Stats for nerds
3recommend
7mentions
5people
2009–2024years
71% recommend29% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- If you're curious, I recommend the book, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". It busts a lot of myths and gives a good explanation of what abusers get out of their behavior.
One important myth is, "He can't control himself". E.g., he's not good at managing anger, so he needs classes. But it turns out a lot of abusive people are perfectly good at managing their anger except when the target is, say, a vulnerable woman. A person who is equally shitty to their boss and their coworkers? Mental illness could be an explanation. But one who's terrible only to the intern? That's just an abuser.
- Absolutely!
Well into adulthood I came across a book, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". It is the single most astute thing I have ever read. It's written by somebody who was a therapist for men in court-ordered programs. He spent years listening to their BS and at some point had enough and broke it all down.
I truly believe that if everybody spent 2 weeks on the topic at circa 16 years old, the world could be radically different. It wouldn't take that much longer to educate them on other relationships basics. Just the kind of minimum stuff and basic techniques that you see from, say, the Gottman Institute.
But I expect that will never happen because there are quite a lot of powerful people who benefit from and/or positively enjoy power differentials and exploitable ignorance. Harvey Weinstein comes to mind here.
- 1. Building Evolutionary Architectures - A great book for those looking to build an IT department that can meet the business needs of today and create an organizational mindset that allows you to still be nimble and evolve to meet future demands.
https://www.amazon.com/Building-Evolutionary-Architectures-S...
2. Building Microservices - A great book by Sam Newman which Building Evolutionary Architectures is effectively written upon IMHO. This book is really more technical and gets into the weeds of building out systems using microservices and it also touches based on CI/CD.
https://www.amazon.com/Building-Microservices-Designing-Fine...
3. Inside the Minds - Although this book is old and talks about XML as an emerging technology, it's exceptional in showing you how various CTOs think and define their roles in different companies. It really drives home the importance of having IT support business vs. just building out technical solutions.
Note: Buy this book used and save yourself a lot of money. I got it for $2.58.
https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Minds-Technology-Officers-Peop...
4. Release It! - A very good book that talks about important concepts in building systems that can be released often. It talks about things like Bulkheads, and circuit breakers; also mentioned in Sam Newmans book,. If you're company doesn't have CI/CD in place and a proper release model, then you should certainly read this book.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1680502395
I have more books, but I don't want to flood this post.
- Speaking of abusive bosses, let me recommend a favorite book:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000Q9J0RO
It's Lundy Bancroft's, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". It's the single most astute thing I've ever read. The guy spent more than a decade as a counselor for abusive men, most of them ordered to him by the courts. It's clear he heard an ocean of bullshit and became very good at seeing through it.
It's targeted at domestic abuse, but his insights are so clear and well-explained that it's easy to apply the lessons elsewhere. E.g., a couple of years back my boss got pushed out, so suddenly I was being managed by his boss. I walked out of my first meeting with him wondering what the fuck had just happened; everything I said he jumped on aggressively. But the pattern rang a bell, so I thumbed through the book. He lists a variety of abuser styles, and the one called "Mr. Right" fit him perfectly. In one meeting he hit something like 2/3rds of the items in the checklist.
Had I not read that, I would have probably walked away thinking that the problem was me, even though my original boss had been happy with me and my work. Instead, I was prepared for what came next: a couple more abusive meetings and then a surprise, no-notice "layoff" where I and the other manager my boss hired were pushed out. (And where we were asked to sign a no-disparagement clause if we wanted any severance. Seeing it a further abuser-style manipulation, I passed.)
Over the years I've given away maybe 15 copies of the book, often to people who were in abusive relationships without recognizing it. If you ever even begin to wonder, I strongly recommend reading the book.
- "Term Sheets & Valuations - A Line by Line Look at the Intricacies of Venture Capital Term Sheets & Valuations" and "Deal Terms - The Finer Points of Venture Capital Deal Structures, Valuations, Term Sheets, Stock Options and Getting VC Deals Done (Inside the Minds)"
Both are great books. I would read Term Sheets first, but Deal Terms has a lot of great information when you are getting ready to do VC funding. I guess that is if you do VC funding.
- There are 2 books that have fundamentally shifted my thinking:
- The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics.
This has been covered by CGP Grey and now has a Netflix adaptation, so I figure it lies well within the HN Zeitgeist already. There's a lot to debate in this book, but I fundamentally didn't understand political power before reading it.
- Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men.
I have a more complicated relationship with this one, in fact I never finished it. It's about men (mainly) who are abusive in relationships, and how they are able to manipulate their partners. It hits close to home because I've seen a lot of that growing up, and I've seen a lot of women close to me end up in abuse in a predictable but devastating cycle.
The primary controversial idea is that domestic abuse can be from man→woman, man→man, woman→woman, but the author pretty much discredits woman→man abuse. I don't think I can reconcile that with my own experience. But, where it changed my thinking was a chapter about "it's not emotions, it's values". I'd grown up knowing the importance of emotions and being open and communicative, but I was never able to put to words the disconnect I was feeling. Emotions are secondary, it's what one values that determines their emotions and actions, whether it be in an abusive relationship, or in any other place or time in the world.
It really shifted how I think about the world, and let me sever connections to people I was kept in my life because they'd had a bad childhood or whatever. I realized that they would never get over their turmoil, because they valued using it to hurt others.
