Books, apps, and tools people actually name.

recommends / book

“The business books, one is Play to Win. I think that is a great modern strategy book that takes a lot of what's happened in the digital world and summarizes it really well. Second one that I would highlight, which I think is a really good non-digital world summary and really distillation of the essence of strategy and as you mentioned earlier, he's coming on your podcast soon from Roger Martin is Where to Play and How to Win, which I think is a classic. And as I mentioned, I went to study public policy and politics back 15 years ago. One of the ultimate startups and one of the ultimate startup stories in my mind is the story of Singapore and there's a autobiography of the founding prime minister of Singapore from 1965 till he retired, he passed away a couple of years ago. Lee Kuan Yew. His book about the story of being kicked out. Singapore being kicked out of Malaysia as a tiny in business terms, sub-scale, little country with no natural resources is I think inspiring. His book is called From Third World to First, and I think it's a great story that in many ways is a parallel to what startups try to do, which is essentially go from third class to first and it's a very tricky ride and requires a ruthless honesty about where you stand and what it'll take to succeed. And it usually gets prettified up when told in retrospect, but it is messy every step of the way and I think it's an awesome, unapologetic summary of what it takes to achieve greatness in a very different sphere than we're used to talking to.”

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likes / book

“It sort of is. The books that I'm... Clayton Christensen's stuff about The Innovator's Dilemma is always solid. Books on strategy that I recommend to other people on... There aren't that many. So, I like Playing to Win by Roger Martin. I really recommend other kinds of books, strategy books. It's easy to get a list of strategy books, but I think you should read biographies and histories. I think the book about Steve Jobs is brilliant. I like books about business leaders. I'd recommend Andy Grove's book Only the Paranoid Survive, and a few others, but I recommend that people read more broadly about people, Rockefeller's histories, it's fantastic. The stuff about Rockefeller and how he put together... Rockefeller was a robber baron and he built an empire and all that, you learn that in school, but what you don't learn in school is he dropped the cost of a gallon of kerosene from $1 to 10 cents. That's the robber baron, and he made kerosene so inexpensive that he drove all the little mom and pop proprietors out of business, which is why they hated him. So, he was a vicious competitor, but he dropped the price of something by an order of magnitude, fascinating. So, it's important to understand stories, not just theories, but stories.”

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recommends / book

“Playing to Win, How Strategy Really Works. It's a book called Playing to Win and the subtitle is How Strategy Really Works. Very good book.”

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