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TechCrunch talked to eight authors with ties to the startup community to see which books they would gift this year
Book blurbs have become a primal part of the publication industry : Who easily to indorse a book than other authors and consider drawing card ? In that same spirit , we ask several writers to recommend books that you and other TechCrunch proofreader may need to gift this holiday season .
Read on for recommendations from :
The responses have been lightly edited for length and pellucidity . This clause hold links to affiliate partners where available . When you grease one’s palms through these link , TechCrunch may earn an affiliate mission .
Jon Evans
You may have sex Jon Evans as a formerTechCrunch columnistor from his engineering and CTO office , but he is also anovelist . Most of his books are technothrillers painting traveler caught in tricky situations in exotic locations . “ Exadelic ” is different , and not just because it ’s his first novel in over a decade : It is arrange in Silicon Valley , where a tech exec gets threatened by a rogue AI .
‘ Exadelic ’ call for a shot at being Silicon Valley ’s ‘ Ready Player One ’
Book recommendation: “The Steerswoman,” by Rosemary Kirstein
I love books which turn out to be far deeper , richer , and more thought - agitating than they originally seem , and the serial of novel which begin with The Steerswoman are my go - to example of just that . Read just the first few chapters , and you ’ll recollect you “ make out ” you ’re reading a clichéd fantasy novel , albeit better - drop a line and more feminist than most ; two adventurer women conform to in a knightly - ish tavern , in a land harry by flying dragon , and commence a seeking to discover the source of mysterious – some say magical – treasure . You might be a spot surprised by the divagation in which they start to hash out maths and purgative , but still , intelligibly a fair forgettable music genre illusion story … right ?
Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI
Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI
… Wrong . Very , very amiss . Instead ( and I ’m sorry for spoilering this , but it ’s insufferable to save about this series without either doing so or being maddeningly oval ) these record are some of the least fantastic , most meticulously think - out science fable you will ever scan . More , they are a meditation on science itself , on how and why we acquire knowledge , on the repercussions of that cognition being hoarded rather than shared … and on the inevitable ( ? ) unfairness , oppressions , and breakdowns between communities that result .
They ’re also a whole lot of fun ! Not just an on-going puzzler to be figure out , but a serial of truly electrifying , rum , and wrenching adventures , populated by great fibre , to receive from the edge of your seat . Read the first , and if you like it — and I bet you will — lucky you ; the sequel are even better .
Kashmir Hill
Kashmir Hill ’s book “ Your Face Belong to Us ” is the story of a “ modest AI ship’s company that give facial acknowledgement to law enforcement , billionaires and stage business , menace to end privacy as we have a go at it it . ” But she does n’t require to resort to ( science ) fiction to make it chilling ; the companionship in question is Clearview AI , which very much exists , and its Dutch publisher describes the book of account as a “ existent - aliveness thriller . ”
Selfie - scraper , Clearview AI , gain solicitation against UK privacy sanction
Book recommendation: “The Listeners: A History of Wiretapping in the United States,” by Brian Hochman
I ’m catch by the intersection of privateness and engineering and how we navigate the clash between the two . Hochman , a professor of American Studies at Georgetown , face back to a historical present moment when bon ton was confront with an intrusive Modern applied science — diminutive transcription devices and wiretaps — and how new norms and laws developed to address it . To the extent that past is prologue , I found it very compelling for frame my anticipation for what ’s to come with the newest and most shocking forms of mass data collection and exercise .
Jerry Neumann
“ Founder vs Investor , ” a recently published non - fiction book , crosses two perspectives on venture - backed startup ; enterpriser Elizabeth Zalman is the founder , and seasoned VC Jerry Neumann is the investor . Together , they share insights on how both sides can well work with one another .
Book recommendation: “How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms,” by Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones
Ten years ago data was “ the novel oil ” . Now it ’s something more … read the tech intelligence and you have to wonder if anything else even matters . As a humanist , I trust so , but I do n’t conceive you may conclude about that unless you get laid the story . “ How Data Happened ” is that history .
Wiggins and Jones cover the musical theme of data from the advent of statistics through today . The Bible is well - researched , as you ’d wait from a couple of Columbia ’s top professor , but it ’s also an interesting and engaging read . It ’s a arrant gift for anyone who wants to know how our data point - drive society flummox to where we are today and where it might take us tomorrow .
Barr Moses
Barr Moses is the CEO and carbon monoxide gas - founder ofMonte Carlo , a datum observability startup . She also co - wrote a technical book on the issue : O’Reilly ’s “ Data Quality Fundamentals : A practician ’s Guide to Building Trustworthy Data Pipelines , ” share advice on achieving reliable information at scale .
Book recommendation: “Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts,” by Brené Brown
Reading a Brené Brown Holy Writ is like take on the Sunday crossword puzzler – adequate parts challenging and rejuvenating – and presume to Lead is no unlike .
presume to Lead pulls on Brown ’s tenner of research , interviews , and experience as a prof at the University of Houston speaking with CEOs , founders , and other executive director to understand what smashing leadership looks like and how to attain it . She sublimate four key science countersink great leaders possess and play up ways to empower employee to be brave in the grimace of hard knocks and change .
Published in 2018 before the Gen AI wafture hit , Dare to Lead also address what human leaders have to wreak to the table that AI and ML currently do n’t – empathy and connection .
incentive : the Scripture also provides helpful imagination to assess leadership posture and ontogeny opportunity that can make for a fun and informative squad building activity .
Polina Marinova Pompliano
Book recommendation: “It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War,” by Lynsey Addario
War photojournalist Lynsey Addario has covered every major conflict and human-centred crisis on the planet . As she envision the destruction and the pain through the genus Lens of her television camera , her images translate that intense emotion to people across the orb .
Her memoir ‘ It ’s What I Do ’ is the news report of how she adventure her life to tell the stories of ordinary masses living in extraordinarily unsafe places . In the chaotic fourth dimension we ’re living through right now , it ’s a memoir that documents the human price of war .
Despite witnessing so much tragedy and brutality , she has never lose her power to see the goodness in humanity . My preferred quote from the book is : “ I choose to populate in pacification and attestator war — to have the bad in people but to remember the beauty . ”
Georgiana Laudi
Georgiana ( Gia ) Laudi helps SaaS businesses grow through her federal agency , Forget the funnel shape . This is also the title ofthe book she co - wrote with her co - founder Claire Suellentrop , and whose premise is to deliver reader with a “ a customer - led approaching for motor predictable , recurring revenue . ”
Book recommendation: “Loved: How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products,” by Martina Lauchengco
Cartesian product Marketing , particularly in tech , is one of the most foundational and yet also somehow wildly misunderstood disciplines . “ fuck ” by Martina Lauchengco is just the comprehensive guide the startup picture so desperately needed .
She manages to strike the perfect blend of approachable and comprehensive so that everyone from founders to practician sympathise the critical purpose production marketing play in successful companies and what good looks like at every phase of growth .
Though I opine what I appreciate the most about this book is that when it comes to marketing and drive product adoption , even though she introduces four fundamentals of product selling , the first and most critical to get correct is customer brainwave . This is almost unheard of give the objective market for this record is an industry where engine room and scale of measurement reign supreme .
Why your startup should n’t rush to $ 1 million in revenue
Scott Hurff
As a writer , Scott Hurffdoesn’t always write about Cartesian product design ; but when he does he is able-bodied to share his perspective as someone who ’s also a product maker and designer . It is also this overlap that nurtured his Quran , “ Designing Products People Love : How Great designer Create Successful Products . ”
Book recommendation: “Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application,” by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson and Matthew Linderman
“ Getting material ” is an absolute treasure from 2006 and it ’s still teach me things . It was the first time anyone building in modern tech put together a practical , square , all - encompassing guide for conceiving , building , merchant vessels , and selling web apps . Jason and David ’s Bible are effective when they need to be , detail when it count , and packed full of subtlety that ’s both alone and lovely .
The book feels like it started as an intragroup series of posts or a handbook to help scale 37signals beyond the core squad ( from what I remember , Basecamp launched in 2004 and had quickly found success ) . Whatever the format , what lends “ Getting Real ” genuineness is the fact that 37signals used these precise proficiency to ship Basecamp and find its customer base .
To this sidereal day , I ’ve never read anything like it . It ’s one of those books that you may finish in an afternoon but stays with you for far longer , morphing into a reference Word of God for the time when you need some extra perspective .
James Wise
You may bonk James Wise as a married person at VC firm Balderton Capital ; but this London - base VC also wrote his first account book , “ set about - up Century : Why We ’re All Becoming Entrepreneurs – and How to Make It forge for Everyone . ” plunge in the U.K. on November 23 , it should make a groovy natural endowment for aspiring entrepreneurs around you .
Book recommendation: “The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma,” by Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar
Mustafa has been at the heart of developments in AI for the last 10 , through his work at Deepmind and now at Inflection . AI . His insights into the huge potential of AI and synthetic biological science , two technologies that can evolve on their own , cater both optimism for their possible but stark warning about the motive for containment .
In this well researched book , he and co - author Michael Bhaskar voyage the ballyhoo and hysteria surrounding AI to offer a somber business relationship of the coming wave of technological change .
New Greylock speculation partner Mustafa Suleyman is looking for AI ’s next best affair
