Reading Canon

This is an ongoing compilation of my favourite reading from around the web.


How this works:

  • To make the list, generally, the article must be so good I’ve read them (at least) twice
  • New stuff goes at the bottom
  • I have tried to order them in buckets, but many articles fall into multiple categories
  • Most of these are written by straight white males, and that is something I am actively working on correcting; recommendations here are appreciated
  • Did I miss one? Tweet at me and I’ll add it (and credit you, obviously)


Work-Related Personal Growth

Manage the Clock by Brad Feld

Taming the Mammoth: Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think by Tim Urban - Wait But Why

Sabbath Hard and Go Home by Benjamin Ross Hoffman

How to Be Successful by Sam Altman

Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham

The World's Worst Boss by Seth Godin

How to Get Rich (Without Getting Lucky) by Naval Ravikant / [Or as a thread]

Summary of Naval Ravikant on The Joe Rogan Podcast by @loopuleasa on Twitter

Luck and the Entrepreneur (The Four Kinds of Luck) by Marc Andreessen

How to Make Wealth by Paul Graham

First, Ten by Seth Godin

How to Make Over $200,000 Per Year by Auren Hoffman

The Product Management Reading List by Sebastian Phlix

Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager by Ben Horowitz (a16z)

Relentlessly Resourceful by Paul Graham

Which Way Do You Run? by Ben Horowitz

Salary Negotiation by Patrick McKenzie

You Can Probably Stand to Charge More by Patrick McKenzie

The Briefcase Technique by Ramit Sethi

Here’s The Technique That Ambitious People Use To Get What They Want by Ryan Holiday

7 Thoughts on Sales by Colin Dowling


Non-Work-Related Personal Growth

The Day You Became a Better Writer by Scott Adams

Keep Your Identity Small by Paul Graham

Testing The "Impossible": 17 Questions That Changed My Life by Tim Ferriss

How Not to Be Stupid by Shane Parrish

Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz

The Tail End by Tim Urban

Peter Kaufman on the Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking

Transformative Kitchen Gear by Seth Godin

How to Do Great Things by Shane Parrish (Farnam Street)

Will and Ariel Durant: The Three Lessons of Biological History by Farnam Street

A Helpful Guide to Reading Better by Farnam Street

More People Should Write by James Somers

How I Practice What I Do by Tyler Cowen

Second Order Thinking by Farnam Street

How to Read More by Austin Kleon

10 Lessons I Learned While Teaching Myself to Code by Clive Thompson (on Tim Ferriss's Blog)

Make the Other Mistake by Mark Rabkin

Beyond How to Get Rich by Naval Ravikant

You Don't Want a Child Prodigy by David Epstein

The Risk of Discovery by Paul Graham

Ideas That Changed My Life by Morgan Housel

How to Choose a Startup to Work For by Harj Taggar

Zoom Tips for the Modern Age by Seth Godin

Resources from Atomic Habits by James Clear

The Aggregation of Marginal Gains by James Clear

Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers

A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard

Obvious to You. Amazing to Others. by Derek Sivers

Master the Boring Fundamentals Pt 1 by James Stuber

Master the Boring Fundamentals Pt 2 by James Stuber

Dead Time or Alive Time by Ryan Holiday

Willingness to Look Stupid


Business or Team Growth

General and Surprising by Paul Graham

1000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham

How to be an Effective Early Stage Employee. Hint: Be Helpful. by Dan Debow

We Don’t Sell Saddles Here by Stewart Butterfield

How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub by Paul Graham

The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen by Andy Raskin

Status as a Service by Eugene Wei

Hidden Networks by D'Arcy Coolican

The Case for the Fat Startup by Ben Horowitz

Speed Matters by James Somers

Don't Fuck Up the Culture by Brian Chesky

YC's Essential Startup Advice

Do Things That Don't Scale by Paul Graham

How Not to Fail by Jessica Livingston

Default Alive or Dead? by Paul Graham

Startup Growth Calculator

The Innovation Equation by Safi Bahcall

The Map and the Terrain by Ben Horowitz

Writing a Business Plan by Sequoia Capital

Turning Your Team by Fred Wilson (MBA Mondays)


Difficult to Categorize

Yak Shaving by Joi Ito

When Your Project Isn't Making Money by Seth Godin

The Avocado Principles by Seth Godin

How to Tell a Great Story by Seth Godin

The Bell Curve by Atul Gawande

How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) by Tim Urban

Play in Easy Mode by Zvi and Play in Hard Mode by Zvi

Don't Send Your Kids to the Ivy League by William Deresiewicz

Chapter 1: You by Porchlight Books

The Magic Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two by George A. Miller

Aggregation Theory by Ben Thompson (Stratechery)

Recent Lessons Part 1 by Spencer Wright (The Prepared)

Recent Lessons Part 2 by Spencer Wright (The Prepared)

Recent Lessons Part 3 by Spencer Wright (The Prepared)

The Tao of Boyd: Mastering the OODA Loop by Brett and Kate McKay (Art of Manliness)

The Days are Long but the Decades are Short by Sam Altman

Peter Thiel's Religion by David Perell

Knowledge of the Future by Howard Marks (Oaktree Capital)

Calibrating by Howard Marks (Oaktree Capital)

68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice by Kevin Kelly

Why Panels Suck by Reid Hoffman

Who Can Name the Bigger Number? by Scott Aaronson

You Should've Asked by Emma (Comic)

It's So Much More Than Cooking by Zoe Fenson

Less Hulk, More Bruce Lee by Mark Borden (Fast Company)

What Clay Christensen Got Wrong by Stratechery

You Can’t Tell People Anything by Chip Morningstar