Miha

Great book in a novel form

Revisado: 10-13-21

The Phoenix Project is one of the most interestingly written books in this genre I have ever read. It's not your typical software manager book full of dry advice, but instead follows Bill, who became a VP of IT Operations overnight and inherited a department in disarray. We follow the narrative o Bill through his eyes in a novel form. Not novel like new, but novel like, well, novel. It reads in a very different way, and so it also hits differently. It goes through all the problems you will encounter in IT (and others, I presume) departments throughout your career. Being surrounded by incompetent people, having one person who knows it all and nothing can happen without him, one team blaming the other for problems and vice versa, being over budget, missing the deadline, firefighting issues that pop up constantly,…, and how Bill would tackle them. Then you have a sage in Bob, who dealt with similar problems in a manufacturing environment and gives Bill hints on how the same ideas could work in IT.

The result is DevOps, which now became the de facto standard in the industry, especially in internet-based IT companies. I've never worked in a company where releases would be monthly or where I would need an ops person to do it. But the IT world is massive, and I'm sure many companies still haven't made this leap.

The book reminded me of several instances from my career, and I truly can not recommend it enough.

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Go to the source instead

Revisado: 05-16-20

Japanese rediscovering Austrians rediscovering Stoics told in a fake conversation with someone who has no clue how _youth_ speaks. It’s not terrible but I suggest you find a good Stoic book instead.

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Great book, poor editing

Revisado: 08-23-19

A good example of a great book suffering from poor editing. There are parts where it wants to be a history book, parts when it fantasizes about future, parts where it’s focused on global economy, parts when it wants to be an investigative journal,… it’s a mess. But the overall story is indeed super interesting - how such a “trivial” invention changed the global trade forever and in ways no one could ever imagine.

So I recommend it, but feel free to skip chapters.

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Surprisingly good

Revisado: 08-04-19

Genuinely surprised by this book. Very straight-forward, no bullshit, some practical examples, and overall lessons that just make sense. I’m currently single and the book made it very clear why the last relationship ended. Makes perfect sense. Highly recommend it.

I “read” the audiobook version which is prefaced with a nice interview so that’s an extra plus.

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Entertaining and educational

Revisado: 07-27-19

Surprisingly fun and entertaining book about the technologies that are just behind the horizon. Must read while it’s still relevant since in some areas (reusable rockets) huge improvements were made since it was written. We’re still no closer to fusion though :P

Probably a great summer read as well. Highly recommended.

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A must listen

Revisado: 12-07-18

I’m not a gamer but I still enjoyed this very much. It’s crazy how gaming industry works and it’s def not sustainable.

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Meh

Revisado: 11-29-18

American discovers that excellence comes from hard work and not just talent. And that passes for revelation now?

It’s not a bad book…it’s just common sense reiterated. You won’t miss much by not reading this.

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Everything wrong with the world

Revisado: 11-25-18

This book is exactly what’s wrong with the world / business today. A ton of pop-science, hacking your way to success, total focus on sales, instead of delivery,… It’s the exact opposite of my world view defined by Dieter Rams: “less, but better”.

That said, I still recommend you read this. Not as a recipe book but as an antidote to people who come to you with this frame of mind.

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You should read it

Revisado: 11-24-18

Review Not as great as people would have you believe but it is a great overview over human history and present.

I read it almost immediately after Debt: the first 5000 years and it's interesting how two authors take a look at same or similar material and come up with a different conclusions. I prefer the Debt book over this one but both are very well worth a read.

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Avoid this title

Revisado: 05-21-18

The author doesn't seem to understand technology, has timelines all mixed up, and draws irrelevant and incredibly naive conclusions. I really wanted to like it since I believe these 4 companies deserve criticism and scrutiny but skewing reality is not how we should do that.

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