Measure what matters
In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up whom he'd just given $12.5 million, the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. For Google to change the world (or even to survive), Page and Brin had to learn how to make tough choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They'd have to know when to pull the plug on losing propositions, to fail fast. And they needed timely, relevant data to track their progress, to measure what mattered. Doerr taught them about a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He had first discovered OKRs in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where the legendary Andy Grove drove the best-run company Doerr had ever seen. Later, as a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove's brainchild with more than fifty companies. Wherever the process was faithfully practiced, it worked. In this goal-setting system, objectives define what we seek to achieve; key results are how those top-priority goals will be attained with specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone's goals, from entry level to CEO, are transparent to the entire organization. The benefits are profound. OKRs surface an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination. They keep employees on track. They link objectives across silos to unify and strengthen the entire company.
Stats for nerds
34recommend
71mentions
67people
2018–2024years
49% recommend48% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I love looking at books in people's photos. Here's what I found in yours. I hope you don't mind!
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Bad Blood by John Carreyrou - A detailed account of the Theranos scandal.
The Founders by Jimmy Soni - Explores the early days of PayPal and its impact on Silicon Valley.
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - Memoir by the founder of Nike.
Measure What Matters by John Doerr - A book about OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and organizational success.
Business Adventures by John Brooks - Classic tales of corporate life, highly recommended by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
Becoming by Michelle Obama - The former First Lady's personal memoir.
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch - Inspirational reflections on life and achieving dreams.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson - A comprehensive biography of Apple's co-founder.
Chaos Monkeys by Antonio García Martínez - A look into the wild side of Silicon Valley.
Facebook: The Inside Story by Steven Levy - A deep dive into the social media giant's history and controversies.
Skunk Works by Ben R. Rich - Stories of innovation from Lockheed Martin’s legendary division.
Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke - How to make decisions under uncertainty.
Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock and Dan M. Gardner - Insights into better prediction and decision-making.
Educated by Tara Westover - A memoir about resilience and education.
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain - A raw look at the life of a chef.
Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin - A biography of the physicist behind the atomic bomb.
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant - Wisdom on wealth and happiness.
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I've read Naval's book, but not the others. Are there any in particular you really enjoyed?
- There is actually a pretty good book about them.
Measure What Matters by John Doerr
It shows the history of how they have worked well at some companies in the Valley. You asked one question about this and now you have to read a book. That's a shame.
- I think the limitations may come from how the author saw the final product. I have a good example where audo works (in my opinion) better than text on "Measure What Matters". Here you actually have some the people who had a significant impact on business & tech world telling their stories in their own voice.
Most of the audiobooks are build as an afterthought on top of the original text.
- Here are a few others I haven't seen mentioned. - The Price Whisperer (pricing is important and mostly ignored by startups) - Startup Myths and Models (title explains it) - Measure What Matters (using OKRs) - Growth Units (figure out your unit economics - LTV and CAC)
- For me, I'd be nowhere without these.
In sort of curriculum order:
- Built to Sell - really easy gateway
- The E-Myth Revisited (withstand the writing style, glib observations)
- The Business Model Generation book- massive leap in understanding after this
- Traction (Gabriel Weinberg). Marketing entrypoint zeroed into today
- Managing the Professional Service Firm (Maiser) (incidentally related to what I do but so useful)
- Thinking in Systems (Meadows)
- An Elegant Puzzle (Engineering management book by Will Larson. Actionable and bite-sized)
- Measure What Matters (Doerr)
- Crossing the Chasm
- Blue Ocean Strategy
- Never Split the difference (eh)
- Design of everyday things (not as niche as I thought, perspective altering)
Some sales books (I held my nose while reading, but useful insights)
- The Science of Selling
- S.P.I.N. Selling
- The Challenger Sale
- To agree with the sibling comment, another better alternative may be "Measure What Matters" by John Doerr: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39286958-measure-what-ma...
He has a lot of respect in the tech world, being a leader at Kleiner Perkins who invested early in Google, Amazon, and many others. He's the person who really popularized OKRs, so the book has some great examples.
