My List
This is a list of podcasts, books, and tutorials that have been extremely influential on my life. I highly recommend everything on my list (in no particular order).
Hidden Brain
This is a really smart podcast about many different psychology concepts that breaks everything down in a way that anyone can understand and learn from
The Reboot Podcast
Jerry Colonna is a startup coach guru who has really deep and emotional conversations with entrepreneurs and company leaders about their professional and personal lives. From radical self-inquiry to leadership-as-a-service, anyone who listens to this can learn deeper levels of empathy, become a better leader, and most importantly, learn better how to love oneself.
StartUp
Alex Blumberg kicks-off the podcast as a day in the life of an entrepreneur as he builds Gimlet Media. As it evolves, it covers a lot of other startup founders and their journeys. This podcast is eye-opening to understanding other people’s entrepreneurship journey.
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don’t
This book is so well written. It covers the importance and value of statistics in a vast number of fields. Nate Silver breaks down how to interpret meaningful data points and understand how they affect a given scenario. You can use this knowledge to start to see how data and predictions exist in your own life and how you can be smarter about them.
Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well
Feedback is critical in order to grow and succeed in both your professional and personal life. This book’s thesis is that a productive feedback exchange is primarily on the receiver, not the giver. The authors break down the different way feedback can trigger the receiver, and how to better understand, respond to, and act on feedback.
Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist
Raising venture capital is a black box for any new entrepreneur. This book by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson walks through the key pieces of raising capital in an easy-to-understand format with great tips on how to set your company up for success.
Business Schooled
Alexis Ohanian walks through the stories and lives of entrepreneurs that are not the typical millennial tech entrepreneur, but rather older generations starting great businesses that are in a variety of industries. He captures the beauty of each story and does a great job highlighting the entrepreneur’s struggles, but more importantly how he or she overcomes them and creates a great business with strong and positive values.
How I Built This with Guy Raz
Guy Raz interviews a myriad of entrepreneurs and walks through their story of how they built their business. The series is great for listeners wanting to get a better understanding of how companies got started and hear the different struggles and successes that each entrepreneur has had on the way to success.
Up First
This is a great unbiased podcast that is short, sweet, and to the point on today’s news. It helps busy people stay up-to-date and be aware of current events.
Preston & Steve
I grew up listening to the Preston and Steve radio show in the Philly area. They are funny, down-to-earth, and entertaining. This show helps me stay connected to where I grew up, and it helps me relax and chuckle.
Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl
This book is the best read for anyone trying to learn web development. I read this when I was building daapr in order to learn the best practices for developing our product. Michael Hartyl makes complex concepts very simple to understand and shows how to apply them in real life. This book walks you through building a Twitter replica starting from creating the application all the way to deploying it on the web. It gave me the foundations of my technical knowledge.
Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology
I really like this book by Jackie Bavaro and Gayle Laakmann McDowell about preparing for product management interviews because it covers all of the bases of product management. It includes how to approach case questions, technical content, behavioral questions, estimation problems, and more. It’s a great refresher and primer for anyone looking to get into product and anyone who is about to interview and has experience in the field.
Jackie Bavaro’s Blog about Product Management
Jackie Bavaro’s blog on product management is a great series of content covering tactical execution in product management as well as soft skills for how to better work and collaborate with the broader team like engineering, design, marketing, and more. It’s a great read with ongoing posts and content.