutions, which is critical for scaling a company. Also being honest on how important it is to grind stuff. And then second book is, I read it more recently, Build by Tony Fadell. I was really inspired by this one, especially given how I appreciate how it's not easy to build hardware and what Tony was describing there is just super exciting and inspiring. And also I think that there are different archetypes of product managers. There are people who tend to disrupt things more. Personally I think about myself as a builder, so Tony's principles that he highlighted in the book that they resonate with me a lot.”

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recommends / book

“I recommend Build by Tony Fidel. Other than it being a good book, one of the main reasons I recommend it is that my wife wrote it.”

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likes / book

“I love the new book from Tony Fadell called Build. It's a wonderful book and he's describing the product model, but for hardware devices and his perspective was fabulous. He had a front row seat to some of the most iconic products in the world, the iPod, the iPhone, the Nest devices. Love it. So I loved his book and I've been recommending it to all kinds of people. Another one I really liked is, do you know Tim Urban, the guy behind Wait But Why? Absolutely. I just love the way this guy thinks. And he wrote a book called What's Our Problem? that I found really provocative. Challenged me in a hundred different ways, so love that.”

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recommends / book

“First is Build by Tony Fadell. Tony is just an amazing, charismatic, deeply pragmatic, product builder. He's been brave enough to do both Adams and Bits as he says. And his book is just chock-full of wisdom. I do appreciate some of these kind of laws of nature, laws of power type books. I love psychology books. I'm trying to think of some offhand that have really struck me. But understanding the natural human tendencies of people, I think the laws of power talks about tons of wars over centuries and what sorts of natural human tendencies or inequalities drove massive rebellions and revolutions. These sorts of insights, believe it or not, parlay into decisions we make in products and making people feel successful and productive. So I don't know. I love those books just because I think that they remind us of the limitations and opportunities or possibilities of humanity.”

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recommends / book

“Most means that you have to integrate under the curve, so I'd say High Output Management by Andy Grove is definitely the book that I've recommended the most. It was a book that really opened my eyes to how to get the most out of teams over the whole course of my career. Definitely check that out if you haven't read it already. Recently, we talked about being meticulous in our craft. I've really enjoyed Build by Tony Fidel. Tony worked on the iPod, and then the iPhone, and then was the founder of Nest. He puts a tremendous amount of thought into his users and how to build really great crafted experiences. I had the privilege of working with him very briefly at Google, but I thought the book was excellent in terms of helping provide some practical pointers there. Then I would be remiss if I did not mention Claire Hughes Johnson's book, Skilling People. Even though it only just came out, I've recommended it a lot. There's actually some stuff in here where I'm sharing some techniques that we've used at Stripe, so you might enjoy that. Then if I may share one ...”

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