I agree with my friend and former coworker, Patrick Brown - too real. I was a startup CEO in San Francisco for over 10 years, and I ate at those restaI agree with my friend and former coworker, Patrick Brown - too real. I was a startup CEO in San Francisco for over 10 years, and I ate at those restaurants, went to those bars, took my company for an outing at the same place by the Stockton tunnel. Weird to see a different lens on the places I know.
And yet, I don't recognize the San Francisco she describes. In fact, I found myself rejecting it again and again, and almost put this book down. I do recognize that the gold rush of tech has brought a lot of people to the "Valley" (aka the Bay Area). And some of these people may not love what they do as much as those of us who are there because we love what we do. I think this is one of the biggest challenges tech is facing, which is why reading this book, while uncomfortable, was interesting....more
A captivating memoir, well written, easy to tear through, and kind of heartbreaking. It was positioned by some as a way to understand what is happeninA captivating memoir, well written, easy to tear through, and kind of heartbreaking. It was positioned by some as a way to understand what is happening in America, and you certainly got to see a family that is off the grid and very poor. But I think it was much more a story about abuse. Emotional and physical, Tara's story is most impressive that not only did she break out and get an education, but she escaped the abuse from her father and brother that kept all the rest of her family in check. Her father in particular sounds like he has mental illness, and the consequences of his not getting care for that - because he was intentionally off the grid and doesn't trust doctors - was severe on his family.
One of the best sports biographies I've read. I was a huge Agassi fan growing up, not because of his flair or haircut, but because of his amazing topsOne of the best sports biographies I've read. I was a huge Agassi fan growing up, not because of his flair or haircut, but because of his amazing topspin and his tenacity. So to get the inside story on where he got both of those, was fascinating.
The first thing to realize about Agassi, is that like many tennis players, he got good, then bad, then really bad, then good, then bad, then good, etc. In other words, he loses. A lot. But the fascinating part of his story is what motivates him to keep going. Because, as he says, he hates tennis. Full disclosure, I don't fully believe him when he says that, I think at a level he likes the game and winning. But his motivation switches over the years - from wanting to please his dad, to wanting to get to the top, to needing to find new motivation in his team, and ultimately, with his charitable work. I love how in the end his comeback is motivated by wanting to win for his center, to be able to give more to the kids - that's fascinating, cool, and admirable.
Another interesting aspect of Andre is how loyal he is to his team - to Gil, to his coach, his wife, etc. He needs them for confidence, and for strength - more for emotional strength than physical - in a way that was striking. He makes a lot of statements like:
The romance of his decade long chase of Steffi Graff was fascinating to read about, and in the end, incredibly romantic as well. The notion that he had such a crush on her from the beginning, and chased her for that long, was - well, sweet. And then there was this gem of prose, describing their first rally together:
I haven't read a non-fiction book this engaging in some time. This was an amazingly well written autobiography. It read like a fast paced novel througI haven't read a non-fiction book this engaging in some time. This was an amazingly well written autobiography. It read like a fast paced novel through much of it. Many autobiographies are too long - this one if anything is too short! Like many startup companies, the story of Nike (or Blue Ribbon Shoes as it was initially called) is one of trials, tribulations, and lots of passion and grit. I ate it up, and highly recommend it.
The most defining moment of the story is Knights ballsy move while backpacking through Japan at the age of 24, to walk into a Japanese shoe manufacturer and say he has a shoe distribution company, and get a exclusive deal for the western US. Gutsy. He "just did it" (sorry, but apt). I love learning examples of this kind of "Do things that don't scale" start to successful companies (eg Zappos, Amazon, many more). From there the story is one of doubling sales each year, and never quite having enough money on the balance sheet to make it anything but very risky. It was interesting - no fascinating - that Phil had an accounting background, and was well versed that the reason most startups fail is a lack of cash reserves, and yet he had so much faith in his growth and sales that he kept plowing all cash into growth. I loved reading the stories of how they barely made it from one order to the next, how twice they had to switch banks after being cut off.
One of the key strategies of Nike's success today is athlete endorsement, and it was interesting to see how that strategy was formed in the early years. How they would offer large sums of money to athletes to wear their shoes - often to athletes already wearing their shoes - double down on people who already like your product. It was doubly interesting that Phil didn't initially believe in the power of advertising - I'd be very curious to hear how his opinion on that changed over time.
The story of Prefontaine was a touching one, and one that stayed with me. I wasn't as familiar of the story of Pre, but had heard of him. But I didn't know the role that Nike sponsored him, and even employed him. Reading Phil talk about him, you got a sense of the passion his has for the sport of running. You got a sense that the story of Pre - his passion and drive - is a metaphor for how Nike was built. This quote says it better:
The book is a fascinating telling of the founding and early history of Nike. But it stops at the IPO, and then gives a chapter postlude. This is my only complaint. It was so well written - keep going! Tell us the story of Just Do It, Air Jordans, and so many more. I could read 4 more volumes of this, as it feels like there is so much more to they story of Nike to learn....more
I haven’t read many (any?) books that are written by CEO’s for CEO’s. If you are a CEO, aspire to be a CEO, or really, manage anyone - you need to reaI haven’t read many (any?) books that are written by CEO’s for CEO’s. If you are a CEO, aspire to be a CEO, or really, manage anyone - you need to read this book.
This quote is perhaps my favorite one from the book. At the top, nobody is there to tell you what to do. It’s easy to look at some leaders and wonder how they knew what to do to become so successful. Are they just really smart? The truth is that they likely did what everyone else in that situation has to do - get scrappy and just figure it out - and don’t give up.
My second favorite quote from the book speaks to one of the greatest challenges all entrepreneurs face: work/life balance. I like to say "work hard, play hard". But sometimes it's easy to forget the play part. Or to buy flowers once in a while. But the cost of those on your health or relationships can cost much more.
Ben had a lot of great advice on how to hire well, especially executives. Looking to avoid reactionary big company execs when you need someone who will come in and get stuff done proactively. Looking for people who can think on their feet and not make everything a nail for the hammer of their prior experience by asking “How will your new job differ from your current one?” Looking for people who are mission driven and use the “team” prism instead of the “me” prism. He also had advice about onboarding, and training.
Hiring for strength instead of lack of weakness. I’ve definitely seen instances of this - where a candidate is great in some areas that we really need but isn’t great at everything. Knowing what you value most is critical here - and I fully admit - not easy to do.
One of my favorite sections was "Managing strictly by numbers is like painting by numbers". No matter how well you instrument your metrics and goals, you can ever perfectly encapsulate everything you need your company to be doing. Innovation is often like this - with many big innovations the team will often struggle to find how it drives value as it doesn’t seem to hit the core metric. But they can all agree it will improve things. I think a big part of the CEO’s job is to have a strong product vision, and to not compromise on it.
Ben talked about the difference between CEO’s who can set direction for a company (often founding CEO’s) and those can can operationally run it as it grows. How great CEOs need to be good at both, and founding CEOs who don’t scale are those who don’t learn the operational side. And conversely, operational CEOs who don’t get good at making decisions about direction will fail.
Ben talked about how "Some employees make products, some make sales; the CEO makes decisions." The strength of those decisions is built upon having data. Data about what customers think. Data about what employees think. Data about the metrics. A CEO has to be a constant data accumulating machine. Another nuance was that a CEO can make a decision at any point in time with the data they have now, identify what data would change their mind, and seek it out.
Ben’s stories about Loudcloud and Opsware and the Hard Things he dealt with were impressive. I do think they spread too much throughout the book and would have been better concentrated in one part of the book and supplemented by more examples from other companies. But that doesn’t detract from one can learn from them. It was strange that he opens each chapter with rap lyrics - that often seem very disconnected to the chapter. I guess he likes rap - but still…
Pretty cool Ben had Michael Ovitz as an advisor. And that he modeled A16Z after CAA - where instead of independent agents/VCs, have a shared network - and invest in strategic networks that will help the companies.
One interesting tendency Ben points out is that “When a company starts to lose its major battles, the truth often becomes the first casualty.”. You have to be vigilant in looking for the truth, and have backbone spot it. The reason for this, is that "humans, particularly those who build things, only listen to leading indicators of good news." Which is so true! We can always find reasons to excuse away bad news, and reasons to believe good news means more than it should.
A truly inspirational book by a truly inspirational man. Coach Wooden coached 17 seasons at Indiana and UCLA before winning a championship - and then A truly inspirational book by a truly inspirational man. Coach Wooden coached 17 seasons at Indiana and UCLA before winning a championship - and then he won 10 out of the next 12! He is one of the greatest coaches ever, and Reading his book gives some great insights into his philosophy.
My only criticism of the book is that I think he spent too much time comparing his players, and answering questions like "who was your greatest player". I guess he got those questions a lot, but it didn't add much for me.
Another key aspect of Wooden's philosophy was that he believed the little things, the details, really mattered. Two examples of this: First one was that one of the first things he taught new players was how to properly put their socks and shoes on. It turns out, you can easily do it wrong, which leads to blisters - but kind of amazing to think of him teaching Kareem or Bill Walton how to put their socks on! The second was he really believed in strict discipline and cleanliness - for instance he believed in the team cleaning up a locker room before leaving. These little details would "establish a spirit of togetherness and consideration that help unite the team into a solid unit."
Wooden believed in focus, and "playing your game":
Interestingly, Wooden didn't believe in "charging teams up on an emotional level", as many coaches do. In fact, I bet most people that that giving inspirational, charged up speeches is one of the key attributes of a great coach. So this was interesting - and helpful in a lot of ways - people respond more to confidence and having a plan.
One tactically smart thing Wooden did right before he started winning championships, was to change his practices from having 5 starters vs 5 second team, to 7 or 8 first teamers vs the rest. The first team during practice was literally a rotation between those 7 or 8. This got the key bench players used to playing with the first team, and made a world of a difference.
But I think my favorite takeaway from the book, was Wooden's philosophy on what to ask of his players. He didn't ask them to win. He asked them to strive to have a "perfect practice", or a "perfect game". In other words, to play to the very best they can in the given moment. While that may sound obvious, keeping his teams focused on that instead of winning likely made the difference. It's all too easy to start focusing on winning or losing or things that aren't in the moment.
I learned two major things from this book: the power of branding, and the fact that Richard Branson has balls of solid steel.
Branson is one of the grI learned two major things from this book: the power of branding, and the fact that Richard Branson has balls of solid steel.
Branson is one of the great entrepreneurs of our era, and it was truly inspiring to hear his story in his own words. A kid who skipped college and dove straight into business, and time and time again proved he can succeed with a lot of will, determination, and his maverick ability to take big bets and win. Bransons' success is nothing short of inspirational.
I had no idea until reading this how powerful the Virgin brand is, or how many businesses they have gone into. They effectively function like a VC, except they also lend their brand (and perhaps some infrastructure too). Each business is a subsidiary, given its leaders the freedom to move fast and achieve their goals without being slown down by needing permission from the mother ship. This is brilliant. Many of the businesses also complement each other in profitable ways - such as how Virgin Travel and Virgin Atlantic complemented each other.
Branson is a risk-taker. When Virgin Records was about to run out of cash, instead of scraping what he had left to limp on, he scraped it together to make a big bet. It's kind of like going all-in in poker when your chips are getting low - better than losing slowly!
But the difference with Branson is that he didn't take the risks blindly. When he started the airlines he spent considerable effort leasing the airline for 1 year and limiting his downside.
One thing I loved about Branson, is he was not afraid to bluff. This was first illustrated early in the book when, learning about a plot to force him out of Student, he acted pre-emptively and told the leader that he had already switched the teams mind - when instead he had no idea how far along the plot actually was. We see this time and time again - Branson is able to divine where things are going, and negotiate on points he isn't even wholly sure about.
Branson detailed a lot of his crazy ballooning adventures, which I wasn't so into. I wanted to hear how he built Virgin. Although I did appreciate that his passion for ballooning did lead to several advances in airplane technology.
The end of the book went into a lot of detail of how Branson is giving back to the world - which I respect a lot - any billionaire worth their salt should do that, but it was great to see him embrace the challenges with the same zeal he embrace business. From climate change to Virgin Fuel to Virgin Galactic, Branson is thinking hard about our planet and where its going and how to get us there. And of course, if Virgin Fuel does well it will only help his airline business - so not a bad bet.
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