Product & Engineering Books, Newsletters & Blogs for Leaders
Below are some of my all-time favorite Product and Engineering books. As a generalist PM with many years in startups, some as Head of Product and de facto Engineering Manager, I’ve had to wear a lot of hats, and this list reflects that.
A good PM is a balance of many things, with awareness of where they spike; I spike in Relationship Management as well as Project Management, reflected in a lot of books on psychology, leadership, vision/ alignment, and team management.
As a PM, you should also have a solid understanding of the human condition - whether this is from people-watching, classic psychology texts like Jung, or podcasts in the same vein. If you don’t have this muscle, develop it - observe people: what do they do, why do they do it, why do some people react in different ways to the same situation, how do individuals think about and explain situations to themselves - and how does this affect how they interact in the world? If you haven’t done User Interviews - now is the time; there will be a separate post on just that.
For now, the books that made me who I am as a Product leader - my favorites that I return to again and again in bold.
~ Sam Grone, Co-Founder (Product)
Product Thinking
Iterating and Agile
How to iterate quickly, and the importance of lean methodologies
Basics of Agile and Sprint planning, focusing on fast iterations. Test things quickly, get conclusions, move forward with confidence in your conclusions. Build better products, in less time.
Product Lifecycles and Trends
The beginning of many great startups, and what they have in common. This’ll make you wonder if you’re ready to build your own company - you just might be.
The history and future of Web2
How did Twilio come to be? How can developer-seeded products grow? Are devs the future of adoption of any tech product? Hint: Devs are your best resource.
The history and future of Web3
Great Products
Building inspirational products
Building habit-forming products
PM Fundamentals
Product networking, strategies, trends, and job insights
Product trends, best practices, and interviews with leaders in the field
Leadership
How do you convince your teams to follow you? How do you build buy-in? What are the basics of building consensus? How do you start internal product evangelism?
Real leaders know that their job is to support the team; this comes across in sports teams, and in the best product and engineering teams.
Design Thinking
The original Design Thinking book; why is a door handle shaped like that? How did emergency exit bars come to be? What if a tea kettle was shaped oppositely? You’ll never look at doors the same way again.
Thoughtful insights about the cities around us, and helpful for thinking about design elements in our everyday lives, and how they’re made to be invisible, durable, and multi-use. How might we apply this to Product?
Engineering Leadership
An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management/ Larson
The best book on Engineering Management, and a beautiful read, written like a concise tech manual - beautiful. From the CTO of Carta.
Engineering Thinking
Market Trends
Finance-based newsletter, daily, covering NYSE and stock trends, alongside Financial Markets, VC Funding, M&A, and Startup Rounds
Human Psychology
Metaphysics
Jung
NB: All the “A Very Short Introduction” books are succinct and palatable introductions to any subject
Shadow Work
A deep meditation on our “dark” selves that we keep hidden, and that are evident in every person, and in some products - !
Logic
An amazing, succinct, thought-provoking book. Ties logic to everyday occurrences and shows how every single thing in life is either a finite or infinite game - from love to war - and advocates that infinite games are necessary for the world to keep turning.
Stoicism
Sales/ BizDev
Basic Sales and BizDev for any founder or generalist at a startup; templates, how-to, etc