Miha Rekar

Quitting is just as important as is sticking with something. Deciding where to do one or the other is where the magic lies. This book tries to persuade you that we should do way more of quitting and it gives plenty of examples why. Good read.

Problems with books like this is that people who should read them don't, and people who do, don't get much new out of them. Still a good read though.

Here's the ironic twist with “The 80/20 Principle” - the book itself seems to be a testament to its principle. About 20% of its content delivers 80% of the value. A quick online search about the 80/20 rule will give you the gist.

While the principle is undeniably insightful, you don't necessarily need to comb through the entire book to grasp it. For a deeper dive, I'd recommend tuning into podcast interviews with the author – you get more bang for your buck (or value for your minute) there than wading through all the pages.

A solid 5-star for the principle, but a little heads-up for those considering a full read!

An economist read a couple of philosophy books, deemed himself enlightened, and wrote this book. Throughout the book, he is gerrymandering philosophies, research papers, and statistics to support his world views and truisms. Such a pile of bullshit supporting his claim that growth is good for growth's sake, just because it has been good in the previous centuries. He is hand-waving about Wealth+, which is supposedly an improved GDP metric, taking well-being and the environment into account, but never really defining it clearly.

What he's trying to say the entire book is that we should more or less support and continue the current game of musical chairs. It was good for “the rich,” and because of that, it'll be good for the poor as well when it trickles down in the “long run.” There are so many instances of ridiculous thinking like that, completely dismissing life experiences of anyone but the upper classes.

I'm so angry right now, but I was furious reading this stupid book disagreeing with basically every single sentence. Do NOT recommend.

How to give feedback, but also how to receive it. Very repetitive throughout the book. TL;DR: Feedback can come in the form of appreciation, evaluation, or coaching. The task of the recipient is to learn to separate one from the other. There are some techniques explained on how to go from “this is wrong” to “explain to me” without tragedies and conflicts.

It's definitely worth a skim through or a read, but do not get the audiobook. It's horrendously produced.

I've returned to this book many times. It was a recommendation from a Couchsurfing guest after we were discussing our cultural differences. It's an amazing insight into how to interpret different people from different cultures and how to successfully communicate across cultures. I only wish I would have known about this book when I was managing teams across continents.

Leaders have always needed to understand human nature and personality differences to be successful in business - that's nothing new. What's new is the requirement for twenty-first century leaders to be prepared to understand a wider, richer array of work styles than ever before and to be able to determine what aspects of an interaction are simply a result of personality and which are a result of differences in cultural perspective.

Get this book even if you're in no managing position nor you wish to be. It'll help you navigate people.

Absolutely amazing book. It's written well, the story is fabulous, it intertwines everything from running, working with animals, living on a farm far from “civilization”, autism, mental health,... to Wim Hof method. Can't wait to read it again, even though I know how the story ends now.

This is a must read for anyone looking for some more reasons why remote working is the way we should work now or for anyone who thinks it's absolutely not the way we should work. This book will convince you for sure :)
It's very realistically written - it presents both the upsides and downsides of remote working and describes best practices of how you would approach such a thing and how you can convince your managers into letting you do that.
It reads really well and if you liked Rework, you'll also like Remote and vice-versa.

The Phoenix Project is one of the most interestingly written books in this genre I have ever read. It's not your typical software manager book full of dry advice, but instead follows Bill, who became a VP of IT Operations overnight and inherited a department in disarray. We follow the narrative o Bill through his eyes in a novel form. Not novel like new, but novel like, well, novel. It reads in a very different way, and so it also hits differently. It goes through all the problems you will encounter in IT (and others, I presume) departments throughout your career. Being surrounded by incompetent people, having one person who knows it all and nothing can happen without him, one team blaming the other for problems and vice versa, being over budget, missing the deadline, firefighting issues that pop up constantly,..., and how Bill would tackle them. Then you have a sage in Bob, who dealt with similar problems in a manufacturing environment and gives Bill hints on how the same ideas could work in IT.

The result is DevOps, which now became the de facto standard in the industry, especially in internet-based IT companies. I've never worked in a company where releases would be monthly or where I would need an ops person to do it. But the IT world is massive, and I'm sure many companies still haven't made this leap.

The book reminded me of several instances from my career, and I truly can not recommend it enough.

Very interesting overview of the comedy and humor in general. How it once was and how overwhelmingly everywhere it is today. Some interesting observations on what this is doing to us already and what awaits us in the future. Can recommend if the topic of comedy is close to your heart.

A fairly typical startup story where the writer realizes that tech blogs aren't trustworthy (gasp!) and that building successful startup is harder than VCs would have you believe (gasp!).

But it is well written and so a nice summer evening read.

I was vaguely aware of Theranos, but never really looked into it. This book tells the entire story behind it and how Elizabeth Holmes charmed affluent people into board members and, with that, gathered a ton of investments. It's especially interesting reading it after I read a Billion Dollar Loser and watched WeCrashed a couple of months ago. A similar story of charismatic individuals selling bullshit and getting a ton of personal gain in the process.

The big difference, however, is that WeWork didn't directly affect people outside the company/investors, whereas Elizabeth with Theranos played with many people's health and lives. Theranos went to extraordinary lengths to get around quality standards. The industry is highly regulated, and new diagnostics undergo rigorous testing. Move fast and break things does not apply when lives are at stake. No one really cares if a service goes down for a day. But if, as a consequence of your actions, people can die, then you shouldn't do it.

The book being written by the investigative journalist who broke the original story is just the cherry on the top.

Short. To the point. You probably need to be a senior to have enough context to understand some of it. Just read it.

Great book if you're into behavioral economics or just fascination about human failures.

“The data-driven answer to life is as follows: be with your love, on an 80-degree and sunny day, overlooking a beautiful body of water, having sex.”

This sentence both opens and wraps up the book. But the middle parts explain it very well. And not just that, but many other things that are counter-intuitive or counter-counter-intuitive (I know how this sounds, but it will make sense once you're reading the book). Sometimes we shouldn't go with our gut but instead, look at what data suggests us to do.

I was already a fan of Seth's previous book, Everybody Lies, and while this one takes a similar approach (using data to write a book), it's a very different book. Sort of self-help for data-driven people.

Most self-help books have 2-3 actual bits of advice and take several angles to prove the point, making the book longer than it needs to be. This one, however, I wouldn't mind having more content. I really enjoyed the book, and will probably reread it soon.

A very long and very detailed look into a very complicated person and his family. It was interesting to read how capitalism was being formed and how even the symbol of capitalism himself preferred companies working together rather than leaving things to the “free market”. He believed that the competitive free-for-all eventually gave way to monopoly and that large industrial-planning units were the most sensible way to manage an economy.

What makes it hard to dislike the guy is that he was the foremost philanthropist. Rockefeller accelerated the shift from the personal, ad hoc charity that had traditionally been the province of the rich to something both more powerful and more impersonal. He established the promotion of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, as a task no less important than giving alms to the poor or building schools, hospitals, and museums. He showed the value of expert opinion, thorough planning, and competent administration in nonprofit work, setting a benchmark for professionalism in the emerging foundation field.

Good book with lots of good advice on how to communicate better.

Could be a series of blog posts though, and about 20% the size and you'd still get the same value out of it.

Written fantastically, reads/listens like a charm. If you enjoy books like Billion Dollar Loser, you're gonna love this one.

Also don't read 1 star reviews - they're written by people who were burned by either FTX or SBF himself. Or they are effective altruist and thus delusional

The central idea of the book is solid and there's a lot to be liked about the win to the 6th way of running a business. The point being caring about everyone related to the business, not just pursuing the profits. Everyone being: customers, employees, suppliers, investors, community, and the environment. Making decisions with all these parties in mind will create a better and more sustainable business.

But all this is based about constant self-praise in the form of Whole Foods being the best of the best. Which would be fine if the subtitle of the book was “and how we implemented it in Whole Foods”. But it's not. It's saying it's about business and it's “heroic spirit”. There's also a lot of hand-wavy cherry-picked statistics trying to prove his points which just leads to a lot of face palming and screaming in the void while reading.

All in all, I agree with Mackey - capitalism isn't great but it's best we got so far. The main problem is pursuing profit for profit's sake. Or growth for growth's sake. Conscious Capitalism tries to give an alternative view and persuade you that this is the way of all the great companies and that all others will fall in line and follow this model eventually. This is where we disagree since I see the future as far more bleak.

It's a “Whole Foods is the best” book camouflaged as business book. It's not bad, but feel free to skip it and read Let My People Go Surfing which is more honest about what it is and also provides you with more actionable ways to run your business.

Absolute must read! Media system right now is completely broken and this book shows how on real examples. Terrifying. I don't even know what else to write - YOU MUST READ THIS!

The star rating I gave is misleading. Do I want everyone to read this book? ABSOLUTELY. Do I agree with the author? Eh, somewhat. He makes several excellent points and the core of the book is pure gold. But he also thinks all medicine is useless, mental diseases are made up, and many other bizarre claims. Also it's funny how he accuses researchers cherry-picking cases, to make examples, while he's doing the exact same thing. But overall, the book is truly worth a read. Especially at times like now (I'm writing this amidst COVID-19 pandemic) we see how fragile our modern world really is and how often we would benefit by making things a bit less optimized, and a bit more redundant, making them robust if not antifragile.

Short and to the point. Some valuable advice, some Patagonia stories that made them who they are.

Good checklist for any company not just the want-to-be-responsible ones.

Fun read/listen. It's a bit weird how often I could draw parallels between authors experience and mine 😅

The book aims to help individuals overcome their creative struggles. It is certainly a book that has resonated with many people, but personally, I found it to be a mixed bag.

The book's core message is valuable and relatable, as it identifies the enemy of creativity as “Resistance” and offers practical advice on how to conquer it. Pressfield emphasizes the importance of discipline, consistency, and adopting a professional mindset, which are undeniably essential aspects of any creative pursuit.

However, the tone of the book didn't sit well with me. Pressfield's writing often came across as overly aggressive and didactic, which I found to be off-putting. Instead of feeling inspired, I sometimes felt alienated by the author's approach. I believe the message could have been delivered more effectively with a more empathetic tone.

If you can look past the author's aggressive style, there is valuable advice to be found.

I should have started with that but instead started with Furiously Happy. In that one Jenny really found her style, in this one it's a bit less refined. Great book nonetheless!