Notes and insights from books on growth, product, and startups. These notes are AI generated using my own highlights as input.
Decades of academic research on persuasion distilled into practical techniques. People dramatically underestimate how much others' behavior influences their own decisions—this gap between self-perception and reality is why so many persuasion attempts fail.
Will and Ariel Durant compress thousands of years of human experience into recurring patterns, arguing that civilizations rise and fall not because humans change, but because human nature does not.
A systematic approach to strength training covering loading parameters like reps, sets, tempo, rest, and frequency for optimal muscle and strength development.
A framework for understanding and creating products that form user habits through the Hook Model of triggers, actions, variable rewards, and investment.
Contrarian thinking about building startups that create new things rather than competing in existing markets.
The foundational framework for building startups through validated learning and rapid iteration.
A collection of valuable insights gleaned from Naval's tweets, blog posts, and podcasts with principles of wealth creation.
A solid book about entrepreneurship with ideas around building money systems and leveraging your time to create passive income.
Helps you unleash the power of psychology to design engaging and delightful user experiences.
Teaches how to make powerful decisions, change beliefs, use emotions, and set compelling goals for personal growth.
A memoir about Sivers' experience building and selling CD Baby for $22m. Plenty of against-the-grain startup advice.
Timeless advice on reading great books, building true friendships, and why we should avoid attention seeking.
Thoroughly researched strategies and tactics to ramp up skill acquisition.
Useful pointers to help us speak more confidently and persuasively.
Some fantastic nuggets of wisdom from one of the pioneers of modern advertising.
Advertising principles include: Informative ads, research, clear positioning, consistent brand image, big ideas, product-centric approach, and avoiding design by committee.
Emphasizes the subjectivity of life's meaning, the importance of contributing to others, and the role of early experiences in shaping our outlook on life.
Explores the key principles for finding true happiness and love by challenging common false beliefs and attachments that hinder personal growth and fulfillment.
Emphasizes the power of priming, attention, and framing in persuasive communication. By strategically guiding attention and using psychological principles, individuals and organizations can increase their effectiveness.
How to make offers so good people feel stupid saying no. A systematic approach to creating irresistible offers through pricing, value, guarantees, and positioning.
Jordan Peterson's transformative guide to finding meaning and order in chaos through personal responsibility, truth-telling, and the courage to stand tall in life's dominance hierarchy.
A provocative exploration of how psychological perception and 'magical' solutions often outperform purely logical ones. Sutherland argues that in human affairs, context, meaning, and perception matter more than pure efficiency.
A practical guide to angel investing in startups, revealing how to identify great founders, evaluate opportunities, structure deals, and build a portfolio that can generate outsized returns.
Tiny changes, remarkable results. Small, consistent improvements compound over time to create extraordinary outcomes through systematic behavior change.
A comprehensive guide to building products, teams, and companies, grounded in lessons from creating the iPod, building Nest, and working at Apple.
Understand the psychology of buyer behavior and the different customer decision-making styles that drive purchasing choices. Learn how to identify and cater to detail-oriented buyers who fear making wrong decisions.
A comprehensive guide to converting website visitors through persuasive design, emotional connection, and customer-centric strategies that transcend features to unlock genuine buying decisions.
Why things catch on. Six principles explain why certain products and ideas become popular: Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories.
Discover how to unlock your creative potential by building belief in your ability to create change. Creative Confidence reveals practical methods to overcome fear, embrace experimentation, and develop the mindset of innovation leaders like Steve Jobs.
A revolutionary approach to sales that focuses on understanding customer demand from their perspective rather than pushing products. The key to effective selling is making customers feel smart, not stupid.
In our dopamine-saturated world, the relentless pursuit of pleasure paradoxically leads to pain. Lembke reveals how understanding the brain's pleasure-pain balance and practicing strategic abstinence can restore our capacity for joy and meaningful living.
A comprehensive biography exploring how Elon Musk's childhood trauma, relentless drive, and unconventional thinking shaped him into one of the world's most transformative entrepreneurs, willing to risk everything to advance humanity's future.
The disciplined pursuit of less. Not about how to get more things done, but how to get the right things done by making the wisest investment of your time and energy.
Master the art of persuasion through carefully chosen words and phrases that trigger psychological responses and guide conversations toward your desired outcomes.
A philosophical exploration of two distinct approaches to existence: finite games played to win with predetermined outcomes, and infinite games played to continue with the perpetual possibility of transformation and growth.
A customer-led growth framework that replaces traditional marketing funnels with a data-driven approach centered on understanding your best customers' real experiences and desired outcomes.
Time management for mortals. If you live eighty years, you have approximately four thousand weeks. Conventional productivity culture promises an escape from finitude that's fundamentally impossible.
Discover how successful startups find exponential growth by shifting from optimization mode to discovery mode, focusing on finding the few high-leverage actions that drive massive customer acquisition.
A practical guide to rapid-fire experimentation and cross-functional growth teams that drive sustainable user acquisition and retention through data-driven testing.
Delivers a straightforward and practical guide to wealth accumulation. It stresses the importance of commitment, execution, and persistence, while cautioning against the perils of wealth and reckless behavior.
A classic guide to becoming a more demanding reader by matching your reading approach to your goal and engaging actively with difficult texts.
The psychology of persuasion. Human behavior often follows automatic patterns and mental shortcuts. Understanding these principles helps recognize when they're being used on us.
A framework for creating memorable ideas that emphasizes finding essence while creating surprise and engagement.
The new psychology of success. Your beliefs about your abilities profoundly shape your life trajectory—fixed mindset limits potential while growth mindset unlocks it.
A flaw in human judgment. Decision-making errors stem equally from bias and noise, yet noise receives less attention. This book explores how to reduce unwanted variability in decisions.
Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Design is never neutral—every element shapes behavior. Tiny details create outsized behavioral impacts through attention focus.
A practical guide focused on positioning technology products effectively. Positioning establishes context enabling customers to understand and compare new products against existing reference points.
Evidence-based advertising principles underlie persuasion. Experimentation is the bedrock of knowledge about these principles. Management is far behind medicine—managers rely on gut feelings rather than evidence.
A collection of Munger's philosophy emphasizing mental models, disciplined thinking, and systematic self-improvement for wealth-building and decision-making.
Why generalists triumph in a specialized world. Broad experience and diverse thinking are more valuable than early, narrow focus in developing problem-solving skills and creativity.
A practical guide to UX design for non-designers with actionable tips for elevating design skills.
A memoir of Phil Knight's journey building Nike from a small idea into a global athletic brand, exploring ambition, resilience, and the willingness to pursue an unconventional path.
A candid guide to the brutal reality of running a startup, covering wartime leadership, building culture, managing people, and making impossible decisions when there is no formula.
A nice counterbalance to the 'stay positive' self-help nonsense that's all too common in our culture. Manson challenges conventional wisdom by advocating acceptance of life's struggles as essential to meaningful living.
Why small changes create big results. Behavior change happens through tiny actions anchored to existing routines and supported by celebration, not through motivation.
A comprehensive guide to building sustainable growth for startups by balancing product development with strategic traction channels.
A solid breakdown of Amazon's core operating principles. Very high signal.