The Pmarca Guide to Startups, Part 9: How to hire a professional CEO | Hacker News Reader

The Pmarca Guide to Startups, Part 9: How to hire a professional CEO

blog.pmarca.com

21 pointsabstractbill7 comments

You know the Boston area VCs insist on replacing the founding CEOs. Are they nuts?

I was going to print up #9 and read it over a nice casual lunch sitting outside at a table in the sun. Now I get to re-read "Don't" 2000 times. Thanks Marc, ya bastard!

Read your favorite of the others again. There's nothing like repetition!

"How can you internalize all of that knowledge?

I can give you two hacks.

First, use repetition. Download the audio versions of Paul Graham's essays, burn them on a CD, and listen to them over and over again. Read books once, identify the ones you like, and then read those again and again, every six months."

 - http://blogs.xobni.com/asmith/archives/27

Yeah, you're totally right about re-reading. It helps a ton. That's actually what I did today. Still, it's always more enjoyable to read something new.

One problem is that I've re-read (and re-listened) to everything PG and Pmarca have ever posted on the damn internet, many times over. Now I just re-read the best ones for the 20th time. I read/listen on the train, at lunch, and at the park so my appetite is insatiable. Need. More. Content.

Haha. My two favorite startup books: High Stakes No Prisoners, and Founders at Work.

(btw, who are you? email me at adam@adamsmith.cc?)

I bought High Stakes No Prisoners and never got around to reading it. Then I gave all my precious books away when I moved (big mistake). Thanks a lot for mentioning it! I have to buy it again. I can't wait to read it.

(I'm no one. Just Another Startup Hacker. Not a YC founder or anything.)

Beyond repetition, actually regurgitating, in your own words, what you've read is pretty helpful. I've found that, in doing summaries for my site Squeezed Books (http://www.squeezedbooks.com), that I've digested some things a lot more than if I had only read them. Anyone and everyone is welcome to try their hand at summarizing some business books for the site - absolutely free;-)

I've had some thoughts about ways to include essay/non book summaries, but so far I haven't bothered - stuff that's free on the internet is usually short enough to read, because it hasn't been inflated with fluff in order to make a book out of it.

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