The right filter for a great reading list
Lenny Rachitsky put out a curated list of books for product people, organized by what you are trying to accomplish. Three books per category, only ones he has finished, mostly older books because older books survived. That is exactly the right filter.
There is endless free content flying at us every hour. Newsletters, podcasts, tweets, threads. But how many blog posts or tweets have had the lasting impact of a great book? The smartest person in the world on a topic you care about spends two years distilling their best ideas into something enjoyable, and you can get it for twenty dollars. That deal has never gotten worse.
Communication and writing
Before starting this newsletter, Lenny had never written anything online. Once he realized it was going to be a thing, he decided to learn about writing. Friends recommended many books, and these three had the most practical, lasting advice.
Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t by Steven Pressfield cuts through the noise and tells you why your writing fails. On Writing Well by William Zinsser is the classic for a reason. Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks teaches you how to find stories in your own life that actually land.
Strategy and execution
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt is the book that finally makes you understand what strategy actually is. Most companies do not have strategy. They have goals with extra steps. Playing to Win by Roger L. Martin and Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr round out the trifecta for thinking clearly about where you are going and how to get there.
For execution, The Great CEO Within by Matt Mochary and Scaling People by Claire Hughes Johnson give you actionable frameworks you can put into practice immediately. The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt is the odd one out here, a novel about manufacturing that somehow teaches you more about prioritization than any business book.
Product fundamentals
The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick teaches you how to talk to customers without lying to yourself. Escaping the Build Trap by Melissa Perri explains why so many teams ship features that nobody uses. Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres is the modern playbook for finding the right thing to build.
Leadership and management
High Output Management by Andy Grove taught a generation of managers what their job actually was. The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo is the modern version of that book. Radical Candor by Kim Scott is the framework for giving hard feedback while still being human about it.
The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh, Amp It Up by Frank Slootman, and The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership round out the leadership stack. Push people to do the best work of their lives, be human about it, and the score will take care of itself.
The full list is worth your time
The books above are the ones that stuck. But Lenny full list covers sales and marketing, organizational design, and inspiration. It is organized by job-to-be-done, which means you can go find exactly what you need depending on what you are working on right now. Worth bookmarking.