Sam
Too lengthy. The book is definitely a page turner, but it really stretches on going deep into each of those numerous characters. It took me nearly half way through the book before I could connect all these characters. This is my first Susan Hill novel and I had this one lying around.
I would probably not pick another Susan Hill until I really have a solid 8-10 hrs to kill like a long duration travel :)
Overall the book could have been at least 25% shorter.
My initial thoughts looking at this book was that perhaps the world does not need another self help startup book. I have nothing against self help books and there are some really great ones out there, I am just not a huge fan of them. So honestly, I did start off on a skeptical note. To the authors credit however, the book is well written. It's one of those subject areas that can easily turn out a bit on the boring side, but the author, Jon Acuff has a done a good job keeping the topics both interesting and precise.
Before this book, I had not read or listened to any of either Jon Acuff's or Dave Ramsey's work. The author is a renowned and a respected public speaker and though significant portion of this book and the experiences in it, directly relate to public speaking and writing, the book is actually a good read no matter what your field of interest. In fact at the core, the author positions the book as about starting and being awesome at anything you are really passionate about.
The main idea about the book is the title, “Start”. According to the author and something which I have always felt it is the “Start” of something that you truly can control. The final outcome and also the journey is not something you can always control. There are a lot of factors that will influence both outcome and the path that you take to get there. So the author recommends that you focus on the on the one and and only thing you can control the “Start”. But there are still just a couple of things you still need to do before you “start”, the most important of them, to honestly assess your current situation since “the most powerful GPS will not be able to guide you to your destination unless it knows your current location”
The rest of the book I felt was about the helping you in the path of reaching your desired outcome and the moving on to finding your next “Start”. Jon buckets the process after starting into the 5 phases of Learning, Editing, Mastering, Harvesting and Guiding. As you traverse through these paths you face some difficult choices and a few challenges, as such Jon attempts to guide you through these with a series of his personal experiences and some interesting anecdotes.
Some parts that I enjoyed more than others were sections where the author talks about fighting fears and moving from the path of average to awesome. In fact all through the book Jon's core idea has been to steer clear of the of the average path and find the path less travelled, the awesome road. Again not something new, but his style of writing keeps it both interesting and humorous at times.
Another section of the book that I liked was where the author talks about times you might often find yourself going off track. He shares his views on how you can easily become a “jerk” of completely forget being humble. You might also want to harvest too soon or wait too long before you start guiding. Jon offers some ridiculously simple but effective solutions to tackle them which kept me turning pages.
If you ever find yourself making the statement “how did I get here?” ending with a question mark more often rather than with an exclamation “how did I get here!” , you might find this book intriguing and even helpful.
As for me I ran into this book at my local library and I was not disappointed.
Nick Bilton's Hatching twitter is an amazing story of how a company that was a technology mess, patched together a product by bits of code, built on a framework to prototype an idea by a bunch of engineers who were about to were about to be laid off from a failed startup, got almost sold twice and saw three CEOs in less that two years went on to become one of the biggest social media networks that ultimately got a market valuation of $10 billion and in the process also played a major role in revolutions across the world.
I have ‘followed' twitter closely from 2007 and know a little bit the history of the company, I still found a fair bit of surprising information in this book. It is definitely, one of the best books that I have enjoyed reading in 2013. For most of us Jock Dorsey has been the public face ‘ inventor ‘ of twitter. This book will change your perception to an extent.
There is no doubt that the author has painstakingly conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with both current and past employees at Twitter, as well as their friends and perhaps even competitors at other companies. All four co-founders of the company agreed to be interviewed - and so did board members (past and present). Yes there were a few who were not interviewed or refused to be interviewed and the chronology of events might be slightly less than perfect, but that's OK. All the main characters, EV, Jack, Noah, Biz and Goldman are portrayed brilliantly.
This is a must read if you have ever worked on a startup, have had your own startup or even dreamt of anything related to a startup. From agile prototyping to how ideas are sparked, nurtured and molded, the book has an anecdotal description of all that. The book also captures the heart, soul and pulse of the silicon valley perfectly.
The author starts off with a narrative description on the co-founders and a few others who where key in shaping or rather hatching the the twitter idea and slowly builds up to capture the ideological tussles between them.
Things do get mildly technical as you read through the book, but at most places the author ensures to provide a brief explanation. But at the end of it, it is after all a book about a technology startup. As long as your realize that before you pick it up, you won't be disappointed.
Funding is key for any startup and the author subtly and sometimes cautiously shows the complex changes that an investor can bring in. Not something new, but an interesting section nonetheless.
While twitter is hatching, it finds itself in a unique position where it has to navigate its way and avoid various acquisition attempts ranging from bigwig competitors like Facebook, celebrities and former vice presidents. From boardroom discussion to private meetings, from internal employee brefings to last minute public blog post changes, the author has captured it all spot on. All this is largely invisible to people outside twitter.
One of the many things that I felt right about this book was that is the perfect size. Not too long and not too short, there is hardly a section, paragraph or page which you might be tempted to skim through or skip. This is a rare thing for me to find in a nonfiction book.
This book could have easily been a boring narration of company and its journey, but hats off to Nick for writing and presenting this so well.
Of-course timing the book release just before twitter went for its IPO was a smart move.You can't really beat that. If twitter touches your life or work, you should give this book a read.
I typically do not read legal thrillers, but I got a the Kindle edition free, so it was more of book that I could test drive my Kindle with. As with a typical thriller the book is a page turner or a page tapper if you are using Kindle touch :) The plot is subtle, but tightly woven that will keep you engrossed till about 70 percent of the book after with it become a bit too obvious, after which you just want tap through the rest of the book.
I have read a handful of legal thrillers, but none from this author. Character portrayal seems to be her strength and the dialogues are brilliant. However a few places it seemed overdone.The book is a first of the Josie baylor-bates series from the author. I might pick up the next one, when I have a few hours to kill.
I think this is the most comprehensive and accurate narrative of the the anonymous cyber movement between 2010 - 2012. The book has a lot of technical jargon so if you are not a IT person you may find yourself googling a lot as you read through. Overall it's a perfect balance between fact (majority) & fiction.
It took me close to three weeks to get finished with this book and in the end I am glad that I did. The author (who by the way is an established business section reporter with the New York times) takes a neurological approach to understanding habits and the pivot role they play in our personal,business and social life. The first two parts of the book that covered the the habit loop and the cravings that drove these were the most engrossing.The other parts which covered habits of business organizations and the habits of the society where relatively less intriguing.
Overall the book could have been a third shorter than it currently is,however the author is a brilliant story teller and will keep you entertained and engaged with an interesting collection of anecdotes.
The author has also included a nice appendix section which is essentially a reader's guide on how to use the ideas/ topics covered in this book - a framework. That gets the book an additional star from me.
Lives up to it's title of being extremely short. A simple reminder of being mindful & present amid the chaos.”You will learn this sitting quietly”