Ask HN: Which books made you the most money?
Most wealth creation books are fluff. I wonder of there are any good books out there that have directly contributed to your wealth building endeavors. Which books have helped you make more money.
91 comments
The Startup Owner's Manual.
It's a classic, but for some reason not too popular. As the subtitle says, there are literally step-by-step instructions on how to build a great company. It's a little dry. It's a 600 page book. And checklists can be intimidating.
I didn't even read the whole thing, but it shows how the process is more like R&D than gambling, and removes any doubt. I feel like a lot of modern startup "advice" was pulled from this book and mutated beyond recognition, becoming more like cargo cult.
It's a classic, but for some reason not too popular. As the subtitle says, there are literally step-by-step instructions on how to build a great company. It's a little dry. It's a 600 page book. And checklists can be intimidating.
I didn't even read the whole thing, but it shows how the process is more like R&D than gambling, and removes any doubt. I feel like a lot of modern startup "advice" was pulled from this book and mutated beyond recognition, becoming more like cargo cult.
as Steve Blank's co-author, I must comment that building a startup is NOT gambling...his and my work and book are often discussed as "applying the scientific metnod to starups..." have a hypothesis, develop a test to prove or disprove it, run the test, read the results, iterate and test again...It is a serious, demanding process that has generated many millions in value for thousands of startups around the world. There is no other process so detailed and granular in its step-by-step process. And luck is at best a trivial influence on startup success...lean methods conceived by steve and in our book are a a far better alternative to the startup casino...
> removes any doubt
When you say this, I'm not sure if you mean that the book:
A. Removes doubt from the things that are genuinely simple and straightforward, freeing your mental energy to focus on the complex dynamic uncertain parts.
B. Deceives you into thinking there is a cookie-cutter solution to be applied without concern for uncertainty and risk.
When you say this, I'm not sure if you mean that the book:
A. Removes doubt from the things that are genuinely simple and straightforward, freeing your mental energy to focus on the complex dynamic uncertain parts.
B. Deceives you into thinking there is a cookie-cutter solution to be applied without concern for uncertainty and risk.
That's a typo/mistranslation, but the edit button was disabled by the time I noticed it. I meant to say it removes anxiety, and didn't mean to say "any". It answers most questions in the product discovery/PMF stage.
But that's a good question. IMO, there's two chaotic things humans have to deal with - war and software. Both of these adopt a lot of processes to deal with all the chaos.
There's an interesting military anecdote by Joel Spolsky. If you're at a mine field, you stop. If you're being shot at, you charge at the enemy, while shooting back. If you're in a mine field and being shot at, which do you do? You charge and shoot because stopping will just get you picked on one by one. These rules are thought out in advance, so everyone knows what to do in the situation.
The book is similar, but for startups. It feels rigid, but it tells you the next step. So my answer is A.
But that's a good question. IMO, there's two chaotic things humans have to deal with - war and software. Both of these adopt a lot of processes to deal with all the chaos.
There's an interesting military anecdote by Joel Spolsky. If you're at a mine field, you stop. If you're being shot at, you charge at the enemy, while shooting back. If you're in a mine field and being shot at, which do you do? You charge and shoot because stopping will just get you picked on one by one. These rules are thought out in advance, so everyone knows what to do in the situation.
The book is similar, but for startups. It feels rigid, but it tells you the next step. So my answer is A.
Is this the one by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf? Must have dismissed it due to all the other junk in the "Startup Entrepreneur" space. Does it have a good section on Finance/Funding?
Yeah, that one. It stops right before funding though. Their definition of startup is "a temporary organization in search of a scalable, repeatable, profitable business model."
So by the time they reach the funding stage, they're no longer a startup. The emphasis of the book is more on how to create a company that's easy to fund.
So by the time they reach the funding stage, they're no longer a startup. The emphasis of the book is more on how to create a company that's easy to fund.
I'm more broke than most people here.
But "Investing for Dummies" teached me many valuable lessons. I read it when I was ~15 so it was my first insight into economics, business, and investing. It's well written and digestable.
But "Investing for Dummies" teached me many valuable lessons. I read it when I was ~15 so it was my first insight into economics, business, and investing. It's well written and digestable.
Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment
Read through it, worked many of the examples. Had a 20 bump in salary.
Read through it, worked many of the examples. Had a 20 bump in salary.
Is that $20k or 20x? Could legitimately see either.
Lol. 20k.
I was a competent programmer and a Linux user, but system stuff always seemed like black magic.
With this book I was able to tackle much harder problems
I was a competent programmer and a Linux user, but system stuff always seemed like black magic.
With this book I was able to tackle much harder problems
I'd be interested in the details of how reading a book and doing examples impacted your salary.
Holy crap I have that book. Can you elaborate more? I’m learning C right now for a variety of reasons but I didn’t think learning posix c would bump my value as a web dev.
One example was being able to write native gems so that I integrate ruby directly with other C based services.
Writing ruby code that directly interacts with mail servers, databases in a thread safe manor was quite useful.
Like learning assembly, sometimes it’s not directly useful, but it does make you write better code; since you understand more of what’s under the hood.
Like learning assembly, sometimes it’s not directly useful, but it does make you write better code; since you understand more of what’s under the hood.
In which chapter was this again? And which edition?
A Random Walk Down Wall Street.
Definitely has to be Cracking the Coding Interview for me
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle
Like
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Kill Everyone: Advanced Strategies for No-Limit Hold Em Poker.
Never turned much of profit at the poker table, but the life-lessons in that book have been invaluable.
Never turned much of profit at the poker table, but the life-lessons in that book have been invaluable.
Never split the difference has saved me 10's of thousands across negotiations.
I read this too. I never got a chance to really apply it.
> I read this too. I never got a chance to really apply it.
I'm in the same boat. I often wonder how negotiations go where both sides have read the book and use the same tactics...
I'm in the same boat. I often wonder how negotiations go where both sides have read the book and use the same tactics...
I think that could be a problem if they are playing games using tactics from other books.
I think I remember this book as basing your negotiation off of what both sides value. This should lead to near-fair value for both sides. Of course that's not going to happen often (if ever) in the real world. I think the book even mentioned that its strategy is still valid even if the other side has read it.
I think I remember this book as basing your negotiation off of what both sides value. This should lead to near-fair value for both sides. Of course that's not going to happen often (if ever) in the real world. I think the book even mentioned that its strategy is still valid even if the other side has read it.
I don’t think that’s a problem. The tactics aren’t all zero sum. For example just talking to the other party to find out what they want other than the main thing they’re asking for.
The first time I used it I lost out on a dream house I wanted to buy. I’m pretty sure I cut the asking price by about 50k with my low initial offer. But I was so over confident that the seller wanted to sell to me over the others that I didn’t take the hint from the agent who was telling me all I had to do was offer a tiny bit more. You live and learn.
one of the most amazing books i've read. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially students out of university. It's helped me grow in my corp.
Deep Learning (by Aaron Courville, Ian Goodfellow, and Yoshua Bengio)
Read cover to cover, then applied these techniques to Crypto Markets (turns out, crypto markets are pretty inneficient)
Interesting. Do your trading strategies still work, or has the market become too efficient? Did you ever trade in a bear market, and by how much did you beat returns on holding just BTC and ETH?
We have experience trading since march 2020, so no proper experience in a bear market. We deployed our first algos with nontrivial amounts (> 100usd) the night before the march crash. And yes we did get rekt that night :)
Trading strategies work. That it still works is a huge mystery to me. We did beat BTC, we have no long/short bias, and are doing the best during volatile periods (up or down)
You may be interested in earning money from your models with stocks at https://numer.ai, if you don’t already know about it.
I hate reading comments like this because it always causes me to waste a week dabbling in jupyter notebooks with bitcoin data before realizing it's probably far too much work for me. Happens every 10 months, on average. I know it's 99% data cleansing to arrive at a "true" price through the noise. How to do that, I don't know.
I assume if you had consistent success you were doing more than time series forecasting on prices. Any chance you can elaborate a bit about what were the model inputs and outputs?
Liar's Poker. It spurred my interest in investing topics, which made me take the phone call from a D. E. Shaw & Co. recruiter, which gave 25 year-old me's income a step-function up and an increase in the slope over time.
It's also an amazingly enjoyable and engaging read.
It's also an amazingly enjoyable and engaging read.
Can you explain more about the connection between the book and being recruited?
It's maybe tenuous. I certainly wasn't recruited by them because I read the book almost a decade earlier, but I answered their call and listened to their pitch because of it.
It was the first book I read on investing (if you can call it that) and got me interested in the general topic. That led me to consuming a lot more information on the subject and knowing who/what D. E. Shaw was when they called in 1997. I'd have turned them down just like all the other recruiters who would dial all of our extensions in numerical order back then. (You could literally hear the phones ring in sequence as sourcers just called all the phones and didn't even know who was on the other end. They just knew we had a bunch of programmers and placing programmers was easy and paid well.)
Reading the book [and subsequent books] probably did help me to have a better grasp of the subject of trading during the interviews, so in that regard it also helped indirectly.
It was the first book I read on investing (if you can call it that) and got me interested in the general topic. That led me to consuming a lot more information on the subject and knowing who/what D. E. Shaw was when they called in 1997. I'd have turned them down just like all the other recruiters who would dial all of our extensions in numerical order back then. (You could literally hear the phones ring in sequence as sourcers just called all the phones and didn't even know who was on the other end. They just knew we had a bunch of programmers and placing programmers was easy and paid well.)
Reading the book [and subsequent books] probably did help me to have a better grasp of the subject of trading during the interviews, so in that regard it also helped indirectly.
Options as a Strategic Investment by Lawrence G. McMillan introduced me to the wonderful world of selling covered calls on my long term holds as well as many of the ins and outs of options wrangling in general.
would you sell covered calls on crypto or only stocks?
Sun Tzu - The Art of War
From negotiations to strategy my boy Sun Tzu has never let me down.
From negotiations to strategy my boy Sun Tzu has never let me down.
The inner game of tennis
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP)
None.
On the other hand, writing and selling a wealth creation book could work. Better to sell the miners their shovels than be a miner yourself.
On the other hand, writing and selling a wealth creation book could work. Better to sell the miners their shovels than be a miner yourself.
I (a musician) once bought a book called "The Art of Self-Promotion for Musicians", written by an ex-musician! and have since noticed similar phenomena in many fields e.g. bloggers blogging about the courses they sell on making money by blogging etc.
p.s. There was a talk in my city once about making money as a musician...but I couldn't afford the entry fee.
p.s. There was a talk in my city once about making money as a musician...but I couldn't afford the entry fee.
Before the internet, you'd see ads in the paper or back of magazines on how to make $200/week stuffing envelopes. The jist was take out an ad in the paper charging people 5$ for info on how to make money stuffing envelopes.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
It's by no means a great book, but it covers the basics, it's accessible, and I read it at just about the right time around 18 years of age.
Something better / more modern might be:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/317640/the-index-ca...
Learning the basics of accounting goes a long way too.
Unfortunately, you also need to read up a little bit on the gory details of taxes and deductions, pension schemes, etc in your country, and that stuff changes all the time, so the books and knowledge rapidly gets out of date - you want to try not to get distracted by the minutiae of that, and focus on accounting, assets and liabilities, income and expenses.
It's by no means a great book, but it covers the basics, it's accessible, and I read it at just about the right time around 18 years of age.
Something better / more modern might be:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/317640/the-index-ca...
Learning the basics of accounting goes a long way too.
Unfortunately, you also need to read up a little bit on the gory details of taxes and deductions, pension schemes, etc in your country, and that stuff changes all the time, so the books and knowledge rapidly gets out of date - you want to try not to get distracted by the minutiae of that, and focus on accounting, assets and liabilities, income and expenses.
Steer clear of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. It is a fun read, and it does contain some good advice. But the author lies about his past, and the origin and quantity of his wealth, and the book also contains dangerous and illegal advice.
I suggest The Millionaire Next Door as a better book.
A good takedown of Rich Dad from John T Reed:
https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-invest...
I suggest The Millionaire Next Door as a better book.
A good takedown of Rich Dad from John T Reed:
https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-real-estate-invest...
I'm sorry but no. I read a lot of books where the narrative is a lie in order to tell a story. It does not make the message wrong.
I also read Rich/Poor dad around 18 and it had a profound impact. I understood how should I think about money, I understood what cashflow is, how companies different from simple humans in terms of tax and a tonns of stuff like that. It's just a good introduction to basic finance for those who don't have a clue.
I also read Rich/Poor dad around 18 and it had a profound impact. I understood how should I think about money, I understood what cashflow is, how companies different from simple humans in terms of tax and a tonns of stuff like that. It's just a good introduction to basic finance for those who don't have a clue.
Turns out the author has had three bankrupt business!
Easier to sell get rich quick advice than to actually get rich it seems.
Easier to sell get rich quick advice than to actually get rich it seems.
Seems you fail to grasp that the overwhelming majority of business ventures are destined to fail. It's the production of successful and profitable ventures that matter.
Read about Walt Disney's bankruptcies and failures. Should we conclude the same about him?
https://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/5535/marketing/...
Read about Walt Disney's bankruptcies and failures. Should we conclude the same about him?
https://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/5535/marketing/...
A business bankruptcy doesn't necessarily affect personal wealth, and can create a nice tax loss
Good book I'm reading now is "Invent & Wonder" -The collected writings of Jeff Bezos.
A whole lot of the ventures or projects explored by Amazon were complete failures and lost money. Says to embrace it. The winners more than make up for the losers.
A whole lot of the ventures or projects explored by Amazon were complete failures and lost money. Says to embrace it. The winners more than make up for the losers.
preach
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
How so? (Did you write it?)
Thomas Kuhn died in 1996, so, can't be this user.
The few times I've encountered people talking about Kuhn and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was in the context of religious people taking the point of the book to be that "science" thinks one thing for a long time, until it suddenly doesn't, and then suddenly "science" thinks another, different thing when some rebel comes along with new ideas (e.g. Copernicus and heliocentrism), and then they use this gloss as a justification to ignore any science that contradicts whatever weird beliefs they're currently defending.
Not to suggest this is what's happening in this case, but "religion" was the first thing that popped into my mind when contemplating how one might attempt to make a lot of money from ideas in that book.
But I might just have had bad luck in my encounters with people talking about Kuhn and his book.
The few times I've encountered people talking about Kuhn and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was in the context of religious people taking the point of the book to be that "science" thinks one thing for a long time, until it suddenly doesn't, and then suddenly "science" thinks another, different thing when some rebel comes along with new ideas (e.g. Copernicus and heliocentrism), and then they use this gloss as a justification to ignore any science that contradicts whatever weird beliefs they're currently defending.
Not to suggest this is what's happening in this case, but "religion" was the first thing that popped into my mind when contemplating how one might attempt to make a lot of money from ideas in that book.
But I might just have had bad luck in my encounters with people talking about Kuhn and his book.
Everyone Poops
How To Get Rich - by Felix Dennis
It was so long ago and I forgot the book’s name. But the gist of it is the reason why most advice fails is they assume we can devote all of our time to advice X. Most of us have extremely busy lives. Our energy. Our time. Our focus is our most precious asset. We need to carefully manage it. At the same time we have to prevent falling into an echo chamber and always honestly be willing to listen to differing opinions even if we disagree with them.
This is exactly why The Richest Man in Babylon has been a best seller for 100 years.
A handful of core rules presented as friendly parables.
A handful of core rules presented as friendly parables.
No BS Wealth Attraction In The New Economy by Dan Kennedy
"The Motley Fool Investment Guide", from 1996, not because it's particularly great (it's not), but because it got me into regular, sustained investing over time, and was where I first encountered the quote (mis?)attributed to Einstein: "compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe."
Benjamin Graham - Intelligent Investor
It's what got me into fundamental analysis, which after investing for more than a decade had definitely a positive impact on how I allocate money etc.
It isn't a modern book by any means and there might be much better alternatives, but I've started to build some reasoning around assets and get excited about investing.
It's what got me into fundamental analysis, which after investing for more than a decade had definitely a positive impact on how I allocate money etc.
It isn't a modern book by any means and there might be much better alternatives, but I've started to build some reasoning around assets and get excited about investing.
> It isn't a modern book by any means and there might be much better alternatives
It allowed me to buy value stocks around March 2020, because I believed they were undervalued. So I'd say his methodology is as relevant as ever during market crashes.
It allowed me to buy value stocks around March 2020, because I believed they were undervalued. So I'd say his methodology is as relevant as ever during market crashes.
Its a great book - i read it up to the point where it said that index trackers could give good rates of return without the effort.
The other good book was bogleheads
The other good book was bogleheads
Excel Power Programming with VBA, by John Walkenbach
It's what pushed me into programming and eventually data science in other languages, which led to a significant push in my career.
That's not to say that you should read this book, but instead a remark on how adding high-demand skills to my skillset made me more money than any of the side-hustles or hobbies I've ever tried.
It's what pushed me into programming and eventually data science in other languages, which led to a significant push in my career.
That's not to say that you should read this book, but instead a remark on how adding high-demand skills to my skillset made me more money than any of the side-hustles or hobbies I've ever tried.
Took an excel course while in college because it met a requirement.
I had a manager come up to me and show me his spreadsheet has spent a week building. (He was very proud)
I asked him why he didn’t use a pivot table and in a few seconds I had re-create it is exact report from the same source data.
I was involved in pretty much every high-level decision and a major corporation for several years there after because of that.
I had a manager come up to me and show me his spreadsheet has spent a week building. (He was very proud)
I asked him why he didn’t use a pivot table and in a few seconds I had re-create it is exact report from the same source data.
I was involved in pretty much every high-level decision and a major corporation for several years there after because of that.
showing quick value like this has also propelled me, its great how much trust you can gain when you help someone out.
I agree with the general of idea of learning high-demand skills, only I always found it to be a bit of a chicken and egg problem:
I have no (interesting) problems to solve with VBA/Vim/Powershell/Keras/Never Split the Difference-style negotiation in my day-to-day work or not enough fantasy to conjure these up in my private studies.
The lack of experience then disqualifies me for roles where I would be confronted with these (interesting) problems. Never understood how to learn intricate stuff inside a void of direct applicability
I have no (interesting) problems to solve with VBA/Vim/Powershell/Keras/Never Split the Difference-style negotiation in my day-to-day work or not enough fantasy to conjure these up in my private studies.
The lack of experience then disqualifies me for roles where I would be confronted with these (interesting) problems. Never understood how to learn intricate stuff inside a void of direct applicability
In this case, the chicken is the current job from the vantage point of which you see similar jobs to your own that also require a specific skill in addition to what you already know
The egg would be the effort you expend on that skill to meet the basic requirements of the interview for such jobs
The new chicken borne out of this would be you learning on the job and carrying on from the fundamentals you've learned to get the job
The egg would be the effort you expend on that skill to meet the basic requirements of the interview for such jobs
The new chicken borne out of this would be you learning on the job and carrying on from the fundamentals you've learned to get the job
Thanks for the input! I'm going to reflect on this.
> I have no (interesting) problems to solve with [...]
In fact, what pushed me into VBA was when $manager thought I would be a good fit to learn it, and gave me the book! I was a lucky case, as the new skills ended up being immediately required.
In fact, what pushed me into VBA was when $manager thought I would be a good fit to learn it, and gave me the book! I was a lucky case, as the new skills ended up being immediately required.
"Jesus' Terrible Financial Advice". I was morally hung up/worried about making money, becoming wealthy. Odd I know but for me this was a big deal. This book highlighted the fact the bible doesn't teach us to persue wealth or purposely try and make ourselves poor. Now my thoughts are in order I am happy to work hard and not be hung up on outcomes. The freedom in my thinking helped as I left my job and went out on my own. I earn a lot more now. Maybe I won't next year. Either way hopefully I will be happy.
The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. It helped me in my early career right after graduation and influenced my career trajectory thereafter. I haven't lived up to the ideal that is set out in the book but it has been a guiding light.
Effective Java : Joshua Bloch
In my 23s (2008) when I started my career as a Java Developer it was Effective Java. Applying that rules and talking about them with other colleagues makes me better and self-confident developer which other noticed. That leads to better salary negotiations in the future (and my job made me most money). After 10+ years it still helps, because I work mostly in enterprise environments when maturity is way lower and at the same time nowadays lot of juniors joining java community and they are even more junior than I was back in my start of career.
For me there is no better way for your wealth building than real knowledge. Learn hard skills, nurture soft skills, work smart. Lot of investment opportunities are just gambling (with money of naive people), choose wisely.
In my 23s (2008) when I started my career as a Java Developer it was Effective Java. Applying that rules and talking about them with other colleagues makes me better and self-confident developer which other noticed. That leads to better salary negotiations in the future (and my job made me most money). After 10+ years it still helps, because I work mostly in enterprise environments when maturity is way lower and at the same time nowadays lot of juniors joining java community and they are even more junior than I was back in my start of career.
For me there is no better way for your wealth building than real knowledge. Learn hard skills, nurture soft skills, work smart. Lot of investment opportunities are just gambling (with money of naive people), choose wisely.
TCP/IP Illustrated, It was that first time I realized that all the magic the computer was doing could be understood on a bit by bit level. It launched me into a rewarding career.
German language books. Thanks to them I don't have to live in a sh*thole country turning into a dictatorship and I have a decent life.
Fearless Salary Negotiation by Josh Doody.
Negotiate your salary, people!
Negotiate your salary, people!
Probably code complete, I'd studied engineering and programmed at home for years at a very poor level really. On becoming a commercial coder I got this and it gave me confidence in attacking a problem, maintaining code and the realization that, in a team, communication, readability and maintainability are more important that coding skill.