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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

#431

Post by stonlyb »

list of (most of) the books mentioned in this thread so far. I tried reading every comment but used chatGPT instead.

1. The Big Rich - Texas oil boom.

2. Barbarians at the Gate - Private equity origins.

3. Masters of Doom - John Carmack and Id Software.

4. Einstein by Walter Isaacson - Einstein's discoveries.

5. Houdini!!! - The escape artist and magician.

6. The Double Helix - DNA discovery.

7. Stress Test by Tim Geithner - Financial crisis.

8. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl - Concentration camp survival.

9. The Chariots of Apollo - NASA's space program.

10. Across the Airless Wilds by Earl Swift - Development of the moon buggy.

11. Apollo: The Race to the Moon by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox - Apollo missions.

12. The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr - Food supply chains.

13. The Prize by Daniel Yergin - Oil industry evolution.

14. Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson - Ambitious wreck divers.

15. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes - Manhattan Project.

16. American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin - Robert Oppenheimer.

17. Conquistador by Buddy Levy - Hernán Cortés and the Aztecs.

18. Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner - Water infrastructure in the American West.

19. The Wright Brothers by David McCullough - The invention of flight.

20. Walt Disney by Neal Gabler - Vision and innovation in entertainment.

21. Tuxedo Park by Jennet Conant - Invention of radar.

22. Insisting on the Impossible - Edwin Land and instant photography.

23. The Logic of Failure - Understanding and avoiding failure.

24. The Big Short by Michael Lewis - 2008 financial crisis.

25. The Box by Marc Levinson - Shipping container revolution.

26. Latitude by Nicholas Crane - Cartography innovations.

27. When the Heavens Went on Sale by Ashlee Vance - Space startups.

28. The Founders by Jimmy Soni - PayPal's early days.

29. The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester - Precision engineering.

30. The Little Engine That Could - Children's classic.

31. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell - Success mechanics.

32. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - Founding of Nike.

33. Black Hole Blues by Janna Levin - Building LIGO.

34. Freedom’s Forge - WWII industry mobilization.

35. Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes - Electrification by Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse.

36. The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough - Panama Canal construction.

37. Annapurna by Maurice Herzog - Climbing a Himalayan peak.

38. Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder - Data General engineers.

39. Showstopper by G. Pascal Zachary - Development of Windows NT.

40. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand - WWII survival.

41. The Measure of All Things by Ken Alder - Defining the meter.

42. The Cuckoo’s Egg by Clifford Stoll - Tracking a hacker.

43. The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel - Srinivasa Ramanujan.

44. The Power Broker by Robert Caro - Robert Moses and New York infrastructure.

45. How Big Things Get Done - Large-scale project execution.

46. Dealers of Lightning by Michael A. Hiltzik - Xerox PARC.

47. Built by Roma Agrawal - Civil engineering insights.

48. The Will to Keep Winning by Daigo Umehara - Competitive gaming.

49. Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold - Low-temperature physics.

50. Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins - Apollo 11.

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

#432

Post by stonlyb »

stonlyb wrote: post #431

list of (most of) the books mentioned in this thread so far. I tried reading every comment but used chatGPT instead. 1. The Big Rich - Texas oil boom. 2. Barbarians at the Gate - Private equity origins. 3. Masters of Doom - John Carmack and Id Software. 4. Einstein by Walter Isaacson - Einstein's discoveries. 5. Houdini!!! - The escape artist and magician. 6. The Double Helix - DNA discovery. 7. Stress Test by Tim Ge…

51. The Dream Machine - A deep dive into the history of computing.

52. Mindstorms by Seymour Papert - Groundbreaking work on computers in education.

53. Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir by Don Eyles - The Apollo Guidance Computer.

54. Build by Tony Fadell - Memoir and innovation lessons.

55. Fall of Carthage by Adrian Goldsworthy - Punic Wars and Carthage's fall.

56. Making PCR - The story of polymerase chain reaction development.

57. Moonwalking with Einstein - Memory training and championship.

58. The Rickover Effect by Theodore Rockwell - First nuclear-powered submarine.

59. The Idea Factory - Bell Labs and American innovation.

60. Hackers by Steven Levy - History of computer hackers.

61. Fire in the Valley - Personal computing revolution.

62. Monk in the Garden - Life of Gregor Mendel.

63. Leadership Moment - Lessons from leaders in crises.

64. The Man Who Discovered Quality - W. Edwards Deming and quality management.

65. Eccentric Orbits - Iridium satellite network's rescue.

66. The Road to Character - Human nature and moral development.

67. The Spy and the Traitor - Soviet spy Oleg Gordievsky's story.

68. Billion Dollar Spy - Cold War espionage.

69. Skunk Works - Lockheed's F-117 and SR-71 programs.

70. Working by Robert Caro - Insights into Caro's research.

71. The Wager by David Grann - 18th-century British maritime disaster.

72. Caro's LBJ Series - Biography of Lyndon B. Johnson.

73. The Prize by Daniel Yergin - Oil industry history.

74. The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf - Alexander von Humboldt's contributions.

75. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou - Theranos scandal.

76. Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson - Memoir and business insights.

77. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz - Leadership lessons.

78. Billion Dollar Loser by Reeves Wiedeman - WeWork's rise and fall.

79. Tuxedo Park - Invention of radar during WWII.

80. Insisting on the Impossible - Edwin Land and instant photography.

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

#433

Post by stonlyb »

stonlyb wrote: post #432
stonlyb wrote: post #431

list of (most of) the books mentioned in this thread so far. I tried reading every comment but used chatGPT instead. 1. The Big Rich - Texas oil boom. 2. Barbarians at the Gate - Private equity origins. 3. Masters of Doom - John Carmack and Id Software. 4. Einstein by Walter Isaacson - Einstein's discoveries. 5. Houdini!!! - The escape artist and magician. 6. The Double Helix - DNA discovery. 7. Stress Test by Tim Ge…

51. The Dream Machine - A deep dive into the history of computing. 52. Mindstorms by Seymour Papert - Groundbreaking work on computers in education. 53. Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir by Don Eyles - The Apollo Guidance Computer. 54. Build by Tony Fadell - Memoir and innovation lessons. 55. Fall of Carthage by Adrian Goldsworthy - Punic Wars and Carthage's fall. 56. Making PCR - The story of polymerase chain…

81. Failure is Not an Option by Gene Kranz

82. Mrs. P’s Journey by Phyllis Pearsall

83. River of Doubt by Candice Millard

84. Longitude by Dava Sobel

85. Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg

86. The Last Viking - A biography of Roald Amundsen

87. The Wager by David Grann

88. Simply Fly by Captain G. R. Gopinath

89. Engines That Move Markets by Alasdair G. M. Nairn

90. The Education of Cyrus by Xenophon

91. Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram

92. Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton

93. How to Make a Spaceship by Julian Guthrie

94. West with the Night by Beryl Markham

95. The Age of Uncertainty by Tobias Hürter

96. American Steel by Richard Preston

97. Showstopper by G. Pascal Zachary

98. Eccentric Orbits by John Bloom

99. The Great Bridge by David McCullough

100. Loonshots by Safi Bahcall

101. The Art of Doing Science and Engineering by Richard Hamming

102. Where Wizards Stay Up Late by Katie Hafner

103. The Evening Star by Henry S. F. Cooper

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

#434

Post by silexia »

Autobiographies are far better than biographies here as the biographers typically have no clue as to what made the successful person successful.

The best autobiography I've ever read in terms of nuggets of wisdom is Sam Walton's made in America autobiography.

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

#435

Post by silexia »

hyperific wrote: post #287

"Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed" by Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos. Details, among other things, the engineering challenges faced during the development of the F-117 Nighthawk and the SR-71 Blackbird.

Excellent book about the strength of a free market and the extreme damage government bureaucrats cause.

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

#436

Post by computerthings »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #421
computerthings wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What hard proof is there of him doing something hard that you have expertise on? If he lies, so badly, so hilariously, about being good at video games -- apropos nobody caring whether he is -- what else is he lying about? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N-WW0UDrVQ As a YT comment on another video put it: > For anyone unfamiliar with Path of Exile 2, this is like someone pretending to be a grandmaster chess player no…

I don’t have expertise on much, so I’m not sure what to tell you there. Bragging about being good at a video game isn’t exactly a critique I really care about. Most people who surmount incredible odds aren’t normal, stable people so I don’t know what your point is. Also, SpaceX is proof that he’s done hard things. Again, all this is documented in the book. If you’re someone who cares about intellectual curiosity, you…

When someone claims they are a grandmaster in chess, and then talks about how the king is important ("you can tell because it's very tall")... and doesn't know how the rook moves, then yeah, if you never heard of chess, and can't be bothered to learn why that is so terribly telling, then you can indeed say nothing to that.

> Most people who surmount incredible odds aren’t normal, stable people so I don’t know what your point is.

The issue isn't "not being normal", that's not just moving the goal posts, that's throwing them away and saying "I don't see the problem". Fine, so you don't see it. Doesn't make it go away.

I asked for one thing you have evidence for him doing that you personally have expertise on. That's not "documented in the book", because you are not mentioned in the book.

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

#437

Post by insane_dreamer »

smsm42 wrote: post #425
throaway54 wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only real benefit is to the owners of Walmart though. Their food is not healthier, and their business impact is not better for local economies than what came before.

You can't have food that is at the same time cheap, healthy and at your doorstep. You can have two of them. Walmart gets you cheap and nearby. If you want healthy and nearby, go to Whole Foods and be prepared to stretch your wallet. Not everyone can afford it though.

You’re missing the point that Walmart destroyed all the other small local grocery options and other small stores that used to exist.

So yeah, TODAY all you have is Walmart garbage or expensive Whole Foods (in same places)

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

#438

Post by insane_dreamer »

kortilla wrote: post #427
insane_dreamer wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so what? it came at the expense of thousands of small businesses, destroyed hundreds of towns, and is one of the largest transfers of wealth in US history all to serve us up cheap garbage

You forget the massive benefit to everyone who shops there. It wrecked small businesses because the prices were lower for the same things.

So people were goi g hungry before Walmart came along? No, Walmart destroyed the local economies and so now people can only afford to shop at Walmart.

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

#439

Post by lobsterthief »

Jimmc414 wrote: post #154

Endurance - about Ernest Shackleton and his crew during their 1914-1916 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance:_Shackleton%27s_In...

That one is fantastic.

Also, _Abandoned_, which is about the [less fortunate] Greely expedition.

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

#440

Post by __alexander »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #38
ahazred8ta wrote: post #3

Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World http://www.simonwinchester.com/exactly Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book) Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd

The thing about Boyd that really resonated with me was. 1) Realizing that he was better at something than everyone else around him. 2) Figuring out what it was that was making him better. 3) Reducing it to practice, so it could be taught to others and refined to become even better. Amazing story.

Boyd’s contributions might seem impressive but he seemed like a disgusting human being. He was confrontational, chewed his nails, smoked cigars, made his family live in a tiny apartment so he could be close to work, etc. I can’t remember it all but I quit reading his biography 3/4s in because he just sounded like horrendous person.
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