silicon valley Book Summaries

Zero to One is about the future of technology and a guide for startup business founders. Peter Thiel is a billionaire entrepreneur and investor that has many unconventional ideas. He says entrepreneurs should avoid competition and instead build (legal) monopolies selling a product that is completely new.

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.

Elon Musk is a biography of the man who led Tesla, SpaceX and PayPal. Musk inspires many people with his futuristic plans for new technologies, and his seemingly unstoppable ability to overcome all obstacles. But his employees are often pushed to their limit, trying to reach impossible deadlines.

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.

Digital Gold tells the story of the rise of Bitcoin, giving us a close look at the programmers and investors who contributed to the technology and movement. Nathaniel Popper also explores fascinating questions like: how can a money made up of digital bits have any value at all?

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.