Books

Was suggested this book on the data for pm’s reforge program, so thought I’d check it out.

The main idea that I found insightful in this book was how Chen first points out that the definition of network effects is vague, and second, breaks it down into three core components that he’s observed.

In his own words:

This is where the classical definition of a “network effect” is wrong. I redefine it so that it’s not one singular effect, but rather, three distinct, underlying forces:

the Acquisition Effect, which lets products tap into the network to drive low-cost, highly efficient user acquisition via viral growth;

the Engagement Effect, which increases interaction between users as networks fill in;

and finally, the Economic Effect, which improves monetization levels and conversion rates as the network grows.

He then goes on to show a lot of examples where these forces played out in Uber, Slack, Tinder, Dropbox, and many many more companies.

You have to read some stories to get to the core ideas. But, most of those stories consist of interviews with the operators from these companies, unique insights, and thoughtful analysis that makes it an overall fascinating read.

As history sometimes help predict the future, this was an interesting read on the history of Ethereum and all the challenges it has gone through. It reminded me of living out of hostels and hacker houses in California.

Now, I rarely read or write fiction. But this book changed my view on it.

There are some common patterns between non-fiction and fiction, but the creative expression seems way more intense in writing that is free of facts, sources and truth.

Perhaps, I should give it a try.

This is my favourite book on product management and has changed how I think about finding, exploring and attacking user needs and desires.

Or in Torress’s words: opportunities.

The main concept I took away from this book was the power of opportunity trees, a similar concept to decision trees, but with the goal of visualizing the problem space and breaking it into smaller opportunities.

This was a nice read to get a broad and holistic view on product management and product leadership.

As opposed to many other books on the PM’ing, this one covers the craft very broadly and gets around the role of product strategy, vision, communication and team empowerment.

Great read and resource that I continue to flick through from time to time.

I learned pretty much all I know about writing from this book.

My main takeaway is the that essence of writing is rewriting—removing clutter and everything that’s not essential, simplifying words and tightening paragraphs.

Funny enough, education trains us to use unnecessary words to reach a minimum of words for a paper, but the real world is the complete opposite.

The best writing is simple, jargon-free and to the point.

In Zinsser’s own words:

Beware, then, of the long word that’s no better than the short word: “assistance” (help), “numerous” (many), “facilitate” (ease), “Individual” (man or woman), “remainder” (rest), “initial” (first), “implement” (do), “sufficient” (enough), “attempt” (try), “referred to as” (called), and hundreds more. Beware of all the slippery new fad words: paradigm and parameter, prioritize and potentialize. They are all weeds that will smother what you write.

A fascinating read on the history of computing and the internet.

This book stood out to me because so many technologies today—blockchains, VR, no-code, etc.— is going through very similar patterns that the products and networks did in the late nineties.

There seems to be a lot to learn from that.

This is one of the most useful resources I’ve found on learning Javascript. The online version is free and has interactive code examples. I still use it to flick through and learn new things.

I don’t read a lot of fiction but this novel about a young monk struggling to find peace made me reflect on a lot of my own wants and dreams.

This was the first book I voluntarily read.

I must have been about 21 years old at the time working at a bakery in Copenhagen.

I looked up to my boss a lot and he had this book on his shelf. I had to read it and I lend it from him.

I loved it so much I simply had to take notes and mark paragraphs in the book, so I ended up having to buy him a new one and I still have his.

I remember how the world seemed to click when I first read about the ‘golden circle’ where Sinek argues that, to inspire others, you must follow the same biological pattern of our limbic brain—why, how, what—because us humans are not inspired by logical facts.

Heard good stuff about this one and thought I’d check it out. Julie clearly has a lot of experience from scaling design teams at Facebook and she writes simply.

Not blown away, but easy and interesting so far.

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I do like seeing some of the principles from older mngmt literature — like Andy Grove and Drucker — appear here in a more contemporary context.

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Okay, it’s growing on me. Julie clearly has some hard-earned experience and her tips and advice for feedback, effective meetings, and human side of teams reflect that.