Built to Last
"This is not a book about charismatic visionary leaders. It is not about visionary product concepts or visionary products or visionary market insights. Nor even is it about just having a corporate vision. This is a book about something far more important, enduring, and substantial. This is a book about visionary companies." So write James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras in this groundbreaking book that shatters myths, provides new insights, and gives practical guidance to those who would like to build landmark companies that stand the test of time. Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Collins and Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies - they have an average age of nearly one hundred years and have outperformed the general stock market by a factor of fifteen since 1926 - and studied each company in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day - as start-ups, as midsize companies, and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: "What makes the truly exceptional companies different from other companies?". By answering such questions, Collins and Porras go beyond the incessant barrage of management buzzwords and fads of the day to discover timeless qualities that have consistently distinguished outstanding companies.
Stats for nerds
14recommend
29mentions
21people
2007–2026years
66% recommend31% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I recommend reading Built to Last
https://www.amazon.com/Built-to-Last-Jim-Collins-audiobook/d...
It'll do a much better job than I can in showing why your thinking is so wrong-headed
- I find the The Jim Collins books to be insightful.
Good to Great. Built to Last, etc.
Focuses on how the organizations are constructed and tries to divine principles that are true across time.
- High Output Management by Andy Grove (Operations, people mgmt)
Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive by Harvey Mackay
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jerry I. Porras and Jim Collins
- For me, personally, "Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies" by Jim Collins, still stands as THE canon to read for a business book. His research based style resonates with me and makes me trust the findings much more.
- Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology (great!)
Dare to Lead (interesting and Powerful)
Rising Strong (Sensible)
What the most successful people do before breakfast (helpful in thinking about opportunity costs)
Why we sleep (interesting read)
Exponential organisations (Re-read after 2 years, worth it)
Prisoners of Geography (very interesting view of geopolitics, Putin, et al)
Continuous Delivery (great!)
Clean Code (must read for any serious programmer)
Built to last (picked it back after 1-2 years, cool book)
Site Reliability Engineering (didn't quite finish, but good book)
Building Microservices (fantastic book which puts everything I've done in the past year into so much more perspective)
- Here are a few sources which helped us grow our company:
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
- Built to Last by Jim Collins & Jerry Porras
- Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
