Business
38 articles
6 Books on SaaS and Building a Business (Launch, Architecture, Sales, and Customers)
A reading list of 6 books for engineers who want to understand SaaS and new businesses: launching a SaaS, multi-tenant architecture, how sales and customer success work, and understanding customers with Lean Startup and Jobs Theory. Each entry links to its full review.
5 Books for Engineers on the Basics of Business Systems
A reading list of 5 books for learning the basics of business systems from an engineer's view: accounting, finance, inventory, production, and logistics. It groups the 'Knowledge and Skills of X Systems for Engineers' series by domain, and each entry links to its full review.
10 Books on Thinking and Intellectual Productivity for Engineers
A reading list of 10 books to sharpen an engineer's thinking and intellectual productivity: problem solving, logical thinking and communication, abstraction, and how to learn. Each entry links to its full review.
Creating Value in the Age of Generative AI
A review of Creating Value in the Age of Generative AI. Going beyond the tooling question of how to use generative AI, it addresses how to create value in the generative AI era from a practitioner's viewpoint. Organized around mindset, skills, data, and use cases, it centers on the thinking that connects technology to organizational and business outcomes.
Thinking in Systems: A Primer
A review of Thinking in Systems. A book by Donella Meadows, known as a classic of systems thinking. Around concepts like stocks and flows and feedback loops, it offers a way to see the world as a system of interrelated parts. It argues for finding the cause of problems in structure rather than individual elements, and for discerning leverage points.
Reading Platform Engineering Through Systems Thinking
Platform engineering and systems thinking seem to share a lot of ground. This post puts that hunch into words by applying stocks, flows, delays, archetypes, and leverage points to read platform behavior and the failures that keep recurring.
Systems Thinking Basics: Seeing the World as Stocks and Feedback
A plain-language tour of systems thinking based on Donella Meadows' Thinking in Systems: stocks, flows, feedback loops, archetypes, and leverage points.
Into the World of Systems Thinking: For Software Engineers Who Keep Thinking in an Increasingly Complex Era
A review of a book introducing systems thinking for software engineers. Written from the angle of how software engineers can bring systems thinking into their own work, it connects tools like stocks and flows, feedback loops, and leverage points to phenomena that arise in development and organizations.
The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists
A review of The Crux. A sequel by Richard P. Rumelt, author of Good Strategy, Bad Strategy. Of the prior book's diagnosis, guiding policy, and action, it digs especially into diagnosis: discerning the crux among tangled problems. It argues strategy is not about listing goals but about narrowing down the challenge to tackle.
Concrete and Abstract: The Mechanism of Intelligence that Changes How We See the World
A review of Concrete and Abstract. It focuses on the importance of abstract thinking and the contrast between two modes of thought, the concrete and the abstract. It gently unpacks a theme most people finish life without ever studying systematically, offering discoveries both for those who struggle with abstraction and those who naturally think in it.
Designing Questions: Facilitating Creative Dialogue
A review of Designing Questions: Facilitating Creative Dialogue. A book on how to frame and think about questions. From the view that a question's quality directly shapes the outcome's quality, it teaches how to draw out and discover questions beyond existing frames, a stimulating read for creativity.
Purpose-Driven Thinking
A review of Purpose-Driven Thinking. A book that explains how to produce results at work through the framework of purpose, goals, and means. From the view that policy, execution, and results depend on strategy, whose source is company culture, it helps you truly grasp the idea that culture eats strategy.
How to Read Books
A review of How to Read Books. It teaches both how to read and the attitude a reader should have. The 'inspectional reading' it describes-grasping each chapter's summary and the book's overall argument before diving in-stood out, and practicing it changes how easily and deeply you read. A reminder of the value of learning the process of reading.
The Art of Thought Organization
A review of The Art of Thought Organization. Though first published before the internet spread, its message, the value of thinking with your own head and not over-relying on knowledge, still resonates today. In an essay-like voice, it lays out a philosophy for organizing your thinking.
![Start with the Issue [Revised Edition] - The Simple Essence of Intellectual Production](/ogp/start-with-issues-revised.png)
Start with the Issue [Revised Edition] - The Simple Essence of Intellectual Production
A review of Start with the Issue (Revised Edition). A book that argues the importance of identifying the issue truly worth tackling rather than just solving a given question. It teaches that thinking deeply about the quality of the problem and starting from a valuable question shapes the quality of intellectual production.
How to Solve It
A review of How to Solve It. A classic that teaches broadly applicable problem-solving thinking using mathematics as its material. It drives home, again and again, the importance of first understanding the problem well and approaching it from many angles through trial and error.
Good Strategy, Bad Strategy
A review of Good Strategy, Bad Strategy. Through many examples, it clarifies the difference between good and bad strategy. Good strategy has a kernel of diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent action, concentrating strength; it also names the traits of bad strategy such as fluff and dodging the real problem, reminding you how vital it is to choose what not to do.
A Complete Guide to HR and Labor Practices
A review of a book that gives a complete picture of HR and labor practices. An introductory guide for broadly learning the practical work of human resources and labor administration in one volume, and a good foothold when you want to grasp the overall landscape of systems and procedures around HR.
Illustrated Introduction to Human Resource Management: 100 Tips on Theory and Practice for Those Who Want to Master HR Basics from Scratch
A review of Illustrated Introduction to Human Resource Management. A book that clearly organizes the basics of HR management as 100 'tips' from both theory and practice, with illustrations. A good introduction for those who want to grasp the whole picture of HR from scratch.
Revised 2nd Edition: A Quick Guide to Social Insurance and Labor Insurance Procedures
A review of A Quick Guide to Social Insurance and Labor Insurance Procedures (Revised 2nd Edition). A book for quickly looking up and learning the filings and procedures for social and labor insurance. Even as the variety of forms and frequency of legal changes can be overwhelming, it helps you grasp the practical essentials fast.