Here are 89 books that Making Silicon Valley fans have personally recommended if you like
Making Silicon Valley.
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After receiving my doctorate in Economics at Cambridge University, I embarked on a 35-year sabbatical as a venture capitalist focused on information technology. I learned about the critical role that the American state had played by sponsoring the computer industry. When the "Dotcom Bubble" of the late 1990s grossly overpriced my companies, because I had written my PhD thesis on 1929-1931 when the Bubble of the Roaring Twenties exploded, I had seen the movie before and knew how it ended. I returned to Cambridge determined to tell this saga of innovation at the frontier and the strategic roles played by financial speculation and the state in funding economic transformation."
I value this book as a comprehensive history of high-risk investing in America, from the Whaling Industry to Silicon Valley.
Nicholas reveals the extraordinary skew and persistence in investment returns: a small number of investors are responsible for a disproportionate amount of the gains, and this holds true across widely varying institutional structures and technological domains.
And he explores the intimate relationship between the rise of the IT and Biotech industries and support from the U.S, Government.
A major exploration of venture financing, from its origins in the whaling industry to Silicon Valley, that shows how venture capital created an epicenter for the development of high-tech innovation.
VC tells the riveting story of how the industry arose from the United States' long-running orientation toward entrepreneurship. Venture capital has been driven from the start by the pull of outsized returns through a skewed distribution of payoffs-a faith in low-probability but substantial financial rewards that rarely materialize. Whether the gamble is a whaling voyage setting sail from New Bedford or the newest startup in Silicon Valley, VC is not…
After receiving my doctorate in Economics at Cambridge University, I embarked on a 35-year sabbatical as a venture capitalist focused on information technology. I learned about the critical role that the American state had played by sponsoring the computer industry. When the "Dotcom Bubble" of the late 1990s grossly overpriced my companies, because I had written my PhD thesis on 1929-1931 when the Bubble of the Roaring Twenties exploded, I had seen the movie before and knew how it ended. I returned to Cambridge determined to tell this saga of innovation at the frontier and the strategic roles played by financial speculation and the state in funding economic transformation."
Philippe Aghion has been one of the pioneers in the development of “Schumpeterian Growth Theory” to model the process of Creative Destruction” that drives technological innovation and economic growth. This is an accessible presentation of the dynamics of the model and the observable consequences in the real world.
I have found it essential for teaching my course on Venture Capital and the Economics of Innovation.
Hayek Book Prize Finalist An Economist Best Book of the Year A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year A Financial Times Summer Reading Favorite
"Sweeping, authoritative and-for the times-strikingly upbeat...The overall argument is compelling and...it carries a trace of Schumpeterian subversion." -The Economist
"[An] important book...Lucid, empirically grounded, wide-ranging, and well-argued." -Martin Wolf, Financial Times
"Offers...much needed insight into the sources of economic growth and the kinds of policies that will promote it...All in Washington would do well to read this volume carefully." -Milton Ezrati, Forbes
Inequality is on the rise, growth stagnant, the environment in crisis. Covid seems…
After receiving my doctorate in Economics at Cambridge University, I embarked on a 35-year sabbatical as a venture capitalist focused on information technology. I learned about the critical role that the American state had played by sponsoring the computer industry. When the "Dotcom Bubble" of the late 1990s grossly overpriced my companies, because I had written my PhD thesis on 1929-1931 when the Bubble of the Roaring Twenties exploded, I had seen the movie before and knew how it ended. I returned to Cambridge determined to tell this saga of innovation at the frontier and the strategic roles played by financial speculation and the state in funding economic transformation."
The theoretical work of Aghion and his colleagues is complemented by Breznitz's empirical examination of how a disparate set of innovative economies actually function and of the alternative bases for the competitive achievements.
I discovered Dan Breznitz's fieldwork on innovation first from his book on China, The Run of the Red Queen, and then his comparative analysis of the different paths along which Israel, Taiwan, and Ireland moved from peasant levels of development to the technological frontier. He provides an essential complement to the more theoretical analysis of Aghion and his colleagues.
A challenge to prevailing ideas about innovation and a guide to identifying the best growth strategy for your community.
Across the world, cities and regions have wasted trillions of dollars on blindly copying the Silicon Valley model of growth creation. Since the early years of the information age, we've been told that economic growth derives from harnessing technological innovation. To do this, places must create good education systems, partner with local research universities, and attract innovative hi-tech firms. We have lived with this system for decades, and the result is clear: a small number of regions and cities at the…
After receiving my doctorate in Economics at Cambridge University, I embarked on a 35-year sabbatical as a venture capitalist focused on information technology. I learned about the critical role that the American state had played by sponsoring the computer industry. When the "Dotcom Bubble" of the late 1990s grossly overpriced my companies, because I had written my PhD thesis on 1929-1931 when the Bubble of the Roaring Twenties exploded, I had seen the movie before and knew how it ended. I returned to Cambridge determined to tell this saga of innovation at the frontier and the strategic roles played by financial speculation and the state in funding economic transformation."
Jon Levy provides a hugely creative account of American history through the evolution of its distinctive institution, capitalism.
He relates the unstable dynamics of financial markets to the waves of investment in real capital incorporating innovative technologies and never loses sight of the tension between power accumulated and expressed in markets and the distribution of political power, always attentive to how the former can take over control of the latter.
Levy’s work has enriched my own understanding of this contested history.
A leading economic historian traces the evolution of American capitalism from the colonial era to the present—and argues that we’ve reached a turning point that will define the era ahead.
“A monumental achievement, sure to become a classic.”—Zachary D. Carter, author of The Price of Peace
In this ambitious single-volume history of the United States, economic historian Jonathan Levy reveals how capitalism in America has evolved through four distinct ages and how the country’s economic evolution is inseparable from the nature of American life itself. The Age of Commerce spans the colonial era through the outbreak of the Civil War,…
I have a real passion for entrepreneurship, so much so that I married an entrepreneur and produced two children who became entrepreneurs. During my 25 years as a professor in the Greif Entrepreneurship Center at the University of Southern California, one of the top programs in the U.S., I had the privilege of inspiring and mentoring hundreds of new entrepreneurs. I found my passion in technology businesses. I had the business skills needed to help scientists and engineers raise funding, bring their inventions to market, and build their companies. I managed to start and run four ventures of my own as well as write several books about entrepreneurship.
I absolutely love this book! It’s an easy read, reads like a novel, but it’s packed with very valuable lessons on entrepreneurship, venture capital, and leadership.
The story is told through a conversation between a venture capitalist (Komisar) and two young entrepreneurs who are planning to start a business for all the wrong reasons. It’s humorous, touching, and very entertaining. I laughed a lot.
In the end, you learn that a business needs much more than nuts and bolts. It needs heart and soul.
Equally as important as what you learn about startups, the story will teach you how to avoid the Deferred Life Plan, putting off what you want to do, and instead live your life with passion.
This book describes how one Silicon Valley insider has blazed a path of professional - and personal - success playing the game by his own rules. Silicon Valley is filled with garage-to-riches stories and hot young entrepreneurs with big ideas. Yet even in this place where the exceptional is common, Randy Komisar is a breed apart. Currently a "Virtual CEO" who provides "leadership on demand" for several renowned companies, Komisar was recently described by the "Washington Post" as a "combined professional mentor, minister without portfolio, in-your-face investor, trouble-shooter and door opener." But even more interesting than what he does is…
I’m a U.S. Air Force Fighter pilot who has dedicated my life to the subject of decision-making. When flying, my job is to make thousands of decisions on each flight, often with limited information and lives on the line. My calling now is to share the lessons that I’ve learned with the world to allow them to make better, quicker decisions, and to have more confidence in their thinking.
I enjoyed this book because it helped me to understand why bold ideas often don't get off the ground in big organizations.
These ideas are usually sought after and destroyed by the organization itself because the incentives of the managers who approve the ideas aren’t aligned. However, there is a solution that Safi goes into in depth.
A must-read for people who want to change the world.
What do James Bond and Lipitor have in common? Why do traffic jams appear out of nowhere on highways? What can we learn about innovation from a glass of water? In Loonshots, physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behaviour and the challenges of nurturing radical breakthroughs.
Drawing on the science of phase transitions, Bahcall shows why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them, just as flowing water will suddenly change into brittle ice. Oceans of print…
I am a business and technology journalist with a particular interest in mobility startups. I penned my book after purchasing an EV from startup Better Place, only to discover the company was nearly bankrupt. How did I miss that? I’m supposed to be able to do due diligence! I started writing about cars as a reporter for the Advanced Interactive Media Group. I’m a regular contributor to The Jerusalem Post and Israel21c and have also ghostwritten four business books. Before I wrote about tech, I was starting companies: My own Internet publishing startup, Neta4, raised $3.2 million in 1998. I received my B.A. in Creative Writing from Oberlin College.
Uri Levine founded Waze, the GPS traffic navigation service, which he subsequently sold to Google for over $1 billion. He went on to launch Moovit (“Waze for public transportation”), which was sold to Intel—also for over $1 billion. He’s now founded a dozen companies.
I found Uri’s recommendations about how to be a better entrepreneur to be highly relevant. I wish I’d been able to read this book when I was CEO of my own startup!
Unicorns—companies that reach a valuation of more than $1 billion—are rare. Uri Levine has built two.
And in Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, he shows you just how he did it.
As the cofounder of Waze—the world’s leading commuting and navigation app with more than 700 million users to date, and which Google acquired in 2013 for $1.15 billion—Levine is committed to spreading entrepreneurial thinking so that other founders, managers, and employees in the tech space can build their own highly valued companies.
Levine offers an inside look at the creation and sale of Waze and…
I’m a writer who is drawn to entrepreneurs, especially those with creative businesses; they inspire me. I launched a freelance writing business in 2014, but I’ve always wanted to work for a magazine. One day, it finally occurred to me to combine my interests and start a magazine about creative entrepreneurs! I have interviewed over 100 creative entrepreneurs for my magazine. I created this list because I think it can help others interested in starting a creative business.
Writing a business plan is a daunting task, no matter if you’re left or right-brain dominant. I needed a tool to kickstart the process.
Since I’m in a creative field, I decided to check out this book. I liked how the exercises in this book made writing a business plan more interesting and, dare I say, fun. The book helped me uncover my unique strengths, and I drew from them to write my business plan.
Do you dream of making a living doing what you love but find the process of creating a viable business plan like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole? Jennifer Lee knows what it’s like to make the entrepreneurial leap and how to do it successfully. The key is using, rather than stifling, imagination and intuition. Lee’s illustrated, colorful worksheets and step-by-step instructions are playful yet practical, transforming drudgery into joy. They’ll enable you to define your vision and nail down plans for funding, marketing, networking, and long-term strategy.
I grew up in Tanzania, where I discovered the importance of learning first-hand from ordinary people about their lives by accompanying my mother, who was an anthropologist, when she carried out participant observation among coastal people. Much later in my own research, I could see how essential it was to interact with people face-to-face and learn about their aspirations, joys, fears, daily struggles, and creative ways of coping with the challenges of an economy in free fall. I learned to look beyond the “economic data” to more fully appreciate the humanity of the people involved. All of these books I selected are by people who learned about the real urban economy in this way.
Veteran journalist Neuwirth challenges conventional economic thinking when he explores the global dimensions of the informal economy, worth trillions, that operates all around us yet is hidden from view.
His eye-opening depictions from Brazil to Nigeria and China ring true to anyone familiar with this economy that has its own unwritten rules, provides economic opportunities to half the world’s population, offers consumers with affordable products, and recycles waste.
He takes seriously the aspirations of the participants in this economy who interface with the formal economy, yet do not necessarily aspire to work in it.
• Thousands of Africans head to China each year to buy cell phones, auto parts, and other products that they will import to their home countries through a clandestine global back channel.
• Hundreds of Paraguayan merchants smuggle computers, electronics, and clothing across the border to Brazil.
• Scores of laid-off San Franciscans, working without any licenses, use Twitter to sell home-cooked foods.
• Dozens of major multinationals sell products through unregistered kiosks and street vendors around the world.
When we think of the informal economy, we tend to think of crime: prostitution, gun running, drug trafficking. Stealth of Nations…
I have had the unique experience of having been a successful CEO of a global publicly traded semiconductor company, a founder and CEO of an innovative and valuable startup, and now as a teacher and scholar of entrepreneurship and innovation. I’m a Professor of the Practice at Princeton University where I teach and write about being a successful entrepreneur. My three books on the subject are: Startup Leadership: How Savvy Entrepreneurs Turn Their Ideas Into Successful Enterprises; Building on Bedrock: What Sam Walton, Walt Disney, and Other Great Self-Made Entrepreneurs Can Teach Us About Building Valuable Companies;and THE ENTREPRENEURS: The Relentless Quest for Value.
David Sax spent more than a year on the road, living with a handful of real live entrepreneurs. We get to know these people, what their days are like, what their families are like, their stresses and their joys—ultimately what it feels like to be an entrepreneur. You’ll feel like a voyeur, but you’ll ultimately empathize with what these entrepreneurs do what they do as well as the challenges they constantly face. The book is a page-turner.
We all know the story of the latest version of the American Dream: a young innovator drops out of college and creates the next big thing, remaking both business and culture in one fell swoop. We are told these stories constantly, always with the idea that we'll be next.But this story masks a lot about what really goes on in our economy. Most new businesses aren't tech startups; they are what we think of as ordinary: restaurants or dry cleaners or freelance writing or accounting or consulting services. And those who are starting new businesses aren't all millennials. In fact,…
