Top Reads

Books that shaped how I think about startups, venture, and building.

Zero to One

Peter Thiel

Contrarian thinking on building monopolies. The chapter on secrets alone is worth the read. Thiel's framework for evaluating whether a startup is creating something genuinely new changed how I assess every deal.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Ben Horowitz

The most honest book on what it actually feels like to run a startup. No sugarcoating. Horowitz writes about the moments no one prepares you for - firing friends, wartime decisions, and leading when you have no answers.

Blitzscaling

Reid Hoffman

The playbook for scaling startups at lightning speed. Hoffman breaks down how companies like LinkedIn and Airbnb prioritized speed over efficiency - and why that counterintuitive bet works.

Venture Deals

Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson

The definitive guide to how venture capital actually works. Term sheets, board seats, liquidation preferences - everything demystified. I keep this on my desk and still flip to it before every deal.

The Lean Startup

Eric Ries

Build-measure-learn isn't just a slogan - it's the most practical framework for early-stage product development. The MVP mindset Ries describes is exactly what I look for when evaluating founders.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

Essential for anyone making decisions under uncertainty - which is literally the VC job description. Changed how I evaluate my own biases in deal evaluation.