BookCagan
Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
Marty CaganEssentialBookStart here
An empowered team is given a problem, not a feature list.
The book product managers are assumed to have read. It is most useful for the distinction between a team that is handed a roadmap and one that is handed an outcome, which is the difference most candidates cannot articulate.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
Asked how you would run discovery, the answer that names risks in order, value then usability then feasibility then viability, comes straight from here.
BookKocienda
Creative Selection
Ken KociendaRecommendedBookStart here
Good software is chosen between demos, not specified in advance.
How software was actually made inside Apple, demo by demo. A rare engineer’s-eye account, and good preparation for a product interview.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
It gives you a concrete answer to how you would decide between two designs when neither can be proven better on paper.
BookChoudary
Platform Revolution
Geoffrey Parker, Marshall Van Alstyne and Sangeet Paul ChoudaryEssentialBookIntermediate
A platform sets rules for a transaction it does not perform.
The mechanics of two-sided markets: who subsidises whom, why one side is priced at zero, and what actually creates a network effect as opposed to merely a large user count.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
It is the difference between saying a company has network effects and being able to say which side of the market they run on.
BookChen
The Cold Start Problem
Andrew ChenRecommendedBookIntermediate
Network effects start in one small market, never across the whole one.
The honest sequel to the theory: how a network is actually started, city by city or campus by campus, and what usually kills it before it tips.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
Asked how you would launch a marketplace, the atomic network answer is far stronger than a marketing plan.
BookMiller
Chip War
Chris MillerEssentialBookStart here
One company in the Netherlands is a single point of failure for everything.
How semiconductors became the chokepoint of the world economy. The most useful single book for anyone covering technology, and increasingly for anyone covering anything.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
Export controls and supply concentration now appear in technology, macro and credit interviews alike, and this is the one book that covers all three.
BookMetz
Genius Makers
Cade MetzRecommendedBookStart here
Deep learning won a decades-long argument, then was bought in a weekend.
The history of how neural networks went from an academic backwater to the centre of the industry, told through the people. The best available context for why the field looks the way it does.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
Knowing why the field ignored this approach for thirty years is a better answer to why now than anything about compute alone.
BookBhaskar
The Coming Wave
Mustafa Suleyman and Michael BhaskarRecommendedBookIntermediate
Containment is the problem, and it has no precedent that worked.
Artificial intelligence and synthetic biology framed as a containment problem rather than a product one. The most frequently cited book in technology interviews this cycle.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
It is the reference everyone reaches for, so having a specific disagreement with it is worth more than having read it.
Film2010
The Social Network
2010Directed by David Fincher · Columbia Pictures
RecommendedFilmStart hereAn evening
A co-founder who signs what he has not modelled learns what a cap table is for, too late.
The founding of Facebook, told as a pair of lawsuits. Under the drama sits the most widely seen lesson in founder dilution: a co-founder whose stake shrank when new shares were issued to everyone else, under documents he signed without working through. Dramatised, so treat the people as characters and the mechanics as real.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
Asked to explain dilution or why founders vest, the co-founder’s story is one an interviewer will recognise, and you can then do the arithmetic properly.
Doc2022
Downfall: The Case Against Boeing
2022EssentialDocumentaryStart hereAn evening
Financial discipline applied without limit eventually eats the engineering.
What happens when cost-out programmes and buybacks are run against an engineering culture. The lag between the decision and the damage appearing is the part worth sitting with.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
It is the strongest available answer to what a metric can destroy, which comes up in product, engineering leadership and research interviews alike.