Business Books & Co.

Measure What Matters, by venture capitalist John Doerr, is about OKRs—Objectives and Key Results—an approach to goal setting. Doerr evangelizes the use of OKRs and explains how they can help any organization better align its direction and continually evaluate its success. OKRs are a simple concept, but the book elucidates them with many anecdotes about their use in varying organizations, including startups, large corporations, and charities. We discuss the key takeaways from the book and how they're applicable to our careers. By the end of the episode you'll have a strong understanding of OKRs.

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Edited by Giacomo Guatteri

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We interviewed Eric Berger, the author of Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX. It's about the journey of grit, resilience, and unbridled optimism that turned a scrappy startup into the premier space company of the 21st century. Eric utilized full access at SpaceX to get the inside story from employees and Elon Musk himself. Most of the book focuses on the exciting early period of SpaceX from 2002 - 2009 when there were experimental rockets, tropical islands, and even some explosions.

We also welcomed our new co-host, Kevin Hudak, and learned more about his background. Welcome to the show, Kevin!

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Over the past year we've read some fantastic books... and some that were not so fantastic. In this episode we break down the best and worst books of season 2. We also discuss our picks by category including entrepreneurship, career, and story. Finally, we have a meta discussion about the show and say goodbye to our valued co-host, Eli.

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Amazon Unbound is the story of how Jeff Bezos has managed his business empire over the past decade. It picks up where author Brad Stone’s last Amazon book, The Everything Store, left off circa 2013. Stone chronicles Bezos’s incredible attention to detail on Amazon projects like the Echo and the Fire Phone, as well as his stewardship of The Washington Post and Blue Origin; and controversies from his personal life. We get an inside look into the trials, triumphs, and tribulations of this living legend and the organizations he runs.

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This month we read Radical Candor by Kim Scott, a people management guide developed through Scott’s years of working as a manager in high tech. Scott led the AdSense, YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google and served as a faculty member at Apple University. Radical Candor is about fostering relationships where people sincerely care about one another but are also able to challenge each other directly. The book is a guide to developing these relationships in the workplace while avoiding the traps of ruinous empathy, manipulative insincerity, and obnoxious aggression. We discuss the key takeaways from the book and how they relate to our own career experiences.

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This month we read Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry by David C. Robertson and Bill Breen. After facing lackluster growth in the 1990s, iconic toy brand LEGO undertook a program of radical innovation under a turnaround artist CEO. Unfortunately, the turnaround resulted in an even worse situation, with LEGO facing a deficit so large in 2003 that it threatened the survival of the company. Brick by Brick is about how LEGO turned around the turnaround by focusing on its core product and thoughtfully choosing sustainable innovation initiatives. Today, LEGO is one of the most valuable brands in the world.

We were privileged in this episode to be joined by special guest Cory Cunningham, Senior Manager of Global Insights at The LEGO Group. Cory's opinions were his own and not representative of his employer.

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When Hema Hattangady became the CEO of Bangalore, India based Conzerv in 1996, it was a struggling producer of energy meters. Over the next decade Hattangady led the transformation of Conzerv from a family-owned enterprise with $1 million in revenue into one of India’s leading energy management corporations. In 2009 the company was acquired by Schneider Electric. In Lift Off, Hattangady tells the story of Conzerv’s transformation.

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No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram by Sarah Frier covers Instagram’s rise from a two-person startup to the second largest social network in the world. Along the way, Frier explores Instagram influencers, the network’s effect on teens, and its sometimes rocky existence within the confines of its parent company, Facebook. Frier had significant access to key players in the story and chose to spotlight the relationship between Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. We discussed the book, its key takeaways, and our own use of Instagram.

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Shoe Dog is a memoir by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. Knight recounts building Nike on a shoestring budget by importing shoes from a Japanese manufacturer, battling banks and supply issues to grow the company, innovating with their own designs, and sustaining the morale of a motley crew of colleagues through the process. We discuss Knight’s powerful memoir and its insight into entrepreneurship, managing growth, and finding your mission in life.

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No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer goes into the details of Netflix's corporate culture of "Freedom and Responsibility." Hastings and Meyer relate how Netflix achieved this culture, and espouse its many supposed benefits. It includes some controversial policies (or lack thereof) and harsh realities for employees. In this episode we discuss the tenets of Netflix's corporate culture, including talent density, candor, no approvals required, and more. We relate them to our own experiences, and discuss their applicability to businesses other than Netflix.

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