innovation Book Summaries

The Everything Store is about how Jeff Bezos grew Amazon—from a simple online bookstore into the 5th largest company in the world. He did it with a mix of great timing, customer obsession, and relentless competition.

Steve Jobs is the official biography of the co-founder of Apple and Pixar. He had an intense passion to create revolutionary products like the iPhone, iPad, iPod, iTunes, and Macintosh computers. His personality was an unusual mix of Zen hippie and brash business visionary.

Zero to One is a guide for business startup founders. Peter Thiel shares many unconventional ideas such as why entrepreneurs should avoid competition and instead build (legal) monopolies. He also offers fascinating predictions about the future of technology.

Blue Ocean Strategy is about how to escape competition and create breakthrough business strategies. Kim and Mauborgne say we should look outside our traditional industry boundaries so we can truly innovate for our customers. We can find entirely new market demand, rather than fighting over old market share.

The Lean Startup shows how to achieve business success by learning what customers want fast. Eric Ries explains how to launch a minimum viable product, why you should ignore vanity metrics, and how to use 'split-testing' to avoid wasting years of your life building a product nobody wants.