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Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

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Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#61
The Box by Marc Levinson is the incredible story of the dawn of containerized shipping.

It is a little shocking just how recently this happened (the very first experimental loads were in the 1950s), and that the standard of shipping before containers was for longshoremen to literally hand carry boxes of stuff onto ships and stuff them just anywhere. You would be stunned to realize just how new and unused the piers of San Francisco really are, because they were built with massive government subsidies at exactly the wrong time.

The book covers the courageous people involved, the political and economic impacts, and how the industry truly found its footing prioritizing absolutely reducing operational costs over all other concerns (like delivery speed).

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#63
If you want more entrepreneurial type stories.

When the heavens went on sale, by Ashly Vance, is pretty good. It details the early days of the space start-ups other than spaceX

The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley is also pretty good, describes the crazy days of early paypal.

Someone already mentioned Liftoff by Erig Berger. Starting a private space company is probably as hard as things get, and it describes the early days pretty well

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#66

The Soul of a New Machine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine

My main takeaway from reading that book was that working in tech in the late 70s was not that different from now days Just different technology/hardware/timescale Same workplace problems, personality types, company politics, etc... Did not expect to find it so relatable in 2024

There's at least one huge respect in which tech is different, at least in the USA: worker compensation.

In the book, Tracy Kidder writes repeatedly about how Data General (the company at the heart of the book) is proud of its austerity. It doesn't pay well. It's proud of having an ugly, austere, warehouse-like building. It puts its critical engineers in the windowless basement of this building. Kidder is describing a world that's very far from the FAANG of today, at least were compensation is concerned.

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#67
post #58

"The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York" by Robert Caro This is an incredibly long biography of a man who figured out how to build an urban empire. While he wasn't an "entrepreneur" per se, he figured out how to generate huge amounts of revenue via tolls/bridges, how to manage and manipulate public policy, and how to attract the best urban planning talent. ... and you can then read about how it all f…

The Power Broker is a superb choice for OP. This comment should be closer to the top of the thread.

Re: Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things

#70
Out of the Shadows By Jonathan Kingsman https://shepherd.com/book/out-of-the-shadows

Amazing book about the grain markets and how they have changed over the last 40 years.

"Once shadowy figures, grain merchants have now come out of the shadows. Almost everything that you eat or drink today will contain something bought, stored, transported, processed, shipped, distributed or sold by one of the seven giants of the agricultural supply chain. The media often refers to them as the ABCD group of international grain-trading companies, with ABCD standing for ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus. The acronym, though, ignores the other three giants of the food supply: Glencore, COFCO International and Wilmar. Together, they handle 50 percent of the international trade in grain and oilseeds. In this book’s series of exclusive and unprecedented interviews, CEOs and senior traders from these seven giants describe in their own words how the agricultural markets are changing, and how they are adapting to those changes."

The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket By Benjamin Lorr https://shepherd.com/book/the-secret-life-of-groceries

Five years of research really explains large swaths of our food system and how it changes what we eat.

You might like these as well:

The best unexpectedly enthralling books about seemingly boring things https://shepherd.com/best-books/good-books-about-seemingly-b...

The best books that make sense of how globalization broke down, and what happens next https://shepherd.com/best-books/globalization-breaks-down-wh...

*Features The Big Rig, a book about the American trucking industry and it's breakdown

Some good ones in there :)

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