The read queue
One line worth keeping from each book, and where it showed up in my own work.
- The Accidental CTOSubhash ChoudharyIn progress
The Accidental CTO
Subhash Choudhary“Scaling a real product's infrastructure from zero to millions of users, learned on the job.”
Reading it for the war stories: which decisions got made under pressure, and which ones had to be undone later.
- Rich Dad Poor DadRobert T. KiyosakiFinished
Rich Dad Poor Dad
Robert T. Kiyosaki“Assets put money in your pocket; liabilities take it out. Learn the difference before you try to earn more.”
The idea I carried into engineering: favour work that keeps paying out after you stop touching it, like automation, tooling or a deployed product, over effort that ends when you do.
- The 48 Laws of PowerRobert GreeneFinished
The 48 Laws of Power
Robert Greene“Power runs on perception and timing. Read the room before you play the game.”
Less a playbook than a field guide to how organisations actually behave. It explains why good ideas sometimes lose, and why how you present your work matters almost as much as the work itself.
- The Psychology of MoneyMorgan HouselFinished
The Psychology of Money
Morgan Housel“Doing well with money is about behaviour more than intelligence, and room for error is the most underrated plan.”
Margin of safety is the same idea as capacity headroom: you don’t plan for the average day, you plan to survive the bad one.