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Books I read in 2017

Blaine Osepchuk on December 25, 2017

In this post, I'm going to share some of the books I read this year. In the nonfiction realm, some of them are very much on point for software deve...
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tiff

Was looking for new books. Thanks for this write up!

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Blaine Osepchuk

You're welcome.

I'm reading The Lean Startup right now and I think it's got a good shot at hitting the top of my 2018 list. I avoided reading it all these years because I don't work at a start-up. But the book is mistitled. It should be called how to create a successful product. Really excellent!

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tiff

I've been avoiding it too. Think I'll pick it up.

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saint

I have been fascinated by Good to Great, but most of the companies are underperforming now. So it is still not clear what makes companies great. Appart from that - nice book to read.

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Blaine Osepchuk

Agreed. I'm in the same boat as you. It's an interesting read but Collins certainly didn't discover a natural law or anything like that.

It would be interesting if he did a follow-up and investigate why the great companies slid. Did they stop doing what make them great? Were they just overwhelmed by outside forces? Or something else entirely?

The other thing I try to remember is that it's easy to grow at 30% a year when you are starting from a million dollars in revenue ($300,000 in growth). But it's much more difficult to grow at the same rate when you're huge like Apple or Microsoft for example.

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Douglas Minnaar

I share the sentiment. An interesting book with some timeless knowledge. I also read Collins' follow-up book "How the mighty fall". A shorter read but also interesting nonetheless. It may be something you would enjoy.

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Blaine Osepchuk

Yes. Thanks. My library doesn't have it but I'm going to request it through an inter-library loan.

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Daniel Coturel

Great post!

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Philly

YAY! Thanks for this fantastic and informative write-up. 🙃

As a huge fan of books I highly count on reviews like yours when choosing a new one.

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Bruno Louzada • Edited

Great post!, i didnt knew the concept of "Cost of Delay" and i found very intresting and probably gonna use it, your posts about it was great too, thanks for sharing.

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Blaine Osepchuk

You're welcome. I'm glad you found it useful.