Build by Tony Fadell

I distinctly remember that day. It was 2005 and my friend had got a shiny new gadget from the USA. It was…different. Unlike anything I saw earlier. It had a shiny stainless steel case, a polished white front and a large wheel in the center. Up until then, I had seen physical buttons being arranged in a circular shape, but this wheel was different. It was a touch panel! As I operated it with curiosity, I realized one thing - I was blown away by the experience of using a ‘click-wheel’. You could make circular gestures on that wheel and it would translate them into navigation actions in the software. It’s taking a 2-D motion and mapping onto 1-D actions. Pretty cool! By this time, I’m sure you would’ve guessed the device I have been talking about - the iPod. It was heavy, little big for the pocket at that time, but it was magic!

When I read somewhere about a new book written by Tony Fadell, the creator of iPod, I knew I had to read it. And that’s how this review was born. Tony Fadell needs no introduction if you follow the trends in the tech industry. Even if you missed on his latest creation - Nest Learning Thermostat - you couldn’t have missed iPod or iPhone. Now, when a guy with that kind of background writes a book about advice, you’d expect it to be good. Well, this book is great! In fact, if there’s one book that you should have on your work desk, this can be the one. Why? Let me explain.

Build is a book on advice at work. But it’s not one of those business books that explain some theory followed by some case studies and then followed by an action plan. Build falls somewhere between a memoir and a business book, providing raw and honest advice drawn from the experiences of Tony Fadell over his career span of almost 30 years in Silicon Valley. This is the advice you get when you talk to someone who you are really close with and who has seen a lot of action in his/her career. But not all of us are lucky enough to get to interact with such people. Luckily, for us, Build is one such book. It’s got all the advice you can ever get, at whatever stage of your career you are.

As you read through this book, you will realize that it takes you on a journey of someone starting right out of college, finding the first job, working hard at that job with your heroes, quitting that job, starting your own company, get acquired by a large company, and then creating the best products, quit again, start another company, getting acquired by another large company, and then quit again to help others starting new ventures. Yes, this is one heck of a lifetime journey, and that’s exactly what makes this book the go-to reference in your career. There’s advice about picking the right company to work for, starting a team and building a team culture, delivering a world-class product, talking to customers, hiring your first employees, dealing with law suits and lawyers and much, much more.

After you finish reading this book, I’m sure you’ll come out a bit different than before - one who realizes the importance of every little detail of the work, why work really matters, why do people matter. And that’s a good thing.

Here are some interesting lines from the book:

  • A good mentor won’t hand you the answers, but they will try to help you see your problem from a new perspective.
  • Adulthood is your opportuinty to screw up continually until you learn how to screw up a little bit less.
  • Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
  • Making a mistake is the best way to not make that mistake again.
  • Do, fail, learn.
  • If you’re not solving a real problem, you can’t start a revolution.
  • Follow your curiosity.
  • Any job working with your heroes is a good job.
  • If someone under you does something spectacular, that just shows the company that you’ve built a great team.
  • The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude higher than to produce it.
  • People won’t remember how you started. They’ll remember how you left.
  • You can’t just hit customers on the head with the ‘what’ before you tell them the ‘why’.
  • A good story is an act of empathy.
  • The only way to move forward is to do an honest accounting of the past.
  • The best ideas are painkillers, not vitamins.
  • What you’re building never matters as much as who you’re building it with.
  • The best marketing is just telling the truth.

These are just some of the lines from the book. There are entire paragraphs worth printing and distributing as flash cards.

Happy reading. And learning.