Your holiday book list

It’s that time of year when you want to compile a reading list for the longer nights and downtime of the Christmas season. And maybe you also want some gift ideas too. EIther way, we’ve got you.

We asked our panel of experts, the Braintrust, for book recommendations that would help people make sense of their respective industries. Here are some of our favorite suggestions.

“ Venture Deals “ by Brad Feld and “ Secrets of Sand Hill Road ” by Scott Kupor
“Excellent books for understanding the fundamentals of venture investing.”
— Brennan O'Donnell, partner, Frontline Ventures

“ This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends ” by Nicole Perlroth
“It’s one of the most in-depth and yet approachable books on some of the hidden parts of infosec. I highly recommend it if you want to learn more than just the relatively boring minutia of actual enterprise security.”
— Ian McShane, VP of strategy, Arctic Wolf

“ The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between America and Our Energy Future ” by Gretchen Bakke
“This book provides an important technical and sociological foundation for the advocacy many of us are doing to support a more distributed and sustainable electric system.”
— Anne Hoskins, SVP, policy and market development for energy technology, Generac Power Systems

“ Cryptonomicon ” by Neal Stephenson
“A science fiction novel published in 1999, [it] describes the promise of cryptocurrency, a decade before the Bitcoin whitepaper was published. For me, the book shows the promise of — and demand for — crypto, long before the technology was even viable.”
— Diogo Mónica, president and co-founder, Anchorage Digital

“ Playing to Win " by Roger Martin
“The essential modern guide to building and leading company strategy; it brings science to the art of strategy and is pragmatically built on the act of making decisions.”
— Sam Ramji, chief strategy officer, DataStax

“ The Five Dysfunctions of a Team ” by Patrick Lencioni
“A quick read, but an invaluable guide. So much of what we do comes down to building trust, navigating conflict, and driving results and it illuminates really core dynamics within modern work.”
— Dave Carhart, VP of people, Lattice

“ The Hard Thing About Hard Things ” by Ben Horowitz
“[This] lays out some of the difficult challenges and choices of being a startup CEO.”
— Donnel Baird, CEO, BlocPower

“ Process Mining: Data Science in Action ” by Wil van der Aalst
“He is a true inspiration, and his research changed my life. Reading that book was the start of an adventure to bring a new way of running processes to companies everywhere — an adventure that involved my co-founders and me hand-writing over a thousand letters to top executives, crisscrossing Germany in a beat-up Opel Astra, and much more.”
— Alexander Rinke, co-CEO and co-founder, Celonis

“ How Law Made Silicon Valley ” by Anupam Chander
“A good primer on how contingent tech competitiveness is on policy choices, including their timeliness and clarity. It's important for the policy community to understand that choices we make now will make (or break) local, national, and global tech competition outcomes for decades to come.”
— Mike Linksvayer, head of developer policy, GitHub

“ Redefining HR ” by Lars Schmidt and “ Inclusion Revolution ” by Daisy Auger-Domínguez
“People are the backbone of businesses and decision-making. The approach, rules, and boundaries are changing and HR professionals and the field must adapt; these two books help push us all to think differently about people, HR, and DEI.”

— Laura Shen, chief diversity and inclusion officer, WEX

“ The Motorcycle Diaries ” by Ernesto "Che" Guevara
“No two days in the start-up world are the same - every day brings new adventures and your skills tested in managing new challenges.”
— Devie Mohan, founder, Burnmark

A MESSAGE FROM HASHICORP

Organizations moving to the cloud need a new operating model — one that rethinks how they manage infrastructure, handle security, and connect systems. Platform teams trust HashiCorp’s stack of automation software to build the powerful, easy-to-use infrastructure their business needs to innovate.

Learn more

People are talking

When it comes to crypto, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao says world governments should be regulators, not fighters :

“I think most governments now understand that adoption will happen regardless. It's better to regulate the industry instead of trying to fight against it.”

The Kids Online Safety Act could harm minors, civil society groups wrote in a warning to lawmakers:

“Online services would face substantial pressure to over-moderate … KOSA would cut off another vital avenue of access to information for vulnerable youth.”

Making moves

Carlyle Group raised more than $3 billion for a fund that will invest in European technology. Did somebody mention a downturn?

Crypto startup MoonPay hired Keith Grossman , currently the president of Time, as its own president.

In other news

The latest at Twitter? Elon Musk showed off plans for how Twitter will become an everything app , including encrypted DMs, longform tweets, and payments. He also got excited about how new user signups and user active minutes are at record highs. And the new verification service will apparently launch “tentatively” this week.

Tesla is working on a revamp of the Model 3 , according to Reuters, to cut production costs and focus on the features that its customers value the most. It’s also recalling about 80,000 cars in China due to problems with software and seat-belts.

Meta is now an extremist organization in the eyes of the Russian government.

Yandex’s holding company wants to cut ties with Russia, according to The New York Times. It plans to transfer Yandex’s most promising technologies to global markets to protect itself from fallout from the war in Ukraine.

Black Friday made a comeback, with sales up 12% according to Mastercard — though some of that could be inflation. Electronics were reportedly popular.

The FCC expanded a ban on the sale of telecom and surveillance equipment made by 10 Chinese companies. The ban prevents the marketing or importing of new products by companies including Huawei and ZTE.

Chaos as a result of protests at Foxconn’s manufacturing plant in Zhengzhou could leave Apple with a 6-million device shortfall this year, Reuters reports.

Amazon is closing some businesses in India, including meal deliveries and bulk deliveries to small businesses.

Binance committed $1 billion to an industry recovery initiative that it will use to invest in troubled crypto companies. It could extend the commitment to $2 billion.

The U.K. will fine tech companies that fail to remove content that promotes self-harm.

A MESSAGE FROM HASHICORP

Organizations moving to the cloud need a new operating model — one that rethinks how they manage infrastructure, handle security, and connect systems. Platform teams trust HashiCorp’s stack of automation software to build the powerful, easy-to-use infrastructure their business needs to innovate.

Learn more

Your holiday book list