[souvic]

Congratulations on your new role as a ScaleUp CTO! Exciting times ahead with lots of learning.

I will recommend the following books. But more than books, you will probably require real talk with other people who are experienced in their sectors related to your tech stacks.

1. "The Phoenix Project" by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford - This book provides a fictional narrative about transforming an IT department, offering valuable insights into DevOps practices and the challenges of scaling technology within an organization.

2. "Team Geek" by Ben Collins-Sussman and Jennifer Greene - As a CTO, managing and leading your engineering team is crucial. This book focuses on building effective engineering teams, fostering collaboration, and maintaining a healthy work culture.

3. "High Output Management" by Andrew S. Grove - A classic in management literature, this book offers timeless wisdom on organizational management and leadership, with a focus on achieving high performance and scalability.

4. "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries - As a ScaleUp CTO, you'll likely need to embrace innovation and growth. This book introduces the principles of lean startup methodology, helping you navigate the challenges of scaling your company.

5. "Continuous Delivery" by Jez Humble and David Farley - Scaling your technology infrastructure while maintaining a robust and efficient development pipeline is crucial. This book delves into the principles and practices of continuous delivery and automation.

6. "Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love" by Marty Cagan - If your role involves product development, this book is a must-read. It provides insights into building products that resonate with customers and can scale effectively.

7. "Zero to One" by Peter Thiel - This book offers unconventional wisdom on startups and innovation, challenging traditional thinking. It's particularly relevant if you're leading a company in a competitive market.

8. "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton Christensen - A classic in the field of innovation and disruption, this book can help you understand why successful companies often fail to adapt and how to navigate disruptive technologies.

9. "Good to Great" by Jim Collins - Scaling a company to greatness is a common goal. This book explores the factors that distinguish great companies from good ones and offers insights into leadership and strategy.

10. "Crucial Conversations" by Al Switzler, Joseph Grenny, and Ron McMillan - Effective communication is key for leadership success. This book teaches you how to have difficult conversations and resolve conflicts constructively, which is essential in a leadership role.

These books cover a wide range of topics, from technology management and leadership to innovation and personal development. Depending on your specific challenges and interests, you can select the ones that resonate with you the most to help you excel in your role as a ScaleUp CTO.

[squeaky-clean]

This is a genuinely good list so it feels rude of me to say this, but, I get strong ChatGPT vibes from this comment, especially the first 2 and final paragraphs.

Edit: In fact, pasting the post body into ChatGPT I got 7 of those 10 recommendations.

As much as I love it as a tool, I really hate the weird twist chatgpt has added to online discussion. Maybe it shouldn't even matter because this is still a good list.

[diatone]

Yeah it’s bizarre; if someone’s going to get an LLM to ghostwrite their reply (not saying this is the case here but my internal ChatGPT alarm also went off reading this), will they use it for replying in the thread? Will they fact check their work?

[squeaky-clean]

I didn't think to check their profile before since it's not a green account, but they have no comments in the past 67 days and now 2 posts in 12 hours promoting their AI video translation service before being active again. The writing style in all their other comments feels different. So I'm pretty confident now this is just chatgpt.

[philomath_mn]

The complete, unquestioning acceptance of the term "ScaleUp CTO" also stuck me as something GPT would do

[souvic]

Well, I provided that term to ChatGPT, not the whole post and also I have read at least 6 of these 10 recommendations, modified the list as per my knowledge and then posted it here. I think ChatGPT can and definitely be used for re-drafting purposes. What's wrong with that?

It is still my original response and I have read most of the books with few being in my wishlist.

[squeaky-clean]

Well firstly that means you're recommending 4 books you haven't personally read without saying they came from chatgpt (and we don't know which 4).

But also the writing style in that comment just feels far more like ChatGPT than someone elses. Like you asked ChatGPT and then edited that, and not that you came up with your own idea and asked chatgpt for help. So when reading the comment it just comes off as any other copy-paste ChatGPT response. The OP could just ask ChatGPT themselves.

It also doesn't scale well. If multiple people in this thread used ChatGPT to answer, we'd have a bunch of comments of mostly the same list. When I tried to asked it myself I got 7 out of 10 recommendations the same.

[philomath_mn]

I come here to hear what humans have to say. I'm all for using GPT to make life more efficient, but using it to write your HN posts misses the whole point of HN.

[smarri]

I thought the exact same

[romanhn]

Fantastic list. I would also add The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier to really hone those people management skills. And The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni is a nice quick read on organizational politics.

[kingkongjaffa]

I just wanted to agree with this comment, I’ve read about half of the books listed and work as a product manager, and this is a great list!

[souvic]

Do you also agree that talking with experienced people(if your tech stack involves AWS Lambda, talk with an someone who is an expert on AWS Lambda) matter more, specifically for the job of a CTO?