Ogilvy on advertising

What Hacker News says

1. lefstathiouJan 2026
   My two cents as a 20 year product manager with +10 enterprise applications under my belt (and having read several of these):

   # "Don't make me think" is a seminal work on design thinking for online services. I've yet to come across a book with as much relevance and substance even though it was written for the dot com era.

   # "Positioning" by Al Reis is a book I wish I read 15 years ago when I started my company... your product's strategic positioning will greatly inform and shape design decisions (typography, colors, tones, copy, etc)

   # "Ogilvy on Advertising" - written by the legend himself, once you read this book, it will change the way you see all ads in any medium

   Show morethread
2. irthomasthomasAug 2025
   And 'Ogilvy on Advertising'. Both are brilliant and should be required reading, especially for those interested in business or practical psychology.
   thread
3. owenversteegAug 2025
   For those who aren't familiar with the document, it has been described as "probably the best sales manual ever written." It was one of the first things ever written by a young David Ogilvy.

   It's mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but one of the best books I have ever read on advertising and marketing is Ogilvy on Advertising. If you have even a passing interest in selling anything to anyone, or just want to see how the sausage is made, I would strongly recommend it. One thin book, no fluff, with more concrete advice than ten thousand blog posts.

   Show morethread
4. fuzztesterFeb 2024
   Oh, wow. I have read his book, Ogilvy on Advertising. Found it interesting, to say the least.
   thread
5. lansteinMar 2023
   Advice to Founders and CEOs

   - Dear Founder (Maynard Webb) - The Hard Things About Hard Things (Ben Horowitz) - Straight Talk for Startups (Randy Komisar and Jantoon Reigersman) - The Founders’ Dilemmas (Noam Wasserman) - The Entrepreneur’s Daily Nietzsche (Brad Feld and Dave Jilk) - Build (Tony Fadell) - Zero to IPO (Frederic Kerrest) - The Great CEO Within (Matt Mochary)

   Finance

   - Wharton's Introduction to Financial Accounting course: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton-accounting](https://w... - How Finance Works: The HBR Guide to Thinking Smart About the Numbers (Mihir Desai) - Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs: What You Really Need to Know About the Numbers (Karen Berman and Joe Knight)

   Open-Book Company (Employee Ownership, Financial Literacy, Goal-setting)

   - The Great Game of Business (Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham)

   Legal

   - Acceleration (Ryan Roberts) - The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Law and Strategy (Constance Bagley and Craig Dauchy)

   Company Strategy and Direction (post-product/market fit)

   - Crossing the Chasm (Geoff Moore) - Zone to Win (Geoff Moore) - Only the Paranoid Survive (Andy Grove) - Blitzscaling (Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh) - The Innovator's Dilemma (Clayton Christensen) - Good to Great (Jim Collins) - Playing to Win (A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin) - Tape Sucks (Frank Slootman) - Strategy vol. 1&2 (Harvard Business Review)

   Pricing

   - Monetizing Innovation (Georg Tacke and Madhavan Ramanujan) - Confessions of the Pricing Man (Hermann Simon)

   Startup Phase

   - The Lean Startup (Eric Ries) - The Four Steps to the Epiphany (Steve Blank) - Zero to One (Peter Thiel)

   Management/Leadership

   - The Effective Executive (Peter Drucker) - Managing Humans (Michael Lopp) - The Art of Leadership (Michael Lopp) - High Output Management (Andy Grove) - Managing Oneself (Peter Drucker) - Essentials: Management (First Round Capital) - The Making of a Manager (Julie Zhuo) - The Powell Principles (Oren Harari) - Radical Candor (Kim Scott) - Leading Matters (John L. Hennessy) (fantastic book list in the coda) - Turn the Ship Around (L. David Marquet) (this is THE book on delegation) - Principles (Ray Dalio)

   COO/Succession Planning

   - Riding Shotgun (Nathan Bennett and Stephen A. Miles)

   People Performance/HR/Culture

   - Powerful (Patty McCord) - No Rules Rules (Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer) - Netflix culture deck - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Patrick Lencioni) - Work Rules! (Laszlo Bock) - It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work (DHH and Jason Fried) - The Culture Map (Erin Meyer) - The Talent War (Mike Sarraille and George Randle) - Great People Decisions (Claudio Fernández-Aráoz) - The Holloway Guide to Technical Recruiting and Hiring (Ozzie Osman) - Punished by Rewards (Alfie Kohn)

   Purpose, Passion, and Self

   - Start with Why (Simon Sinek) - What You Do is Who You Are (Ben Horowitz) - Drive (Daniel Pink) - Mindset (Carol Dweck) - Grit (Angela Duckworth) - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant (Eric Jorgenson)

   Fundraising/VC

   - Secrets of Sand Hill Road (Scott Kupor) - Venture Deals (Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson) - Raising Venture Capital (Andy Sparks) - The Business of Venture Capital (Mahendra Ramsinghani) - Done Deals (Udayan Gupta) - The Power Law (Sebastian Mallaby) - VC (Tom Nicholas)

   Board

   - Boardroom Excellence (Paul Brountas) - Startups Boards (Brad Feld and Mahendra Ramsinghani)

   M&A

   - Winning (Jack Welch) - M&A chapter - Connecting the Dots (John Chambers) - M&A chapter

   Marketing

   - Data-Driven Marketing (Mark Jeffery) - Positioning (Al Ries and Jack Trout) - Scientific Advertising (Claude Hopkins) - Traction (Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares) - Behind the Cloud (Marc Benioff and Carlye Adler) - Ogilvy on Advertising (David Ogilvy) - Marketing High Technology (William Davidow)

   Psychology

   - Influence (Robert Cialdini)

   Negotiation

   First, read Influence (under Psychology), then, in order

   - Thinking in Bets (Annie Duke) - Getting to Yes (Roger Fisher and William Ury) - Never Split the Difference (Chris Voss) - The Bald Truth (David Falk)

   Self

   - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey)

   Design and UX

   - Creative Confidence (Tom Kelley and David Kelley)

   AI (Machine Learning, Deep Learning/Neural Networks)

   - Andrew Ng's AI for Everyone course: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/ai-for-everyone](https://www....

   Growth (Data Science, etc.)

   - Hacking Growth (Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown)

   Graph Theory

   Product

   - Inspired (Marty Cagan) - Joel on Software (Joel Spolsky)

   Customer Loyalty/Customer Success

   - Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh) - Setting the Table (Danny Meyer)

   Finding a Startup Job

   - Entering StartupLand (Jeffrey Bussgang)

   CIO as ICP

   - The CIO Paradox (Martha Heller) - Be the Business (Martha Heller)

   Stories

   - Made in America (Sam Walton) - Shoe Dog (Phil Knight) - The Everything Store (Brad Stone) - Built from Scratch (Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank) - Hard Drive (James Wallace) - Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson) - Elon Musk (Ashlee Vance) - Creativity, Inc. (Ed Catmull) - The Ride of a Lifetime (Bob Iger) - Valley of Genius (Adam Fisher) - The Idea Factory (Jon Gertner) - Dealers of Lightning (Michael Hertzik) - Idea Man (Paul Allen) - Pour Your Heart Into It (Howard Schultz)

   Show morethread
6. samchengOct 2022
   Worth reading "Ogilvy on Advertising" if you're into this stuff. I know Ogilvy & Mathers (famous advertising firm) had Apple as an account in the mid 80s.
   thread