The books that inspired me in 2020

I have always been an avid reader and, as the leader of a rapidly growing start-up, I try to read as much as possible to learn from the experiences and lessons of people who have built iconic companies. Every company is unique and every situation is different. There will never be a ‘playbook’ for building a successful business but reading provides the opportunity to absorb the insights of those who have done it best.

Whilst I didn’t succeed in my goal of 24 books for 2020 (I blame the evaporation of work/life boundaries!), I did read several powerful and impactful books. Rather than provide an arbitrary ranking of each, and to save you from another tiresome ‘year in review’, I’ve chosen to highlight those I found most valuable. 

Business (Strategy)

That Will Never Work

by Marc Randolph

There are many things to admire about what Netflix has done as a business (including their approach to culture which is brilliantly covered in Patty McCord’s book: Powerful) but the genesis story as conveyed by Marc Randolph, the founding CEO, is brilliant.

Building a successful start-up requires being both contrarian and right; however, this is incredibly difficult to achieve in practice. As a founder, your default position is to guard and protect your ideas. It feels safer to seek validation rather than to challenge your fledgling concept. At Netflix, Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings built a culture of challenging ideas and requiring data to support decision making but they also recognised that in early-stage start-ups there is rarely sufficient data to guide decision making. Netflix’s approach was to make decisions rapidly, capture data, and reevaluate. This approach has been a guiding principle for us at Riskbook.

Relatedly, the ‘Canada Principle’ stems from Net failed attempt to expand DVD-by-mail outside the US. With limited resources, a start-up's strategy requires a ruthless commitment towards the core mission, and the hardest decisions are often in deciding what not to do. There are myriad things that we can (and someday will) do; exciting features that we know our clients will love. The Canada Principle doesn’t mean we’ll never do them; it just means we won’t do them now. At Riskbook this often takes the form of a ?? or ???? in our Slack channel -- a simple reminder to focus on what is most important right now.

Culture

What You Do is Who You Are

by Ben Horowitz

As a founder, I spend an enormous amount of time thinking about building a best-in-class culture at Riskbook. A culture that attracts and retains incredibly talented people and allows them to thrive. Far too many companies define culture with empty platitudes that don’t actually align with the behaviours exhibited by the team members. We realised early on that culture is lived through action and constantly seek feedback from our team as to how well we’re delivering on our values.

From his time first as a founder and then at renowned VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, Ben Horowitz has seen first-hand the keys to building a culture that permeates an organisation. Unlike most business books, Horowitz doesn’t rely on traditional business school case studies. By using challenging and controversial examples from Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian slave revolution, the Samurai, and even Genghis Kahn, Horowitz unpacks the core elements of a strong culture and swiftly divorces it from ‘perks’.

The objective of our culture at Riskbook is to build an environment where our team can do their best work. As a fully remote team, we need to efficiently work asynchronously, be managers of one, and share information and best practices throughout our company. These behaviours need to be modeled by the founders and What You Do is Who You Are is a great reminder of that.

Leadership

The Ride of a Lifetime

by Robert Iger

Creativity, Inc.

by Ed Catmull

I have always enjoyed biographies, especially those by business leaders. As a founder, these stories, insights and learnings are even more valuable.

Unlike the other two categories, I wasn’t able to narrow down my favourite leadership book of 2020 to just one, as both Robert Iger and Ed Catmull’s books were fantastic and the intertwining stories of Disney and Pixar made them even more compelling.

While each's rise to prominence differed (Iger rose through the ranks at ABC where Catmull was one of the co-founders of Pixar), both writers humbly convey the challenges of leading large and rapidly changing firms. Their insight into sales negotiations, team motivation, and difficulties in their personal lives normalise the challenges of leadership.

If you’re looking for a book (or two) that cover a diverse array of business challenges and behind-the-scenes insights into two iconic companies, I couldn’t recommend these more. You might even find yourself binging Disney+ documentaries with your holiday time off. I could give you a few suggestions but that’s another list for another day.

My (admittedly, stretch) goal for 2021 will again be to read 24 books. My objective with the books I choose to read is not to replicate the approach, strategy, or successes of the authors, but rather build a breadth of experiences and insights to give Riskbook the best chance of success. A famous Latin proverb informs that “a wise man learns from the mistakes of others, a fool learns from his own.” I believe that sentiment of learning also applies to successes. No two journeys are exactly the same, but the experiences, challenges and insights acquired along the way have diverse applications. It would be truly foolish to forge an entirely new path, as we're doing at Riskbook, without heeding the advice of those who have done it before.