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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

#301

Post by nickff »

neves wrote: post #255
akudha wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid, I read about Jack Welch and thought he was great. Later I learned of all the shenanigans he pulled, not just unethical, but illegal stuff. And the way he trampled people. Bill Gates is a respected philanthropist today, he too did all kinds of shady, ruthless stuff to get to the top. Everywhere I look, same story - Amazon, Facebook, Google... The only big company I think is okay is Costco - either th…

USA culture has this idolatry for the Rich that looks like what the aristocracy always did: my "beloved" king, the kind princess... Like the philanthropy of the robber barons that made them respectable, but when they are still alive. I prefer the French approach to take care of aristocrats.

The French Revolution led to quite poor results for those fortunate enough to survive it. You might prefer the approach, but I doubt you’d enjoy the aftermath.

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

#302

Post by srinath10 »

The co-founder of Autodesk, John Walker, chronicled the company's journey from founding through IPO and beyond: https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/

I haven't read all of it (~900 pages), but he seems like an honest man, humble with minimal ego, who doesn't sugarcoat the challenges of building a business from scratch as a non-business guy. He also includes internal memos and the like, so you do get a feel for the "mechanics" of company-building.

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

#303

Post by hundredwatt »

deanebarker wrote: post #254

"Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea" is the story of a shipwreck discovery that has always enthralled me. I've read it three times, and I'm so inspired about all the challenges they solved along the way. (Note: the hero of the story went a little crazy in recent years. Hid from the law for a long time, and I think he just died... but still, the book itself is amazing.)

+100000

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

#304

Post by jppope »

akudha wrote: post #211
mmkos wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my problem with a lot of the literature on building successful businesses. They all seem to be offering a white glove path and don't talk about all the tactics ranging from shady to downright illegal that helped many of the biggest companies today to be where they are now.

When I was a kid, I read about Jack Welch and thought he was great. Later I learned of all the shenanigans he pulled, not just unethical, but illegal stuff. And the way he trampled people. Bill Gates is a respected philanthropist today, he too did all kinds of shady, ruthless stuff to get to the top. Everywhere I look, same story - Amazon, Facebook, Google... The only big company I think is okay is Costco - either th…

Theres a ton of ethical wealthy people, you just have no clue who they are because they are playing a different game and don't want the spotlight.

Whats the shady ruthless stuff from Google? They've obviously started running their business differently after the easy growth went away, but I've never heard anyone be like: they made me pee in a bottle because going to the bathroom was too much time off the line.

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

#305

Post by ryandrake »

alentred wrote: post #135

I think that "people who did hard things" fall on a spectrum between these two extremities: - someone who got lucky - someone who invested an unfathomable amount of time to their craftsmanship or to their beliefs Of course it is not black and white, and even luck mostly requires hard work in the first place, which I admire (and if you find your luck - hold to it!, nothing wrong with that), but you get the gist. I gue…

The books about people who did hard things and spent an unfathomable amount of time on them, but failed and never became known for anything--generally don't get written. It's hard for me to take any "hard work success story" as prescriptive. It's mostly survivorship bias.

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

#306

Post by fifilura »

digikata wrote: post #28
rednafi wrote: post #7

“South: The Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition, 1914–1917” by Sir Ernest Shackleton. Here, Shackleton documents the journey of the Endurance expedition, which aimed to traverse Antarctica but instead became a legendary tale of survival after the ship was trapped and destroyed by pack ice.

Related and also a good read is "The Roald Amundsen Diaries : The South Pole Expedition 1910-1912". You can see the ship he used on the expedition, the Fram at the appropriately named, Fram Museum in Oslo. It's an incredible experience to see and contemplate the expeditions these explorers mounted, and what equipment and resources they assembled to do it at a very early time. https://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/97…

Moreover, you can walk around inside the ship and see the cabins they lived in, indeed an incredible, immersive experience.

Came here to say that Amundsen is a great example of someone who did hard things and made them look easy. Nansen also. And Shackleton, although he didn't make them look easy...

Basically everything written by Roland Huntford about polar exploration is great inspiration. The Last Place on Earth covers Amundsen and Scott (the latter who did difficult things and made them look hard and died.)

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

#307

Post by gullywhumper »

gcj wrote: post #259

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption Zamperini's life was a series of hard things. Going to the Olympics, surviving a plane crash, then 47 days at sea, then a Japanese concentration camp ... Very well written as well

EB Sledge - With the Old Breed is the account of a combat infantryman in WWII in the Pacific. It's about the fear, misery, and despair soldiers faced as they struggled to survive the horrors of war. It was the basis for HBO's The Pacific (successor to Band of Brothers).

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

#308

Post by markus_zhang »

ghaff wrote: post #229
markus_zhang wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Showstopper is a must read for anyone who is interested in living a pure engineering life. David Cutler is one of my heroes and I'll quote: "What I really wanted to do was work on computers, not apply them to problems" I'd also recommend listening to his interviews on YouTube. There are two long interviews, one by David's Garage and the other by CHM. Both very long and inspiring so I keep going back to them when I'm…

If we're recommending Showstopper (which I do), I'd add Soul of a New Machine about Data General, where I worked for many years--but a bit later.

I have read that too, twice. I love the part that they talked about the microcode, and all others too. Maybe you should write a post about your experience too :) I'm sure it's going to be a blast to read.

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

#309

Post by Anon84 »

JohnMakin wrote: post #274
jll29 wrote: post #115

Reading some of these books recommended here, perhaps the most shocking thing is that so much is due to randomness: an arbitrary person does something small that turns out to be on the critical path, and without it the big thing would not get completed. I like the kind of books recommended here, but please be aware of survivor's bias (there not many books about failures! Any great recommendations? "How we could NOT g…

If you're interested in a book about massive failure - read the story of Donald Crowhurst (The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst is the book, there is also a documentary out there). It's hard to tell much without spoiling it, but basically, a highly publicized sailing competition was sponsored in the mid 20th century to see who could be the first person in history to solo circumnavigate the globe with a sailboa…

The 2018 biopic is also absolutely gorgeous: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3319730/plotsummary/

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

#310

Post by ryandrake »

oc_elder wrote: post #265

I find the The Jim Collins books to be insightful. Good to Great. Built to Last, etc. Focuses on how the organizations are constructed and tries to divine principles that are true across time.

Unfortunately, Good To Great is 300 pages of survivorship bias. It picks a group of companies that succeeded, and a group that failed, and then after the fact looks back to try to find what the survivors had in common. I don't know how you come out of that with any prescriptive steps on how to succeed.

It's like having a classroom stand up and flip a coin, ask everyone who flipped tails to sit down, repeat the process until there's only a few people standing, and then interview them to try to understand what makes them good heads-flippers.

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