
Ask HN: Reccommended reading to get up to speed on Hacker/Startup culture - svs
A friend of mine just got offered a top executive position at a tech startup and is in culture shock. In his own words &quot;there are these rooms full of kids and I can&#x27;t understand what they&#x27;re saying, and the valuations - they don&#x27;t add up...&quot;, etc. etc. &quot;What am I missing here?&quot;<p>This guy needs to get up to speed fast on startups, product management, engineering, hacker culture and so on after a lifetime of hierarchical command and control in the financial services industry. What are the most concise and illuminating introductory texts I can refer him to?<p>Thanks!
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Red_Tarsius
I've been looking for an _entrepreneur book list_ for a long time too. I'm not
nearly as experienced as your friend, so my books may be too basic.

\- Start here:
[http://www.ycombinator.com/resources/](http://www.ycombinator.com/resources/)
There are many wonderful articles written by Graham himself.

\- _The Four Steps to the Epiphany_ , Steve Blank.

\- _The Art of the Start_ , Guy Kawasaki.

\- _The Startup Owner 's Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great
Company_, Steve Blank and Bob Dorf.

\- _Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future_ , Peter
Thiel.

\- _ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever_ , Jason Fried and David
Heinemeier Hansson.

\- I haven't read the _Founders at work_ series yet, but everyone seems to
find it very valuable.

~~~
diminoten
Aren't the two books by Steve Blank listed here mostly the same, content wise?
I haven't read the Four Steps book, but in The Startup Owner's Manual, Steve
Blank mentions it as being a successor, I think.

Obviously, someone who's actually read both could comment better than I.

~~~
1123581321
I've read both and I wouldn't recommend The Four Steps since the second book
came out. However, it is still very good.

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teddyh
Saying “ _Hacker /Startup culture_” is a little like saying “ _C /C++_” – they
are not the same and should not be conflated. Actually, it’s more like saying
“ _Lisp /Java_” – many people are enamored by the latter and thinks that the
former is very similar, but it is in fact only similar in some superficial
ways, and completely different in design, values, and style.

~~~
adriancooney
That may be true however, you have to cut the poster a little slack. He did
post this on _Hacker News_ which is run by the YCombinator, possibly the most
prestigious _startup_ incubator out there.

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smt88
Culture shock is really bad news for a new position or a new hire. It's very
difficult to change culture. Your friend needs to be a leader, not someone who
is catching up. It's probably not the right place for him to be.

~~~
wwweston
This is an excellent answer.

Not because it's probably true (it's as likely the asker's friend has as much
to contribute from a different background as they have to learn for their new
situation) but because they're likely to hear more of this from people who'd
prefer to occupy an echo chamber, so it's probably best to get a certain thick
skin up now.

~~~
smt88
It's really hard to parse your tone from your comment, but you seem to be
implying that people who think like me are A) wrong and B) advocates of
homogeneous, exclusive cultures at companies.

I know about the studies showing that diversity is beneficial, and I've seen
it anecdotally in my own career.

But "culture differences" are _not_ the same as having no idea what your
coworkers are talking about (which OP mentioned).

There are many instances where big corporate culture and startup culture
clash. Those two environments operate very differently, and if you've spent
your whole career in one, it's very hard to switch to the other. It has
nothing to do with diversity. (Those studies were about race and gender.)

~~~
xerophyte12932
I agree that his tone is a bit hard to parse, but i think he AGREES with you,
no?

>this is an excellent answer

I thought he was just adding to your answer that OP's friend is much likely to
hear the same from his new colleagues who probably just want someone like them
at the head. So he'd need a thick skin to survive

------
23david
Uh... major red flag imo. I recommend your friend stays put and finds a way to
slowly tiptoe into startuplandia. The job offer he got sounds like it isn't a
good fit in a lot of ways.

Some companies are crazier than others... a lot crazier.

------
calibraxis
Not knowing much about him, let's throw a bunch of things at the wall and see
what sticks:

\- [https://model-view-culture.myshopify.com/products/your-
start...](https://model-view-culture.myshopify.com/products/your-startup-is-
broken)

\- [https://modelviewculture.com/](https://modelviewculture.com/)

\- Something by Don Reinertsen, maybe The Principles of Product Development
Flow, maybe something else.

\- Valve Employee Handbook
[http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...](http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf)

\- [http://thinkrelevance.com/how-we-work](http://thinkrelevance.com/how-we-
work)

\- Ries, The Lean Startup

All of these sources hide lots of dysfunction, so as always take them with a
grain of salt. Take Ricardo Semler's fun books. In one of his Harvard Business
School lectures, he mentioned how his books are artificially optimistic,
because publishers want to sell more books.

------
Animats
"How Google Works" by Eric Schmidt is a good place to start.

A bigger question is why was he brought in? Does he need to do a turnaround?
Has something gone badly wrong?

What stage are they at? Is there a user base? Do they pay, or is this ad
based? Who's the competition? What do you have that they don't? First look at
the business from a user perspective, then the technology used to service it.
If they're not doing something technically hard, the technology end is about
keeping the users happy, scaling and not screwing up.

------
arethuza
I really liked _The Lean Startup_ by Eric Ries - it's very opinionated (in a
good way) about what a startup is and how they are rather different from
"normal" companies.

All I need to do now is invent a time machine to send it to myself 20 years
ago... :-)

It's also very prescriptive about the activities a startup management team
should be focusing on which I suspect is a great place to start if you are
coming into a new team in a leadership role.

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bonn1
"A friend of mine ..."

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blingojames
About culture: [http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-
howto.html](http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html)
[http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html)
[http://blog.codinghorror.com/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/) And reading
random comments on:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/best](https://news.ycombinator.com/best) and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/news](https://news.ycombinator.com/news) .

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sstradling
The question I'd ask him is how he's felt about the lifetime of command and
control? If he's always been the guy who kept trying to change things,
adjusting to a startup is going to be a matter of helping him understand how
to best have an impact (and get used to the fact that people will actually
appreciate and support his efforts). If he's the guy who followed the
handbook, he's in for a much bigger shock.

For me, I've been bouncing off the walls for 12 years in a large bureaucracy.
Reading Eric Ries's Lean Startup and finding Paul's blog was like drinking
water for the first time. I hope he has the same experience.

------
ethank
An unconventional one, but important: Microserfs by Douglas Coupland

It's 20 years old, and dated in terms of technology but a good overview of
valley culture in the mid 90's.

------
olalonde
Paul Graham (YC/HN founder) has some good essays on startup/hacker culture.
[http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html)
is probably the one that had the biggest impact on me and is sort of a
manifesto for startups.

~~~
jimkri
I second Paul Grahams essays. Paul has written a lot of essays. They are all
pretty interesting to read, and they have some great information in them.

------
whyleyc
In the non-fiction sphere they could do worse than to read:

\- _Snow Crash_ by Neal Stephenson

\- _Neuromancer_ by William Gibson

Both books have had a huge impact on hacker culture, as well as doing a good
job of documenting it. They will convey aspects of the culture that more
traditional startup books can't convey - hacker language, attitude, motivation
etc.

They are both great reads too.

------
marinabercea
Get them to signup on Y Combinator's How to Start a Startup
([https://startupclass.co/](https://startupclass.co/)) and watch the videos.
Might get them up to speed faster than going through a list of books. However,
Red_Tarsius did offer a very good list of titles.

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iamwithnail
Ricardo Semler - Maverick is a good one for non heirarchal approaches. The AES
case study of holarchy is v interesting. Swombat's blog (easily findable!) is
a trove of material on startups and moving from corporate to startup, as are
the Granttree and Escape The City blogs.

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anaxag0ras
[http://www.hn-books.com/](http://www.hn-books.com/)

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piratebroadcast
He should fake it until he make's it. At least pretend not to be culture
shocked.

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peteretep
Pfft, no love for "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries yet? Love that book.

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ugk
Suspect valuations are the concern here IMO. This would be a big red flag for
me, while the culture shock would be a distant second.

------
mainetti
Getting up to speed on Hacker/Startup culture is more about doing than about
reading, so go ahead and do it.

------
carlosrg
The "Silicon Valley" TV show :P

------
stefantalpalaru
Hacker culture: "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution"[1] and "In the
Beginning was the Command Line"[2]

Startup culture: [http://www.wired.com/2014/04/no-
exit/](http://www.wired.com/2014/04/no-exit/)

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Computer...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Computer_Revolution)

[2]:
[http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html](http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html)

