“Build”

Tony Fadell

I was honestly expecting a lot more of this book to fill me with that specifically “you’re insufferable” kind of rage, but aside from a couple brief appearances, it really didn’t do that at all. Instead, it was an interesting overview, both of Fadell’s career, and of a big pile o’ advice. Mostly it was targeted at the founder/CEO folks, but a fair chunk of it is applicable to those of us who haven’t drunk the Silicon Valley kool-aid and are content to not be the face of the place we work.

One through line I felt was the connection to Steve Jobs. It wasn’t as devoted to the man as, say, Make Something Wonderful was, there were really only a couple anecdotes about him, but his influence, his style, felt like it permeated the book. You can really tell that Fadell thought of Jobs as a mentor, and learned a lot from working with him.

This was an excellent choice for the book club at work; I heartily enjoyed it in that context, and am looking forward to the discussion.1 I think it’ll be a similarly good fit for anyone that works in tech, or doing product design; check it out.2

Well, I’m running these on a bit of a backlog, so by the time you’re reading it, I will have already had the discussion. ↩