10 books you need to read in 2017, according to the TIA Community

Every new year, I set a resolution to read more books. But the fact is, I hate reading. It’s honestly hard for me to put away all my tech devices for a while and pick up a book. I also get most of my news on social media because they’re fresh, concise, and interactive.

However, after understanding how social media can create an echo chamber of ideas, I began to realize that it might not be the best avenue to see different perspectives and acquire new, trustworthy knowledge.

Therefore, as startup founders or employees, we should always make time to read, no matter how busy we are. It can help us break out of our bubble, pick up new technical knowledge from a trusted source, or simply unwind and take our minds off the daily grind for a little while.

Not too long ago, we created a book challenge in the Tech in Asia Community where our members shared their favorite books about the tech industry, entrepreneurship, or life lessons in general. Here are 10 of the best books from all the responses that we’d like to share with the rest of the community!

Hooked

By Nir Eyal

Shared with us by Fabien Vauthey, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products introduces the “Hook Model,” a process that companies use to build customer habits. The author, Nir Eyal, is an expert in behavioral design. He founded two tech companies since 2003 and was dubbed “The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology” by the MIT Technology Review.

This book provides insights on how to cultivate certain user habits and behaviors for repeated product usage and is a must-read for folks interested in making users addicted to their products.

Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck

By Anthony K. Tjan, Richard J. Harrington, and Tsun-Yan Hsieh

Behind every successful venture is a person who first took the risk. Hearts, Smarts, Guts, and Luck was written by experienced business leaders and entrepreneurs (now serving as VCs and board advisors to CEOs). They wrote this after interacting with hundreds of venture-builders and discovering that every one of them held a combination of these four attributes.

Glenn Ong recommended this book to the community. He remarked that luck was the most intriguing of the four because of the amount of amazing people he had met in his startup journey through seemingly random encounters.

Lean In

By Sheryl Sandberg

“Women need to shift from thinking ‘I’m not ready to do that’ to thinking ‘I want to do that — and I’ll learn by doing it.'”

The author of the book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead needs no introduction. In this book, the COO of Facebook examines why women’s progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled. She explains the root causes of this and offers compelling solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential.

Alibaba

Chaos Monkey

The Hard Thing about Hard Things

Hidden in Plain Sight

The Founder’s Dilemma

Zero to One

Rework