My Booklist 2022
Hainan Wang
Senior Software Engineer at Zoom | ex SDE/Team Lead at Cadence Design Systems
I got less time to read books this year because I spent a large amount of time preparing for interviews. But my reading speed seems to be faster than before. Then I was still able to read a few books, mainly the non-technical ones. Will target for more technical books next year. To start off, my favorite books this year are (those I used for cover image):
Disrupt You!
Continuous Discovery Habits
The Art of War
Embracing Modern C++ Safely
A new book on the “old” standard (C++11/14). So far, I have only read several chapters out of its overall 1300+ pages. This book will help sharpen my C++ knowledge and skills. I think the writing itself could be improved a bit in certain places (some ghost writers contributed to the writing of this book as mentioned by the authors. Not sure if that is related). I plan to collect my personal feedback and send it to the authors later.
A relatively brief discussion on software design with recommendations provided by the author. To me, Chapters 4-10, 20, 21 are the most helpful parts. There are two topics (function length and comment) on which the author holds different opinions from those given in the book “Clean Code”. Personally, I agree with Ousterhout.
It is good to read stories starting from someone’s good ideas, and bit by bit, to their final success. But the reading itself is not smooth to me. Many detailed descriptions seem non-essential to the point and therefore make it distractive for reading. If quoting from the book “Building a Story Brand” (see below), the issue is that it “causes their customers to burn too many calories in an effort to understand their offer”.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” (The book likely mistakenly attributed it to Aristotle. See My favourite quote of all time is a misattribution. | by Caelan Huntress | Mission.org | Medium)
“Lots and lots of people are creative when they feel like it, but you are only going to become a professional if you do it when you’re not in the mood.”
“Start before you are ready.” “... willing to course-correct along the way, adapt to changing circumstances in real time, and operate with agility.”
“Break it to fix it.”
“Everyday innovators are always on the lookout for problems, but they are drawn to the ones they believe they can solve.”
“The only way an idea becomes valuable is by tweaking it, putting it in front of people, and getting critical feedback.”
One of my favorite books among those I read this year. I am educated by discussions on product output, product outcome, and business outcome.
“Opportunities are customer needs, pain points, and desires. They are opportunities to intervene in your customers’ lives in a positive way.” “The best way to learn about their needs, pain points, and desires is to ask them to share specific stories about their experience.”
“Be sure to represent opportunities as needs and not solutions.”
“Our goal should be to address the customer opportunities that will have the biggest impact on our outcome first.”
“... don’t capture the feeling itself as the opportunity. Instead, look for the cause of the feeling. We can’t fix feelings. … when a customer expresses a feeling, but consider it a signpost, and remember to let it direct you to the underlying opportunity.”
“The hard reality is that product strategy doesn’t happen in the solution space. Our customers don’t care about the majority of our feature releases. … Product strategy happens in the opportunity space. Strategy emerges from the decisions we make about which outcomes to pursue, customers to serve, and opportunities to address.”
“Wisdom is finding the right balance between having confidence in what you know and leaving enough room for doubt in case you are wrong.”
“... somewhere down the line, the idea must create enough value for the business to be worth the effort to create and maintain.”
“... remember, you aren’t trying to prove that this assumption is true. The burden of truth is too much. You are simply trying to reduce risk.”
“Instead of trying to plan everything upfront, start small, and experiment your way to the best instrumentation.”
“... deliver impact now and lay the groundwork for even more impact in the future.”
“Walk your stakeholder through what you learned and what decisions you made. Given them space to follow your logic, and most importantly, given them time to reach the same conclusion.”
“Instead, you need to act as a smart filter. Tailor the detail and context to the stakeholder you are talking to.”
“Focus on the opportunities with which you can show the benefit of working this way. Choose your battles. Don’t fight the ones you can’t win.”
“The best time to advocate for discovery is when a feature falls short of expectations. You can gently suggest ways that you could have discovered the gap earlier in the process. … But be careful. You don’t want to come across as a know-it-all or have an “I told you so” attitude. Instead, approach the situation as a collaborative problem solver.”
A good marketing book providing practical guide on how to brand the product/company to win customers. The book’s last part introduces strategies transforming company culture.
“What we think we are saying to our customers and what our customers actually hear are two different things.”
“Anything that doesn’t serve the plot has to go.”
“Customer is the hero of the story, not your brand.” “People are looking for a guide to help them, not another hero.”
“... three things every human being wants most are to be seen, heard, and understood. This is the essence of empathy.” “Real empathy means letting customers know we see them as we see ourselves. Customers look for brands they have something in common with.”
“Nobody likes a know-it-all and nobody wants to be preached at. Brands that lord their expertise over the masses turn people off.”
“Let’s do more than help our heroes win; let’s help them transform.”
6. Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value, 2018, Melissa Perri
This book was cited by “Continuous Discovery Habits” and that's how I noticed it. Then I read this one too aiming to better identify the so-called “build trap”. Its major attribute is that people/team/organization focuses on output instead of outcome.
“Listen to your customers and focus on their problems instead of your own solutions. Fall in love with those problems.”
“... marry the business goals with the customer goals to achieve value.”
“Strategy is a deployable decision-making framework, enabling action to achieve desired outcomes, constrained by current capabilities, coherently aligned to the existing context.”
As a non-gamer, I feel a little bored when reading lots of discussions of the game industry (which may be a key driving force to metaverse currently). I am personally interested in two topics discussed in this book: mistakes made by tech giants during disruptive revolution, and the possible future meta-business.
“Far from disproving it, uncertainty and confusion are features of disruption.”
“What makes technological transformation difficult to predict is the reality that it is caused not by any one invention, innovation, or individual, but instead requires many changes to come together.”
“... it needed to ease users into the mobile computing era, and this meant focusing not just on what technology was possible, but when users were ready for it.”
Recommended by LinkedIn
“... view the phenomenon as the natural arc of a for-profit technology business – as it accumulates users, developers, data, revenue, and so on, it uses might to actively lock in developers and users.”
“Disruption is not a linear process, but a recursive and unpredictable one”
This book illustrates how language, numbers, data, and science can be used and have been used to mislead people. My favorite example is the explanation of "Berkson’s paradox" on hot vs. nice dates (Chapter 6). Chapter 7 discusses the misuse of data visualization, similar to the topic of the book “How Chars Lie” (see below).
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” (Goodhart’s law)
“When an equation exists only for the sake of mathiness, dimensional analysis often makes no sense.”
“Ask yourself whether a graph has been designed to tell a story that accurately reflects the underlying data, or whether it has been designed to tell a story more closely aligned with what the designer would like you to believe.”
“Rather than representing a definitive fact about nature, each experiment or collection of observation merely represents an argument in favor of some particular hypothesis.”
“Find common ground. The less anatagonistic your interaction is, the more likely someone will seriously consider your ideas. One of the best ways to soften your words is to first establish a point of common ground.”
“Humility is a virtue. We all make mistakes. When you do make a mistake, own it and admit fault swiftly and graciously.”
I feel that most chart flaws pointed out by the author are straightforward to me since I am trained in math, physics, simulations, data, and figures during both my Ph.D. and work. The author spent lots of effort digging into data and seeking for better or more factual explanation behind charts. I skimmed some details on certain topics that I am less interested in (e.g., politics). The book itself is a good one and its printing quality is also quite good. It is printed in color even for the paperback version.
“Any chart is a simplification of reality, and it reveals as much as it hides.”
“The arguments we use when we rationalize are rarely universally valid, coherent, and detailed.”
I cannot appreciate the quality of this book. The writing is too casual, and the book is diluted with big line spacing. Then I realized that it is written by a group without showing individual authors. From now on, I will be very careful when considering such books.
“Good communication is more about good listening than good talking.”
11. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
It was written 2500 years ago! I read two translations, one by Lionel Giles (1910), the other by Michael Nylan (2020).
“Warfare is the art of deception.” “Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant”. Interestingly, several days before this book, I was watching the TV episode “Taken” and saw that the main character (special agent) was trained using exactly the same tactics (Season 1, ep 7): “You got to make them believe you're too weak to do anything. ... You're baking on their egos telling them they can turn you. Ego is the key here”.
“Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”
“Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy’s will to be imposed on him”
“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”
“Rapidity is the essence of war.”
A small booklet written by a US navy ex-commander. Stories were told about how the author and his fellows overcame difficulties and how tough decisions were made under extreme conditions. Advice is given along with each story.
“Proving that determination and grit were always more important than talent.”
“Life is not fair – Drive on!”
“You will pay for your failure. But, if you persevere, if you let those failures teach you and strengthen you, then you will be prepared to handle life’s toughest moments.”
“I sometimes fell short of being the best, but I never fell short of giving it my best.”
“Life is a struggle and the potential for failure is ever present, but those who live I fear of failure, or hardship, or embarrassment will never achieve their potential. Without pushing your limits, without occasionally sliding down the rope headfirst, without daring greatly, you will never know what is truly possible in your life.”
“If you want to change the world, be your best in the darkest moments.”
This is one of the best, if not the best, non-tech books among all those I read in recent years. I feel it is important for guiding my career. This book demonstrates ways of “starting your own business, proving your value at the company where you are already employed, or rebranding yourself for career transformation.” Plenty of success stories and concrete and actionable advice are given. It is written “for everyone looking for a promotion, a raise, or a way to get more satisfaction out of their lives.”
“For a product or a process to be truly disruptive, it must create a new market and transform an existing business model.”
“Disruption isn’t about what happens to you; it’s about how you respond to what happens to you.”
“When accepting a job, always ask yourself two questions: Will this position move me closer to achieving my goal? How long will I stay at this job before moving on? The answer to the second question should be determined by how much you can learn and grow at that particular job.”
“When a job no longer offers you the opportunity for personal growth, then it is time to move on. Remember that there is a big difference between giving up and knowing when you have had enough.”
“The trick to creating disruption at scale is to identify the biggest opportunities where the existing value chain is most easily upended. … Disruptors are simply problem solvers.”
“... carefully observe how things function in your world and focus on where the maximum worth is created in each value chain. When you have a bad day, as we all do, challenge your assumptions about what went wrong and how systems we accept as “the way it is” can be altered.”
“The only true mistake is not realizing the value of the mistakes you are making.”
“It’s easiest to make money from disruption by focusing on the most profitable links in the chain. So before one embarks on disrupting this system, it is important to understand a value chain’s inherent instability.”
“Poor design presents a world of opportunity for disruptors looking to make their mark without having to invent or introduce a new product to the world.”
“The secret to OPM is to find someone else’s problem and make your product their solution.”
“Disruption, even when achieving positive results, is still a threat to those who benefit from established market inequalities.”
In addition, I also read several books purely for interviews this year. Those are not really my style.
Thank you for sharing Hainan. Happy New Year!
Engineering Manager at KLA
2yThanks a lot for sharing! It is inspiring.