The shelf.
Books shaping how I think about software, systems, business, and everything around them. Pull one out for the note — ribbons mark what’s on the desk right now.
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50 books on the shelf
AI Engineering — Chip Huyen. A practical guide to building production applications on top of foundation models.Agentic Design Patterns — Antonio Gulli. A hands-on catalog of patterns for designing and building agentic AI systems.Poor Charlie's Almanack — Charles T. Munger. Munger's collected talks on mental models, rationality, and lifelong learning.The Pragmatic Programmer — David Thomas & Andrew Hunt. Timeless principles and habits for becoming a more deliberate programmer.Gap Selling — Keenan. A problem-centric sales method built on diagnosing the gap between a buyer's current and desired state.Fanatical Prospecting — Jeb Blount. A direct playbook for keeping the pipeline full through relentless, multi-channel prospecting.Influence, New and Expanded — Robert B. Cialdini. The expanded edition of the classic on the psychology of why people say yes.The Art of Strategy — Nalebuff & Dixit. Game theory for everyday decisions — anticipating others' moves in business and life.Will It Fly? — Pat Flynn. A framework for validating a business idea before sinking time and money into it.Small Giants — Bo Burlingham. Profiles of companies that chose to be great rather than big.The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie — Andrew Carnegie. The steel magnate's life and his gospel of wealth and philanthropy.Unlearn — Humble the Poet. Short, contrarian truths for rethinking the defaults that hold you back.The Innovator's Dilemma — Clayton M. Christensen. Why great companies fail by doing everything right in the face of disruption.Ultralearning — Scott H. Young. An aggressive, self-directed strategy for mastering hard skills fast.The Dichotomy of Leadership — Willink & Babin. Balancing the competing tensions every leader must hold to lead and win.Never Split the Difference — Chris Voss & Tahl Raz. A former FBI hostage negotiator's field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiation.Boundaries — Cloud & Townsend. When to say yes and how to say no to take control of your life.Grit — Angela Duckworth. The case that passion and perseverance, not talent, drive outstanding achievement.How to Win Friends & Influence People — Dale Carnegie. The enduring classic on relationships, influence, and dealing with people.Mindset — Carol S. Dweck. How a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset shapes success.Tools of Titans — Tim Ferriss. Tactics, routines, and habits distilled from world-class performers.Blue Ocean Strategy — Kim & Mauborgne. Create uncontested market space instead of fighting in bloody red oceans.Sam Walton: Made in America — Sam Walton & John Huey. The Walmart founder's own account of building a retail empire from a single dime store.Competitive Strategy — Michael E. Porter. Porter's foundational framework for analyzing industries and competitors.Competitive Advantage — Michael E. Porter. The companion to Competitive Strategy — building durable advantage through the value chain.Zero to One — Thiel & Masters. Building genuinely new things, and why monopolies — not competition — create value.The Wealth of Nations — Adam Smith. The founding text of modern economics.The Intelligent Investor — Benjamin Graham. The classic on value investing and the margin of safety.Titan — Ron Chernow. The definitive life of John D. Rockefeller, history's first billionaire.The Charisma Myth — Olivia Fox Cabane. Charisma broken down into the learnable behaviors of presence, power, and warmth.Deep Work — Cal Newport. The value of distraction-free concentration in a fractured world.The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin — Benjamin Franklin. Franklin's account of self-improvement, industry, and a remarkable American life.Atomic Habits — James Clear. Tiny, compounding changes as the engine of remarkable results.The Hard Thing About Hard Things — Ben Horowitz. Honest advice on the brutal problems of building and running a company.Good to Great — Jim Collins. What separates companies that make the leap to greatness from those that don't.Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman. The two systems that drive how we think, judge, and err.The Machine That Changed the World — Womack, Jones & Roos. The book that first articulated lean production to the world.Emotional Intelligence — Daniel Goleman. Why emotional intelligence can matter more than IQ.Man's Search for Meaning — Viktor E. Frankl. Finding purpose through suffering, from a Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist.A Random Walk Down Wall Street — Burton G. Malkiel. The case for index investing and a skeptic's guide to beating the market.Good Strategy/Bad Strategy — Richard P. Rumelt. What real strategy is — and the fluff that masquerades as it.The Magic of Thinking Big — David Schwartz. How belief and the scale of your thinking shape your results.Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion — Robert B. Cialdini. The original classic on the six principles of persuasion.SPIN Selling — Neil Rackham. A research-backed questioning method for complex, high-value sales.Start with Why — Simon Sinek. How the greatest leaders inspire action by starting with purpose.Extreme Ownership — Willink & Babin. Navy SEAL principles on taking total responsibility to lead and win.Negotiation Genius — Malhotra & Bazerman. Harvard frameworks for negotiating brilliant outcomes at the table and beyond.The Lean Startup — Eric Ries. Build-measure-learn and validated learning for new ventures.The Power of Habit — Charles Duhigg. The science of how habits form — and how to change them.The Founder's Dilemmas — Noam Wasserman. The early people-and-equity decisions that make or break startups.