References
The books, essays and frameworks I draw on most, and quote often.
On writing
- On Writing WellBook
William Zinsser
On startups
- EssaysEssays
Paul Graham, founder of YC
On startups, and much else
Marc Andreessen, co-founder of a16z
On product/market fit
Lenny Rachitsky, Lenny's Newsletter
The path to product/market fit, with quotes from B2B founders
- Steve JobsBook
Walter Isaacson
- Elon MuskBook
Walter Isaacson
On operations
Matt MacInnis, COO of Rippling, on First Round's podcast
Molly Graham, First Round Review
The psychology of building and scaling capabilities
- Amp It UpBook
Frank Slootman, CEO of Snowflake
On operational excellence
Matt Mochary, exec coach to people like Sam Altman
On company building. Despite the title, it's relevant for everyone · Free curriculum
Jason Yip
One articulation of Spotify's DIBBs framework
Amplitude
One articulation of leading vs. lagging metrics
- Playing to WinBook
A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin
A framework for strategic thinking
- Culture by posterEssay
Simon Cross
Facebook in the 2010s
On go-to-market
- Founding SalesBook
Pete Kazanjy
On 0 → 1 sales
Geoffrey A. Moore
On scaling, driving mainstream adoption and reaching new segments
Reforge
Dan Ariely
Behavioural psychology studies on everything from pricing to incentives
On product
- The Mom TestBook
Rob Fitzpatrick
On understanding users
- The Design of Everyday ThingsBook
Don Norman
On engineering
Harry Percival and Bob Gregory
On backend architecture
On managing people
Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
A simple framework for managing
- The Manager's HandbookCourse
Matt Mochary
On hiring
Graham Duncan
Where we get our reference questions from, nearly verbatim