Books, apps, and tools people actually name.

recommends / book

“I mean, definitely the two I mentioned here. Clayton Christensen, Competing Against Luck. Don Norman, Design of Everyday Things. But I also really love this for fiction, Aurora, which is this book David Koepp wrote. It's about electromagnetic pulse in the sun that knocks out, it's fiction for just fun. And it was a really fun beach read and apparently it was going to be made into a Netflix show, it didn't work out. I don't know. It was sad to see that fall apart, but so it's a really fun book.”

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recommends / book

“In the product space, probably things like High Output Management or The Design of Everyday Things, or those kind of classic type things because I think they're extremely applicable in AI.”

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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 This may seem outdated and old, but I promise you it's not.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 think the one book that I recommend the most is The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.”

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recommends / book

“Shoe dog, Black Swan, Design of Everyday Things, and for a fun one, Shawn Theron.”

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recommends / book

“The one book I recommend because I truly, it really changed the way I think about things. It taught me a lot about a discipline I had never really thought much about, but also because I think it makes me sound smart and it's a really short book, so it's easy to get through is The Design Of Everyday Things. For me, that was the first time that I realized that design wasn't just this sort of cool thing that some people were into and they had to get and it made things beautiful. It was about understanding how everything is designed and how to think about design and usability. So for someone like me who didn't have any experience in product before, I think it could be transformative. And then the second book, it has nothing to do with what we do. I recommend Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning because at heart I'm a philosopher and I tend to think a lot about life, the meaning of life and what differentiates one life from the next and how to live a good one. And no matter what profession we choose that continues to be important. So those are my recommendations.”

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