Somewhere along the way Marc Andreessen went from being pmarca to @pmarca. He took down his popular blog, and years later took up tweetstorming. But by popular request, you can now also download many of his older blog posts — The Pmarca Blog Archives — as an ebook.
That said, here are some of our edit notes*: We removed all links (and text) that referenced resources that no longer exist or were otherwise outdated out of a live web context. We kept the original formatting (except to turn some subheads into headers) and did not do significant editing. And finally, it pained us to not include other popular posts (like “Three kinds of platforms you meet on the Internet” or his views on Hollywood and movies and more).
It feels like I'm reading "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" again. The most fascinating thing about this book is that it consists of blog posts from 2007-2009, but still feels valid in 2019. It was before iPads, Slack, Trello, iPhone and Uber were roughly 1-2 years old. Still you can find valid advice on defining a problem, hiring people, leading companies, and being personally productive.
It's like "start a startup" cookbook. I enjoyed each of the chapters.
Really great explanations how startups work and great advice. Pity it was never issued as a separate book and is very little known about. Not just for startup founders or CEOs but anyone who's interested about simple explanation of startup rules.
Много уникальных и неординарных мыслей на тему личной производительности, найма сотрудников, управления компанией, которую нужно развернуть и так далее. Очень ценно, что много своих мыслей.
Some good nuggets in there (what VC-s are looking for), but a bunch of his advice should be well ignored in 2019 (how to get hired, how to get funded for example). Still, a good read for someone thinking about launching a startup at some point.
Not all about startups though - he throws in some random stuff about science fiction writes, luck and gives some pretty brutal tips on how to salvage a large failing company as the new CEO.
Also - quite peculiar that the only posts where the publishing date is marked are the ones where he makes fun of people saying there’s a bubble. Even more peculiar is the fact that those dates are wrong - the right date is October 2007, not 2009. So yeah, pretty much right before the bubble burst. My first conspiracy theory then. :)
О ЧЕМ КНИГА: Книга состоит из постов личного блога одного из ведущих предпринимателей и инвесторов Кремниевой Долины Марка Андриссена. Жалко, что он уже давно перестал писать в свой блог, но хоть сделал для нас такой удобный сборник. Посты закрывают практически все вопросы создания новой компании от поиска рынка и продукта до привлечения денег и личной продуктивности предпринимателя.
ГЛАВНЫЕ ВЫВОДЫ: - Никогда не создавай компанию успех которой зависит от партнерства с большой корпорацией или будущей покупки корпорацией моего бизнеса. Эти события полностью непредсказуемы и я на них не могу никак повлиять.
- На топовые позиции лучше продвигать людей из своей компании. Люди - сложные создания. В более чем 50% случаев кандидат со стороны оказывается неподходящим. Про своих по крайней мере ты знаешь все их недостатки и с этим можно работать)
- Собственник должен постоянно спрашивать сотрудников на всех уровнях о том, что происходит в его компании. Топ менеджеры не должны быть единственным местом откуда я черпаю информацию, потому что может настать момент, что я слишком поздно узнаю, что плохого происходит в компании и не успею исправить ситуацию.
- «Креативность - важнейшее качество для предпринимателя в наше время. Под креативностью я имею в виду способность раз за разом создавать новые успешные бизнесы. Креативность - это функция двух переменных, энтузиазма и опыта.»
ЕЩЕ НА ЭТУ ТЕМУ: Рекомендую прочитать визионерскую статью Андриссена, которая вышла в августе 2011 года в WSJ. Кто читал, еще раз перечитайте. Поразительно, как он предсказал будущее развитие технологий. Ссылка на статью в первом комменте под постом. И конечно смотрите все его выступления с конференций, которые выкладывают на YouTube.
Does answers some of the questions I'm struggling with regarding decisions and careers, and overall gives a nice summary of startup culture, what actually works. Anyone who wants to do something and feels stuck different should read this atleast once.
"I’m a firm believer that most people who do great things are doing them for the first time. Returning to my theory of hiring, I’d rather have someone all fired up to do something for the first time than someone who’s done it before and isn’t that excited to do it again. You rarely go wrong giving someone who is high potential the shot."
Just one of the many great points you can find in this collection of some of Andreessen's best blog posts.
An absolute must-read if you're interested in hiring/recruiting, career planning, start-ups, entrepreneurship and innovation.
Excellent advice for people in any industry, not just tech, seeing that rapid change is happening in most industries these days. Thinking like a startup is an invaluable skill, and Marc nails it with his insight into what brings success. There are a few points I didn't agree with (that college students should avoid liberal arts degrees in favor of hard sciences and engineering, for example) but I can see his point. Enjoyable, easy read! The chapters on product/market fit, career planning, and productivity are must reads!
Incredibly insightful - lots of good tips on how to distinguish a good company/organization/culture/employee from a bad one and how changes can me made to improve such an entity. Many of these tips center around extrapolating broader conclusions from relatively succinct behavior patterns, resumes, features of track records, etc. This book has the potential to improve your decision making by making you more objective.
Marc Andressen's blog archives from 2007-09 timeframe still has a mintfresh smell! I decided to read this to understand what were the startup issues back then (in the middle of 2008 financial meltdown), and also to analyse what all has changed since then, especially between Silicon Valley and India/Bangalore. Most of what Marc says is spot on, and this book should be a mandatory bedtime reading for all wannapreneurs and entrepreneurs. The book is fast and you can finish it within a day.
This is a free e-book of 2007-2009 select blog posts of Marc Andreessen, one of the most high-profile VCs and tech big picture guys, and one of my favourite guys to read and follow about where tech is and where it's going.
Not much has changed since 2009 about great advice for start-ups, hiring, career, psychology of entrepreneurs (he goes deep into key research on cognitive biases here), and as a bonus, on great science fiction writers of the 2000s. I enjoyed this a lot.