This page is inspired by Patrick Collison’s digital bookshelf. It’s mostly meant as an archive of books I liked for my own use.
2020
Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
Sadly, I only became aware of this book when I heard about the death of Tony Hsieh, the author and long-time CEO of Zappos.
The book is a fascinating account of Tony’s unconventional life, his personal philosophy, and the Zappos culture. It also got me interested in positive psychology (again).
Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
Inspired was my formal introduction to tech product management. In the years prior, I had witnessed many of the pitfalls (and some of the good practices) described in the book from the perspective of an engineer. Now I could finally put a name to them. Reading this book made me excited about the impact good product management can have.
Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Loosing Your Humanity
Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World
The Great Nowitzki: Das außergewöhnliche Leben eines großen deutschen Sportlers
The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life
The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You
The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
A novel about IT management, especially DevOps. For everyone working in tech, many stories will sound familiar. I listened to this as an audio book and found it very entertaining.
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
A novel about management, especially the Theory of Constraints. I read this after listening to The Phoenix Project which The Goal is the role model for. I found it equally entertaining and it reminded me how many processes in tech can be traced back to ideas in production management from the 1980s/90s.
Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: A Practical Guide to A/B Testing
The Why and How of A/B testing with many real-world examples from the authors’ experience at Microsoft, Google, and LinkedIn. Addresses the business (metrics, experiment culture), engineering (components of an experiment platform, make or buy), and analysis (statistics behind A/B tests, common issues jeopardizing robustness) perspective.
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson
A friend from university recommended this book to me during a hiking trip to the Allgäu Alps. I had heard of it before (it’s a very popular book), but had forgotten about it again. The book is short and easy-to-read despite death being such a prominent motive. It inspired me to visit my grandpa to discuss some of the life questions covered in the book with him.