Venture Capital & Startup Reading List

I constantly advocate to friends about what they should or shouldn’t read, in fiction, non-fiction, and startup-land. So, in the middle of 2012 I wrote a post about what I was reading at the time. Instead of doing piecemeal articles, I thought I’d create a centralized list of what I recommend, sometimes with light commentary. The list is fluid and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome, encouraged, and sought out. I apologize for my New York-bias in advance.

Top VC and Startup Blogs

Fred Wilson’s A VC
Roger Ehrenberg’s Information Arbitrage
Chris Dixon’s blog
Charlie O’Donnell’s This is going to be BIG
Brad Feld’s blog
Mark Suster’s Both Sides of the Table
Paul’s Graham blog
Benedict Evans’ Blog (refreshing mobile takes, added 7/10/13, now A16Z partner)
Rob Go’s Robgo.org (added 3/26/14)
Tomasz Tunguz’s ex post facto (added 3/26/14)
Blake Masters’ Peter Thiel lectures from his blog (added 3/26/14)

The Best Business & Strategy Books

Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age by Steven Johnson
The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup by Noam Wasserman
The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clay Christiansen
The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story by Michael Lewis
Venture Deals: Be Smarter than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist by Brad Feld/Jason Mendelson
Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City by Brad Feld
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Most Exclusive School for Startups by Randall Stross (less about Y Combinator background, more for thought processes/what transpires – added 3/21/13)
The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank (added 3/26/14)
Setting the Table by Danny Meyer (3/26/14)
Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim (3/26/14)
Customers Included by Mark Hurst & Phil Terry (3/26/14)
Creative Entrepreneurship by KBS+ Ventures (compilation of best blog posts on various business topics, it’s a FREE ebook – 3/26/13)
The Maker Movement Manifesto by Mark Hatch (added 7/22/14)
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz (added 7/28/14)
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely (added 7/28/14)
Top Dog: The Science of Winning by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman (added 9/10/14)

Important articles to read (a greatest hits/posts-that-shift-the-paradigm collection)

This section is a major work in progress and has a very high bar for admission. For now, I’ll start with:
The Long Tail by Chris Anderson (2006)
Paul Graham’s How to Get Startup Ideas (added 12/31/12).

Tech News Sites

Hacker News (crowd-sourced and voted articles, cream rises well here)
TechMeme
TechCrunch
PandoDaily
AllThingsD
VentureBeat
GigaOM
Ars Technica
MIT Technology Review
Twitter (which leads me to…)

Tech folks to follow on twitter

This is too long. Here’s who I follow. Some are my friends, many are not. I enjoy most of what they have to say.

Investors:  @a16z  @cdixon @brianscohen @dshen @ceonyc @davetisch @fredwilson @davidcohen @chrisfralic @joshk @bfeld @paulg @jeff  @davemcclure @shaig @chrisyeh @vkhosla @msuster @gilbeyda @bussgang  @f1annery (worth a shot, right?)  Entrepreneurs: @fakegrimlock @levie @dickc @biz @mcuban @ms @elonmusk @GA @ev @jack @travisk @cenedella News: @venturebeat @waltmossberg @hblodget @techcrunch @chr1s @danprimack @matthewi @noamwass (putting an academic in the news bucket) Other: @SeinfeldToday @Oatmeal @neiltyson @therock @louisck

Some awesome meetups

Startup Rock Climbing
Loyola Venture Community
NY Tech Meetup
Ultra Light Startups
Code Crew
Hardwired NYC

Really good newsletters

NYC events:
Charlie O’Donnell’s weekly list
Gary’s Guide

Select-your-community events and vertical newsletters: Startup Digest

Fortune’s Term Sheet (PE & VC news)
peHub (PE/VC news)
AdExchanger (for adtech)
Join-Startups for jobs
Jason Hirschhorn’s MediaREDEF (news, pop culture, generally really awesome)
Now I know by Dan Lewis (interesting facts)
Brain Pickings Weekly (offbeat, strange, but interesting facts)

Non-startup related, but worth a perusal…

A Calvin & Hobbes search engine
Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series (8 books)
Stephen King’s The Stand
George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire & Ice series (ongoing)
Robert Caro’s The Power Broker & his Lyndon Johnson series
Hugh Howey’s Wool Omnibus & related stories
Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game
Jane Jacob’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World