Books with category 📌 Strategy
Displaying 10 books

Think Like a Rocket Scientist

2020

by Ozan Varol

Think Like a Rocket Scientist is not just about the celebration of technology's greatest triumphs; it's about the thought process that allows us to reach beyond the known into the realm of the unknown. Ozan Varol, a former rocket scientist, shares the habits, ideas, and strategies that can transform the seemingly impossible into the possible.

The same thought process that allowed Neil Armstrong to take his giant leap for mankind and spacecraft to traverse millions of miles through outer space is now accessible to everyone. Varol introduces nine simple strategies from rocket science that can be applied to our work and life challenges. Whether you're aiming to land your dream job, propel your business forward, pick up a new skill, or create an innovative product, these strategies provide the tools to achieve extraordinary results.

In our world of complex and unfamiliar problems, those who can approach these issues creatively and persistently hold a significant advantage. Think Like a Rocket Scientist will inspire you to embark on your own moonshot project and give you the confidence to achieve liftoff.

Always Day One

2020

by Alex Kantrowitz

An acclaimed tech reporter reveals the inner workings of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft, showing how to compete with the tech titans using their own playbook. At Amazon, "Day One" is code for inventing like a startup, with little regard for legacy. Day Two is, in Jeff Bezos's own words, "stasis, followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating, painful decline, followed by death." Most companies today are set up for Day Two. They build advantages and defend them fiercely, rather than invent the future.

But Amazon and fellow tech titans Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are operating in Day One: they prioritize reinvention over tradition and collaboration over ownership. Through 130 interviews with insiders, from Mark Zuckerberg to hourly workers, Always Day One reveals the tech giants' blueprint for sustainable success in a business world where no advantage is safe. Companies today can spin up new products at record speed -- thanks to artificial intelligence and cloud computing -- and those who stand still will be picked apart.

The tech giants remain dominant because they've built cultures that spark continual reinvention. It might sound radical, but those who don't act like it's always day one do so at their own peril. Kantrowitz uncovers the engine propelling the tech giants' continued dominance at a stage when most big companies begin to decline. And he shows the way forward for everyone who wants to compete with--and beat--the titans.

Deep Work

2016

by Cal Newport

Deep Work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. This book will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy.

Author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing that distraction is bad, he celebrates the power of its opposite. The book is divided into two parts: the first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. The second part presents a rigorous training regimen, a series of four rules, for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill:

  1. Work Deeply
  2. Embrace Boredom
  3. Quit Social Media
  4. Drain the Shallows

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. It is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.

Extreme Ownership

Jocko Willink and Leif Babin served together in SEAL Task Unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated Special Operations unit from the war in Iraq. Through difficult months of sustained combat, Jocko, Leif, and their SEAL brothers learned that leadership—at every level—is the most important thing on the battlefield.

They started Echelon Front to teach these same leadership principles to companies across industries throughout the business world that want to build their own high-performance, winning teams. This book explains the SEAL leadership concepts crucial to accomplishing the most difficult missions in combat and how to apply them to any group, team, or organization. It provides the reader with Jocko and Leif's formula for success: the mindset and guiding principles that enable SEAL combat units to achieve extraordinary results.

It demonstrates how to apply these directly to business and life to likewise achieve victory. The book covers various topics such as Cover and Move, Decentralized Command, and Leading Up the Chain, explaining what they are, why they are important, and how to implement them in any leadership environment.

A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership revolutionizes business management and challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.

Superintelligence

2015

by Nick Bostrom

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom is a comprehensive analysis of the concept of artificial intelligence surpassing human intelligence and the potential consequences of such a development. Bostrom explores the capabilities unique to the human brain that have allowed our species to hold a dominant position on Earth. This dominance could be challenged if machine intelligence exceeds our own, presenting a superintelligence that could become extremely powerful, possibly beyond our control.

The book delves into whether it is possible to construct an initial seed AI in such a way that an intelligence explosion could be survivable. Bostrom presents a controlled approach to this explosive potential, addressing topics such as oracles, genies, singletons, boxing methods, tripwires, mind crime, humanity's cosmic endowment, differential technological development, indirect normativity, instrumental convergence, whole brain emulation, technology couplings, Malthusian economics, dystopian evolution, artificial intelligence, biological cognitive enhancement, and collective intelligence.

With lucid writing, Bostrom guides the reader through this complex landscape, making it accessible and engaging. Superintelligence does not merely lay out the challenges ahead; it offers a reconceptualization of our essential tasks in the face of the future of intelligent life and the fate of humanity itself.

The Culture Map

2014

by Erin Meyer

The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business is an insightful and practical guide by INSEAD professor Erin Meyer, aimed at helping you understand and navigate the complexities of cultural differences in both your work and personal life.

The book dives into the nuances of international business communication and cooperation, explaining why Americans often start with positive comments before delivering criticism, while French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans are more direct. It explores how Latin Americans and Asians are influenced by hierarchical structures, and why Scandinavians might view the ideal boss as a peer rather than a superior.

Erin Meyer provides a field-tested model for decoding cultural differences that affect international business. Her book combines an analytical framework with practical, actionable advice to thrive in a global environment, making it an indispensable resource for professionals engaged in cross-cultural interactions.

Three Horizons

2013

by Bill Sharpe

Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope is a simple and intuitive framework for thinking about the future. It explains how people often manage to disagree so vehemently about their visions of the future and how to achieve them. The book offers a practical way to begin constructive conversations about the future at home, in organizations, and in society at large.

The three horizons framework is about much more than simply stretching our thinking to embrace the short, medium, and long term. They offer a coordinated way of managing innovation, creating transformational change with a chance of succeeding, dealing with uncertainty, and seeing the future in the present.

In this beautifully illustrated book, Bill Sharpe introduces the Three Horizons framework as a prompt for developing a 'future consciousness'—a rich and multi-faceted awareness of the future potential of the present moment—and explores how to put that awareness to work to create the futures we aspire to.

El Arte de la Guerra

2010

by Sun Tzu

El Arte de la Guerra, traducido por primera vez por un jesuita en 1772 con el título de Los Trece Capítulos, que lo dio a conocer en Europa, se convirtió rápidamente en un texto fundacional de estrategia militar para las distintas cortes y estados mayores europeos.

Pocas veces un libro antiguo (escrito entre los siglos VI y III a.C.) se ha mantenido tan moderno, porque esta filosofía de la guerra y la política basada en la astucia y el fingimiento, más que en la fuerza bruta, que describe, sigue siendo actual. Incluso fuera de lo "militar", Sun Tzu sigue siendo una gran referencia para descifrar la estrategia de empresa y la política. La formulación precisa y pictórica de Sun Tzu añade al interés del texto un toque de sabiduría milenaria.

Hikaru no Go, Vol. 10: Lifeline

After stumbling across a haunted go board, Hikaru Shindo discovers that the spirit of a master player named Fujiwara-no-Sai has taken up residence in his consciousness. Sai awakens in Hikaru an untapped genius for the game, and soon the schoolboy is chasing his own dream--defeating the famed go prodigy Akira Toya!

Ender's Game

Andrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast.

But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military's purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine's abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth—an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.

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