Ask HN: What are the best books on startups that discuss failure? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are the best books on startups that discuss failure?

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I'm currently reading "Founders At Work" and the most interesting chapter (so far) is the one on Phillip Greenspun of ArsDigita. Phillip was forced out of his own startup by his board and he eventually maneuvered behind the scenes to regain control. He's very open and honest about his failures and what he did wrong.

I find that many business books aren't that candid about failure and don't really discuss in-depth about mistakes the founder(s) made. I think learning about what not to do is often as important about learning what to do.

Are there any books on startups that discuss failure and mistakes candidly?

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I really liked Ben Horowitz's "The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers" [1]

The book is not focused on failures, but it's full of really good advices on what to do when a company is moving into disaster.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Hard-Thing-About-Things/dp/0062273...

Awesome, thanks for the recommendation!

Another couple books for inspiration. I read them one after another (huge contrast in a way to run a company):

- Brad Stone's "The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon" [1]

- Richard Branson's "Everything I Know About Leadership The Virgin Way" [2]

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Store-Jeff-Bezos-Amazon/dp/...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Everything-About-Leadership-Virgin-Har...

I highly recommend all of the following:

- 'DEC is Dead, Long Live DEC' (one of the best books I've read on the failure of a tech firm)

- 'Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the dawn of the computer age'

- 'The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer'

- 'When Smart People Fail' by Carole Hyatt and Linda Gottlieb (I have the 1986 edition, I believe a later edition is also available; this book is well written but it is so good, complex, and mature that I had to read it several times to fully understand it, and I still try to read it at least once every year to refresh my memory)

- 'The Anxious Organization' by Jeffrey A. Miller

- 'The Soul of a New Machine' by Tracy Kidder

- 'How to Get Rich' by Felix Dennis. (The title is misleading, this is not one of those books containing superficial, useless advice -- the book offers highly useful, in-depth, practical advice on entrepreneurship, including a brutally honest discussion of Dennis's many business failures [as well as his personal failures], and even a list of the most important business mistakes that entrepreneurs, including Dennis, typically make, and how to avoid them.)

- 'Starting Something: An Entrepreneur's Tale of Corporate Culture' by Wayne McVicker. A little-known book, but absolutely excellent.

- It appears that another user (bhamguy) has suggested 'Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure' by Jerry Kaplan. Good choice, I support that selection, definitely one of the best books I've ever read on startup failure.

It's an interesting question, but I don't know of any books that specialize on the mistakes of founders/projects, save for the Mythical Man Month [1] by Fred Brooks. HN does get a lot of "X is closing down" submissions, and some of them give interesting reasons for why the company didn't make it.

On a general level, there are usually more ways to make fatal mistakes than there are ways to make things successful.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

Thanks for the book recommendation! The books I'm looking for don't have to 100% focus on failure, but just include it in the overall story.

In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters

http://www.amazon.com/In-Search-Stupidity-Marketing-Disaster...

"The hard thing about hard things", by Ben Horowitz, best by far.

Great, I'll check it out!

Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure

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