Books

My longtime friends Rajat Bhargava and Will Herman are launching their new book today. I wrote the foreword and was a reviewer. I’ve worked with both Raj and Will for over two decades – as a co-investor, co-founder, board member, and co-director. They both are incredibly experienced founders and entrepreneurs, so I was delighted to be involved in their book. The book is called The Startup Playbook and it’s their personal how-to guide for building your startup from the ground up. In it, you’ll find a collection of the major lessons and shortcuts they’ve learned that will shift the odds of success in your favor as you build your business. They are sharing their tips, secrets, and advice in a frank, founder-to-founder discussion format. ...

Amy and I had another wonderful digital sabbath yesterday. It started Friday at sundown when I put my computer to sleep. I’m using Inbox When Ready and have locked my inbox from Friday at 6pm to Saturday at 11:59pm. I also put my phone in Do Not Disturb mode for this same time period. While I’m not committed to doing this every weekend in 2018, I’m going to do it most of the time. ...

Yesterday was a perfect Saturday. I decided to do a digital sabbath so on Friday night at 5 pm I shut down my computer. Amy made a nice small dinner of leftover cauliflower soup with farfalle pasta. We then went downstairs and finished off the Burns/Novick The Vietnam War. I woke up mid-morning on Saturday. I meditated for a half hour. I had a light breakfast of Dave’s Killer Bread and peanut butter with some coffee. I then grabbed my Kindle, got on the couch near Amy, and dug into Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. ...

Several people recommended Ray Dalio’s book Principles to me. I read it a few days ago and thought it was spectacular. I’ve gone out and bought a copy for each of my partners and I recommend that every VC, as well as anyone who is building an organization of any kind, buy and read it. Dalio is famous for his extremely successful firm Bridgewater Associates which is known for its goal of achieving excellence in their work and their relationships through radical truth and radical transparency. The TED Talk below is a good summary, but the book is worth reading in total. ...

This book was a delight. I started reading it earlier this year, caught up quickly (I started in July), and then mostly read a page each day when I was in the bathroom in the morning. I let it unfold slowly, reading the daily quote and Ryan Holiday’s (and Stephen Hanselman’s) thoughts on the quote, and then rereading the quote. I was near the end so I finished it off last night. I smiled when after I read the December 31 meditation. ...

While I enjoy a good biography of a historical figure, I love autobiographies of living people. They are hit or miss – either awesome or awful. Sam Zell’s autobiography Am I Being Too Subtle? was awesome. I was sent a copy by an editor at Penguin Group who sends me books, presumably that he thinks I’ll like. While this was in my infinite pile of books, I grabbed it randomly last night and polished it off tonight. ...

Amy and I love to read. For a number of years, I’ve recorded everything I read on Goodreads . When I write a blog post reviewing a book, I usually (but not consistently …) repost it on Goodreads and occasionally remember to post it on Amazon. Regardless, the definitive log of what I’ve read is on my Goodreads Bookshelf . Last year Goodreads started doing a fun compilation of all that a user read in the past year with their Year in Books summary . ...

As part of v52 of me , I’ve decided to commit to at least eight hours of sleep a night. I’m doing ok, but need to keep working at it. From my early 20s, until v47, I woke up at 5 am from Monday to Friday. I’d then binge sleep on the weekend, often sleeping 12+ hours on Saturday or Sunday (my record is just under 16 hours of sleep.) When I had a major depressive episode early in v47, I stopped waking up with an alarm clock. For the next six months, I slept over 10 hours a night (often more than 12), every night. ...

The NYSE recently published a book – The Entrepreneur’s Roadmap – From Concept to IPO that I’ve been involved in. I wrote a chapter and made a number of introductions to the team working on the book that resulted in a number of other chapters. The book covers a variety of stages of company development, including: The Seed Stage: Starting a Company The Growth Stage: Scaling the Business Late Stage: Preparing for the next chapter The Exit: Strategies and Options Corporate Governance and Other Considerations It’s free to download in PDF, EPUB, or Kindle .

The audiobook version of Startup Opportunities: Know When To Quit Your Day Job is now available on Audible . Unlike the Audible version of Venture Deals , this one was read by Stephen Hoye. If you like audiobooks, grab a copy , give it a listen, and tell me what you think.