Books, apps, and tools people actually name.

recommends / book

“This is easy for me. Number one is Sapiens. If you're a product person, you have to understand our own humanity if you want to build products for people, straight up. That's a beautiful book. I read it before it was called Sapiens, it was called From Animals to Gods, and it was just republished in a different name, but it has really stuck with me and I remember, it's a very short, easy read, so I'd recommend that. The second book I think for product folks is a classic one, which is The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. This may seem outdated and old, but I promise you it's not. It really helps you understand physical product design, which is again, things that mold and shape to humanity. I think it gives you a good sense of that. Third book is something I'm reading right now it was recommended by a friend of mine and I can't put it down. It's called The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan. And basically this is a recounting of history through the lens of The Silk Road and the Middle East and how that's evolved. It's so fascinating because one of the things I love, Lenny, is seeing things from different perspectives. This is why travel's fun, this is why user research is fun for me, and it really helps you see the events of world history that we've all been experiencing through a very western viewpoint in a different way. And it kind of connects a bunch of things that are like, there's Western thought, there's Eastern thought, but if you see the connection between them, it's super fascinating. I'm only two, three or maybe four chapters in, but definitely something I would recommend off the bat.”

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recommends / book

“I really love narrative nonfiction, so I like the Eric Larson books. They're a very compelling and page turning way to learn about history. I recently read Devil in the White City and there was also one about Churchill's first year by Eric Larson. Another book that just the canonical book that I often recommend is Sapiens. I think he's a great example of what we talk about when we talk about simplifiers. He took a very complex subject, which is all of human history and tried to pull out the nuggets. I think his thesis that what differentiates humans from other forms of life is really our ability to tell and believe in myths or stories, and he cites money and religion as examples, but also there's a graphic novel version of Sapiens and so he almost has the PhD level and then he literally has the high school level, which is a graphic novel version. He also has Unstoppable Us, which I think is a kid's version, and so clearly here is someone who is a master. There's a James Clear thing that a friend, Shirley, told me about where it's like if you're a beginner, you have ignorant simplicity and intermediate has functional complexity, and then a master of a topic has profound simplicity. And that's what I feel like Noah Yuval Harari really has because he can go all the way up and down this cool pyramid in terms of explaining this really complex topic.”

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