I’ve been reading The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. It’s okay. These guys basically posit that in the fast paced world we live in today, you need to treat your career like a startup. That means being agile, weathering small shocks and sudden changes, weighing risk, and building a network. I really want to like this book, but it just isn’t that useful.
Overall, TSoY seems unfocused. I can’t tell how they decided to order the chapters or what kind of logical progression they follow. Parts of it are about agile entrepreneurship. Little Bets covers the same material but better. Parts of it are about intelligent risk assessment and taking action in a knowledge-poor environment. This has a lot of overlap with Black Swan, they even cite it in chapter 6.
Maybe it’s just because I’ve read a half dozen books on the subject matter, but all this seems pretty basic. Add to that that the writing is supremely mediocre, and the book as a whole is dry and boring.
I’m sure this would be a good book for someone just starting out in their career, or for someone who is completely ignorant of today’s job-market realities, but for me (and probably most people my age), it’s not really news that we can’t depend on Ford to give us a job for life.
There is one redeeming feature, each chapter ends with a checklist to use to develop good habits and build your network. I think these are cool, and depending on my time, I want to use them and see how well they work.
Final verdict: if you’re middle management at GE from the 1980s, this book is for you. Otherwise, skip it.
I also wanted to put up a quick not about this project: I’ve been really busy recently, so I’ve been slacking a little bit on the book front. I took a couple hours today to get through this book and write up a review, and I plan to rally and finish my last 10 weeks strong. Let me know if you have any recommendations.
See the full list of books that I’ve read for this project here.
Leave a Reply