Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things
Seeking recommendations for books about how hard things got done. I like the Acquired podcast, but am looking for reading deeper than it.
I’m reading The Big Rich about the oil boom in Texas and like it. I also liked Barbarians at the Gate about how private equity got created and how deals went down.
Less interested in people and character studies. More interested in the mechanics of how things that we take for granted actually got built and what the world they were made in was like.
> Less interested in people and character studies.
If you don’t want examples then all you need to know is velocity. The Y Combinator people call it doing things that don’t scale. Here is how it works for absolutely anything:
1. Get the right tools in place. This is an intrinsic capability set you have to build. People tend to fail here most frequently and hope some framework or copy/paste of a library will just do it for them. Don’t be some worthless pretender. Know your shit from experience so you can execute with confidence.
2. Build a solid foundation. This will require a lot of trial and error plus several rounds of refactoring because you need some idea of the edge cases and where you the pain points are. You will know it when you have it because it’s highly durable and requires less of everything compared to the alternatives. A solid foundation isn’t a thing you sell. It’s your baseline for doing everything else at low cost.
3. Create tests. These should be in writing but they don’t have to be. You need a list of known successes and failures ready to apply at everything new. There are a lot of whiners that are quick to cry about how something can’t be done. Fuck those guys and instead try it to know exactly what more it takes to get done.
4. Finally, measure things. It is absolutely astonishing that most people cannot do this at all. It looks amazing when you see it done well and this is ultimately what separates the adults from the children. This is where velocity comes from because you will know exactly how much faster you are compared to where you were. If you aren’t intimately aware of your performance in numbers from a variety of perspectives you aren’t more special than anyone else.
People who accomplish hard things are capable of doing those because they didn’t get stuck. They had the proper tools in place to manipulate their environment, redefine execution (foundation), objectively determine what works without guessing, and then know how much to tweak it moving forward.
The Soul of a New Machine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine
My main takeaway from reading that book was that working in tech in the late 70s was not that different from now days
Just different technology/hardware/timescale
Same workplace problems, personality types, company politics, etc...
Did not expect to find it so relatable in 2024
This is a good one. I read it twice just to experience the 70-80s development atmosphere. The daughter of Tom West did complain on Reddit a few years ago that Tom neglected them during the period, but I still admire such personality. The same admiration goes to David Cutler in "Showstopper".
Feels like season 1 of Halt And Catch Fire
“South: The Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition, 1914–1917” by Sir Ernest Shackleton. Here, Shackleton documents the journey of the Endurance expedition, which aimed to traverse Antarctica but instead became a legendary tale of survival after the ship was trapped and destroyed by pack ice.
Related and also a good read is "The Roald Amundsen Diaries : The South Pole Expedition 1910-1912". You can see the ship he used on the expedition, the Fram at the appropriately named, Fram Museum in Oslo. It's an incredible experience to see and contemplate the expeditions these explorers mounted, and what equipment and resources they assembled to do it at a very early time.
https://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9788282350105?cm_sp=b...
I haven't verified the info in this video myself, but it's making a point about Shackleton actually being somewhat incompetent/overeager and getting himself and crew into more trouble than necessary (as compared to Amundsen): https://youtube.com/watch?v=DU06c7f9fzc (TED talk, sorry)
I'm currently listening to "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing". I've also heard of some of the arguments against Shackleton (I haven't watched the talk).
I have to think of what Shackleton, as a leader (boss), was going through and with uncertainties abound.
28 people who he hired based not only on capability alone, but also for crew (team) fit.
He apparently cared deeply for them, and they in-turn cared for one another.
They managed to work together in the harshest of environments. They all made it.
That in and of itself, is a remarkable feat.
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
Longitude is a great book, I thought this was cool too re. one of the clocks Harrison designed - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/19/clockmaker-j...
The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop [1]. An in-depth history of how personal computing was created.
[1] https://press.stripe.com/the-dream-machine
Richard Hamming's book on AT&T Bell Labs R&D culture in inventing and solving many of the important problems [1].
Another is Where Wizards Stay Up Late by Katie Hafner on the early days of the Internet [2].
[1] The Art of Doing Science and Engineering:
https://press.stripe.com/the-art-of-doing-science-and-engine...
[2] Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet:
https://katiehafner.com/books-new/where-wizards-stay-up-late...
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner is similarly great for some of the earlier/origin stories of Bell Labs.
Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes does a great job covering the rivalry between Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse over electrifying the world. I liked how it broke down the technical and business challenges and showed the impact on everyday life and industry.
House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox
In House on Fire, William H. Foege describes his own experiences in public health and details the remarkable program that involved people from countries around the world in pursuit of a single objective―eliminating smallpox forever.
> hard things
How about consistently competing at fighting video-games at the highest level in the world for more than 30 years?
"The Will to Keep Winning", by Daigo Umehara. He was the first Street Fighter 2 player to reach the top (being considered either the best player or top 3), and he was able to stay at the stop since then. No other video-game player has ever been so consistently good as Daigo. He may not have won many EVO or Capcom Cup titles, but he has always stayed at the top. And he's the protagonist of Evo Moment 37.
Also, his story is good. The book may make you cry. And it's a very short book.
Copies in Seconds: Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox Machine by David Owen
"A history of the photocopier offers a portrait of reserved physics graduate Chester Carlson, who invented the copier to ease his job as a patent clerk and who saw his marketing efforts daunted by numerous rejections, before the head of Xerox research recognized the machine's potential. "
I rather liked 'The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation'
Agreed. Just finished it a couple of weeks ago. Hackers by Levy and fire in the Valley may also fit the bill.
You might like Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days. It’s written by Jessica Livingston, who founded Y Combinator.
The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester
Masters of Doom is quite good about John Carmack and the creation of id Software.
The Innovators, Walter Isaacson
It’s interesting to read how many individuals contributed in all sorts of important ways in the history of computing.
You can find documentaries also on youtube, for example. There was one interesting about Dubai's development
“Check out something other than books” is a hilarious response to a request for book recommendations, though I would have included a specific example of a non-book, like “I see you mentioned private equity, have you listened to the songs of Jim Croce? He often writes about love and getting into bar fights, which are things that some people have difficulty with”
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Freedom's Forge
"Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX" by Eric Berger documents how SpaceX employees poured their blood, sweat, and tears into launching a cost-effective rocket at a time when legacy operators dominated the space market with their costly cost-plus-fee contracts. This book mostly follows the journey of employees and (thankfully) doesn't resolve to Elon praise too much. There is a continuation to this book called "Reentry" but I haven't read it yet.
how to get rich by felix dennis is a banger for me