Suhail
Founder: @playground_ai, @mixpanel Pizzatarian, programmer, & music maker Hiring: https://t.co/N17OIB1Ob1
8 Book Recommendations by Suhail
Build
Tony Fadell
Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone and Nest Learning Thermostat and learned enough in 30+ years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia. So that's what this book is. An advice encyclopedia. A mentor in a box. Written for anyone who wants to grow at work--from young grads navigating their first jobs to CEOs deciding whether to sell their company--Build is full of personal stories, practical advice and fascinating insights into some of the most impactful products and people of the 20th century. Each quick 5-20 page entry builds on the previous one, charting Tony's personal journey from a product designer to a leader, from a startup founder to an executive to a mentor. Tony uses examples that are instantly captivating, like the process of building the very first iPod and iPhone. Every chapter is designed to help readers with a problem they're facing right now--how to get funding for their startup, whether to quit their job or not, or just how to deal with the jerk in the next cubicle. Tony forged his path to success alongside mentors like Steve Jobs and Bill Campbell, icons of Silicon Valley who succeeded time and time again. But Tony doesn't follow the Silicon Valley credo that you have to reinvent everything from scratch to make something great. His advice is unorthodox because it's old school. Because Tony's learned that human nature doesn't change. You don't have to reinvent how you lead and manage--just what you make. And Tony's ready to help everyone make things worth making.Founders at Work
Jessica Livingston
Dealers of Lightning
Michael A. Hiltzik
The Golden Compass
Philip Pullman
Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.The Mom Test
Rob Fitzpatrick
The Mom Test is a quick, practical guide that will save you time, money, and heartbreak. They say you shouldn't ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point. You shouldn't ask anyone if your business is a good idea. It's a bad question and everyone will lie to you at least a little . As a matter of fact, it's not their responsibility to tell you the truth. It's your responsibility to find it and it's worth doing right . Talking to customers is one of the foundational skills of both Customer Development and Lean Startup. We all know we're supposed to do it, but nobody seems willing to admit that it's easy to screw up and hard to do right. This book is going to show you how customer conversations go wrong and how you can do better.Dealers of Lightning
Michael A. Hiltzik
@paulg @rivatez Well, recently it was Dealers of Lightning. It re-kindled my interest in focusing on building something valuable & hard vs simply opportunistic. It was exciting to internalize how folks tackled some really hard, fragile, & valuable ideas—in pursuit of making something possible.
The Upside of Stress
Kelly McGonigal
This book shows readers how to cultivate a mindset that embraces stress, and activate the brain's ability to learn from challenging experiences.Video Encoding by the Numbers
Jan Lee Ozer
Video Encoding by the Numbers helps readers optimize the quality and efficiency of their streaming video by objectively detailing the impact of critical configuration options with industry-standard quality metrics like PSNR and SSIMplus. This takes the guesswork out of most encoding decisions and allows readers to achieve the optimal quality/data rate tradeoff. In addition, readers learn how to use tools like the Moscow University Video Quality Measurement tool, SSIMWave Quality of Experience Monitor, and FFmpeg to perform similar quality tests on their own videos. Because all videos encode differently, the tests detailed in the book involve eight different videos, including movie footage, animations, talking head footage, a music video, and Powerpoint and Camtasia-based videos. Readers first learn how to determine the ideal data rate for their videos at different resolutions. Then the book covers configuration options like bitrate control (CBR, VBR) that impacts quality and deliverability, and I-Frame, B-Frame, and reference frame decisions that impact quality and encoding time. The next three chapters focus on codec-specific configurations like Profile and preset for H.264 and HEVC, and the various configuration options available for Google's VP9. Next the book details how to choose an adaptive bitrate (ABR) technology, how to create an encoding ladder, and the most efficient ways to encode and package video into different ABR formats. Working off the groundbreaking work by Netflix and YouTube, the final chapter teaches the reader how a use per-title encoding with their own videos to create the ideal encoding ladder for each video in their library. Each chapter concludes with a section detailing how to configure the options discussed with FFmpeg, a preferred tool for high-volume video producers, including packaging into HLS and DASH formats (the latter with MP4Box). Overall readers learn how to optimally configure their encoding ladders and how to produce their videos with FFmpeg.