My Top 10 Books from 2016

Usually it has been difficult for me to find time to read books. I have always read a lot, but usually articles using Pocket and being it’s top 5% readers every year, including this one. But long-form content has been a different story.

I have tried bedtime reading routine and taking time to read on the weekends and so on. It has worked to a small effect, but has resulted in nothing significant. It has resulted only a couple of books read in a year. But it seems this year I have made a breakthrough for myself. As the year ends I have finished 36 books. And the kicker here is that it’s not even a whole year. I started my new routine in April.

If anyone would have told me that by the end of 2016 I will finish 36 books I would have thought it’s crazy talk. But here we are, it’s the last day of 2016 and I’m writing this article.

So what’s the catch, you ask? It’s actually pretty simple: audiobooks. Some time in April I decided to buy myself an Audible.com monthly subscription and start listening books when I commute, instead of reading articles from Pocket. And after that I was hooked, I listened to audiobooks whenever I was on the move or running some errands at home. At the same time I got Amazon Echo and it made even easier to listening audiobooks at home. So whenever I arrived at home from work I could just take off my earbuds and tell Alexa to “play audiobook”. Then it would just continue the book where I stopped listening on my iPhone.

I usually like reading and listening to something that helps me intellectually develop. So it’s rare for me to consume fictional books. Although I have started to see the value of some of the sci-fi books, because I’m really into the future of technology. So here are the top 10 most awesome books that I listened in 2016.

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

by Brad Stone

The Everything Store tells a story of Amazon.com rise to the top of ecommerce world. It gave a good insight into how Jeff Bezos has ran the company through the years. Although he had no technological background himself he read a lot of sci-fi books as a kid to understand the importance technology. Bezos has always put customer needs first and invested heavily in the future, not caring the shareholders expectations of profit. As a leader he preached the flywheel principle from the book “Good to great” which meant investing hard in creating value for customers and providing low prices to increase revenue and customer base. Bezos pushed Amazon several times to do things outside of it’s core competencies and getting pushback from the board and executive team. He calls it “institutional no”. These ventures produced products and services like AWS and Kindle electronic e-reader. He also sees the elimination of gatekeepers everywhere. He thinks that anyone can create something, find an audience and allow the market to determine the proper economic reward.

Elon Musk: Inventing the Future

by Ashlee Vance

As a fan of future of techonology and space i’m definitely a fan of Elon Musk. This book gave insight into the rise of modern day Howard Hughes or an Iron Man prototype. This book described his upbringings in South Africa, building his first internet companies. Trying to send greenhouse to Mars. And then building SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity through sheer will and no excuse attitude funding them out of his own pockets. It was definitely motivational and entertaining. Showing what’s actually possible if you think really big.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

by Ben Horowitz

Ben who is one of the founders of Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm in Silicon Valley talks about the ugly & hard things that come with running a company based on his experience in Loudcloud during the dot-com bubble. Recommended reading to anyone who has an ambition to found and run a company. Full of brilliant advice.

Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy — and How to Make Them Work for You

by Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, Sangeet Paul Choudary

Very good book about platform and marketplace economics. Gives you the tools and vocabulary to think and talk about platforms. TL;DR: soon everything of significance will be a platform. Greatly recommend it to anyone related to online marketplaces or platforms.

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

by Jocko Willink, Leif Babin

One of the best leadership books I have read. As a good leader you have to:
1) have belief in the mission
2) take ownership of your responsibilities
3) make sure everybody understands the mission
4) that enemy is outside not inside
5) use the strengths of your team
6) make the simplest plan possible
7) need to prioritize and execute
8) lead up the chain of command

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t

by James C. Collins

Definitely one of the best leadership books I have read. It argues that for companies to be great they don’t need great ideas or great technology. Instead it’s necessary to have great people in place and then it’s possible to produce great ideas and implement great technology. Great companies didn’t make the leap from good to great with one big breakthrough. Authors describe the process as the flywheel effect where small actions compound over time to create momentum.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

Fascinating story how one species came to rule the world. Author tells it from the perspective of biology, culture, economy, science etc. A lot of interesting facts and little story lines which make a whole. This book gives you a great framework of history. So you can fill in the blanks later what you’re most interested about and this book didn’t cover. And it covered a lot.

The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks

by Joshua Cooper Ramo

This book describes the accelerating nature of networks which technology has enabled throughout the history — from ancient marketplaces to transport to telegram to internet. Network dynamics have reversed the law of diminishing returns in economics where maturing market washes away the margins of the businesses competing in the market.
This trend has made possible for companies to benefit greatly where bigger networks give bigger rewards to the gatekeepers of these networks. Other books have named these networks matchmakers, platforms, marketplaces and so on. Most obvious examples of these gatekeepers are giant internet companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Uber etc. The success of these companies can be explained with their obsession to increase the size of the networks relentlessly and accelerate or shorten the connections between the participants in the network. For example Mark Zuckerberg’s ambition to connect all of humanity or Larry Page’s obsession with the speed and relevancy of Google search results. Also Jeff Bezo’s quest to shorten the shipping times of items to the extremes of 1–2 hours where people are opting to ordering from Amazon instead of going to nearby retail store.
Like a lot of technology related books these days this book also concluded with an overview of artificial intelligence’s possibilities and dangers which has the potential to kick these network dynamics into overdrive.
The teachings in this book can be very beneficial to policy makers & business leaders to understand what are the forces at work that shape our present and future. Author calls this understanding and intuition to thrive in this environment “seventh sense”. And to be honest I wouldn’t trust someone with the power to lead a country (or a company) that doesn’t have this “seventh sense”.

So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love

by Cal Newport

The main point of this book is that todays belief that young people should “follow their passion” is wrong. He argues that following a passion doesn’t produce great results when the person has no work experience or serious hobbies. Usually it means that people have interest in things like sports, playing games, reading and so on which are usually not a viable career option for most of the people. It’s also important to bear in mind your acquired career capital when thinking about changing jobs. A person with 20 years of insurance experience starting a yoga studio is in great disadvantage compared to competitors who have several years of experience in running a yoga studio. So the main point of this book is that passion comes only after putting in hard work and dedication to get great at something valuable and not before. According to the author there are three factors which bring job satisfaction:
1) Opportunity to grow and learn
2) Doing a job that has a positive impact on the world
3) Working with colleagues that you like

Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Brad Kowitz

This book is a more polished and tested version of Design Sprint method popularised by GV. It’s a good read with anecdotes from GV startups. Apart from the stories this book is very practical in it’s nature by providing a clear DIY framework for kick-starting and testing new product initiatives in only one week.

As this year of great books ended I look forward to the next one with more and even better books. And I wish you the same!