March Reads: Homo Deus and The Lean Startup

The most notable books I read last month were “Homo Deus” and “The Lean Startup.”

“Homo Deus” is by the same author of “Sapiens” (one of my favorite reads of 2016). While “Sapiens” reflects on the history of humans, “Homo Deus” starts from today and looks at what the future might hold.

Author Yuval Noah Harari paints a picture not everyone will like. He argues that individual free will is scientifically proven to be an illusion. Instead, we’re merely a set of predictable, chemical reactions. For this reason, we’re headed to a world where we let entities such as Facebook or Google make decisions for us, as they will understand us better than we understand ourselves. This will have far-reaching consequences for how we organize society and the role humans will play on this earth.

“The Lean Startup,” originally published in 2011, is already a classic among entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, I did not read it until last week. It provides a practical framework for operating in the extremely uncertain environment of startups. As normal corporate metrics (e.g., profit or revenue) often don’t work to measure startup health, author Eric Ries instead proposes startups strive for validated learning through the build-measure-learn loop.

I already know with certainty that not reading this book sooner is among my top 3 “biggest startup” mistakes. In other words: if you’re involved in a startup and haven’t read this book yet, drop everything you’re doing and start reading right now (I’m serious!).