创业者必读

Slicing Pie: Funding Your Company Without Funds31We80f2z1L._SX310_BO1,204,203,200_

You and a partner go into business together and split the equity 50/50. You do all the work and your partner slacks off. He owns half your business- now what?

Slicing Pie outlines a process for calculating exactly the right number of shares each founder or employee in an early stage company deserves.

You will learn:

  • How to value the time and resources an individual brings to the company relative to the contributions of others
  • The right way to value intangible things like ideas and relationships
  • What to do when a founder leaves your company
  • How to handle equity when you have to fire someone
  • Important issues to discuss with your lawyer
  • Much more

Research shows that dynamic equity split models, like the one outlined in Slicing Pie, is the best way to avoid conflicts as the company grows.

The new and improved Version 2.3 contains updated information about legal issues, idea valuation, retrofitting and much more!

The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup (The Kauffman Foundation Series on Innovation and  41qyfyCw3hL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_Entrepreneurship)

Often downplayed in the excitement of starting up a new business venture is one of the most important decisions entrepreneurs will face: should they go it alone, or bring in cofounders, hires, and investors to help build the business? More than just financial rewards are at stake. Friendships and relationships can suffer. Bad decisions at the inception of a promising venture lay the foundations for its eventual ruin. The Founder’s Dilemmas is the first book to examine the early decisions by entrepreneurs that can make or break a startup and its team. Drawing on a decade of research, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them. He looks at whether it is a good idea to cofound with friends or relatives, how and when to split the equity within the founding team, and how to recognize when a successful founder-CEO should exit or be fired. Wasserman explains how to anticipate, avoid, or recover from disastrous mistakes that can splinter a founding team, strip founders of control, and leave founders without a financial payoff for their hard work and innovative ideas. He highlights the need at each step to strike a careful balance between controlling the startup and attracting the best resources to grow it, and demonstrates why the easy short-term choice is often the most perilous in the long term. The Founder’s Dilemmas draws on the inside stories of founders like Evan Williams of Twitter and Tim Westergren of Pandora, while mining quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders. People problems are the leading cause of failure in startups. This book offers solutions.

Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist51p0oeLn-PL._SX337_BO1,204,203,200_

As each new generation of entrepreneurs emerges, there is a renewed interest in how venture capital deals come together. Yet there is little reliable information focused on venture capital deals. Nobody understands this better than authors Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson. For more than twenty years, they’ve been involved in hundreds of venture capital financings, and now, with the Second Edition of Venture Deals, they continue to share their experiences in this field with you.

Engaging and informative, this reliable resource skillfully outlines the essential elements of the venture capital term sheet–from terms related to economics to terms related to control. It strives to give a balanced view of the particular terms along with the strategies to getting to a fair deal. In addition to examining the nuts and bolts of the term sheet, Venture Deals, Second Edition also introduces you to the various participants in the process and discusses how fundraising works.

  • Fully updated to reflect the intricacies of startups and entrepreneurship in today’s dynamic economic environment
  • Offers valuable insights into venture capital deal structure and strategies
  • Brings a level of transparency to a process that is rarely well understood

Whether you’re an experienced or aspiring entrepreneur, venture capitalist, or lawyer who partakes in these particular types of deals, you will benefit from the insights found throughout this new book.

数据狂人必备的10本全球畅销书

2016-05-13 丑灿 大数据技术

来自:化学数据联盟

对于一位数据科学的狂热粉丝而言,可供选择阅读的书籍内容很多,包括大数据、机器学习、数据科学以及数据挖掘等等。除了这些技术范围内的书籍之外,也有很多工具类和语言类的书籍,比如Hadoop、Spark、Python和R语言等。关于数据的书籍和专题时常更新,所以只有你掌握了最新的信息才可以让你掌握这个领域内最先进的技术和技能。幸运的是(或者也可以称之为不幸?)关于数据科学与技术领域的各种专题从来不会缺少响应的书籍,所以你大可放心随便选取。

和数据有关的数据有很多具体的类目,而且每种类目都有很多畅销书列表可供你参考。实际上我们最近为读者列举了很多书籍列表,比如关于数据挖掘、数据库与大数据、统计学、AI和机器学习以及神经网络。但是以上这些枚举的列表都是根据Amazon书籍畅销榜的比较狭隘的分类得出的推荐结论,而且没有这些书籍缺少编辑决定权或者没有考虑到内容是否可以免费获取以及是否有电子书的格式。

首先,让我们把一个问题弄清楚:本文的标题有些误导性。为数据狂人(或者专业人员)推荐的必备书籍列表中的内容比较泛泛,我们向读者推荐的这10种类别的书籍当中,每一种类别的书籍内容都是与付费资源和免费资源有关的畅销书籍。尽管我们的工作内容涉及到的数据通道数量有限,但是我们通常情况下会想主动去了解比现有数据通道更加庞大的数量,你的初衷可能是为了工作的实践操作也可能是出于兴趣的目的。

所以,一位Hadoop专业人士可能不会对深度学习进行更加专业水准的洞察,他们只不过是对某些专题感兴趣。这篇文章可以让读者巩固自己的兴趣,并为那些想拓宽个人知识层面的数据狂人提供具体的建议。

需要大家注意的是,这些数据类目所涉及的内容有所重叠,这种情况无法避免。通常情况下书籍内容所专注的领域决定了他属于哪个类目。

01.数据科学DISCOVERY

畅销付费书籍推荐:

Data Science for Business

《商业数据科学-关于数据挖掘和数据分析思维你需要知道的一切》

当你尝试学习新的领域的时候,最常见的难题就是找到一本内容深度正合适的书籍。读者要么因为内容过于简单或者内容过于说教的学术性质而对买到的书籍“始乱终弃”,尽管书籍内容具有权威性和综合性,但是最终还是被读者放置于书架之上与尘埃为伴。但是《商业数据科学》这本书却一针见血,恰到好处。

——来自Amazon用户m I的读后感


畅销免费书籍推荐:

The Art of Data Science

《数据科学的艺术之美》

这本书用通俗易懂的词汇向读者描述了分析数据的具体过程。本书的作者不仅在管理数据分析方面拥有丰富经验,并且还能够指导团队进行数据分析。这本书集成了他们所有关于数据分析经验的精华,并通过较强的可应用性向数据科学的专业人士和管理者介绍了他们的经验。

——来自官方网站的书评


02.大数据DISCOVERY

畅销付费书籍推荐:

《大数据:可扩展的实时数据系统的原则和最佳实践》

Big Data:Principles and Best Practices of Scalable Realtime Data Systems

我几乎很少能有幸遇见这样一本优质的书籍。这本书对于数据建模、数据分析、数据处理需求分析以及数据架构和储存实施问题(还同时稍带了传动的数据库概念的介绍)的重要性进行了详尽而周全的讨论。这本书向广大读者传递了新鲜的整体解决方案。

——来自Amazon用户Kirk D. Borne的读后感


畅销免费书籍:

《大数据即刻出发:2015版》

 Big Data Now: 2015 Edition

在O’Reilly发布一年一度的《大数据即刻出发》年度报告的四年时间内,大数据领域已经从呱呱坠地的婴儿成长为年轻气盛的青少年。数据已经成为一些行业的领军人,而在其他行里中数据已经成为创新的驱动力。那些使用数据极其分析来制定决策的公司正在突飞猛进的超越同行的竞争对手。

——来自官方网站的书评


03.Apache HadoopDISCOVERY

畅销付费书籍推荐:

《Hadoop:通用指南》

Hadoop: The Definitive Guide

我很欣赏的一点就是这本书对你所需要了解的Hadoop设计、执行以及日常运行以及与之相关的各种技术,不仅涵盖了高层次的概念并且对技术细节的解释也非常接地气。

——来自Amazon用户AI Gordon的读后感


畅销免费书籍推荐:

Hadoop Explained

Hadoop对于那些建造在数据基础上的世界而言是至关重要的一种技术工具。在这本书中你可以发现很多有用的指导性意见,你可以发现他处理大数据挑战的手段的发展和进步。

——来自官方网站的书评


04.Apache SparkDISCOVERY

畅销付费书籍推荐:

《学习Spark》

 Learning Spark

互联网上可以获取的信息非常棒,但是这本书把大部分这些信息整合到了一处。如果你想学着像一名Spark编程人员一样思考问题,而不是单纯的像程序员一样思考问题,那么从这本书开始,作为Spark用户的你,你的思维方式即将开始发生改变。

——来自Amazon用户BrianCastelli的读后感


畅销免费书籍推荐:

《掌握Apache Spark》

Mastering Apache Spark

这本书是我们收集关于使用Apache Spark的各种具体细节的最后一块终极瑰宝。

­——来自官方网站的书评


05.机器学习理论DISCOVERY

畅销付费书籍推荐:

《模式识别与机器学习》

Pattern Recognition and MachineLearning (Information Science and Statistics)

该书的作者为一名专家,因为它可以通过机器学习算法背后隐含的复杂数学体系向读者提供独一无二的见解和领悟。我本人已经从事神经元网络方面的工作很长时间了,并且发表过线性代数、概率和回归分析方面的论文,我发现这本书中的确可以为你找到更多的启发。

——来自Amazon用户Sidhant的读后感


畅销免费书籍推荐:

《统计学习基础》

Elements of Statistical Learning

好消息来了,这将是全世界你读到的一本最重要的书籍。这本书将每一件重要的内容绑定在一起。只在此书,别无它有。

——来自Amazon用户Enceladus Transit的读后感


06.实用机器学习技术DISCOVERY

畅销付费书籍推荐:

《Python机器学习技术》

Python MachineLearning

即使对于像我这样一个机器学习技术新手来说,这本书也相当了不起。在第一次读这本书的时候,我的第一感觉就是无论从广度还是从深度,这本书将理论和实践完整的融合到了一起。

——来自Amazon用户Brian M. Thomas的读后感


畅销免费书籍推荐:

《统计学习在R语言中的应用介绍》

An Introduction to StatisticalLearning with Applications in R

这本书介绍了统计学习的基本方法。这本书主要为非数学科学专业的本科生、研究生以及博士生准备。这本书还包含大量的R实验研究,并详细的解释如何执行各种方法。对于有实践需求的数据科学家而言,这本书的确很有价值。

——来自官网的书评


07.深度学习DISCOVERY

由于目前关于深度学习优质的付费书籍资源非常少,所以这里向大家推荐两本畅销的免费书籍:

畅销免费书籍推荐第一名:

《神经网络与深度学习》

Neural Networks and Deep Learning

这是一本在线免费书籍,这本书可以教会你:

  • 一个绚烂的受生物学启发得到的程序设计范例,可以让计算机从所观察到的数据进行相应内容的学习
  • 深度学习,神经网络中强大的学习技术

——来自官网的书评


畅销免费书籍推荐第二名:

《深度学习》

Deep Learning

这本由Ian Goodfellow,、Yoshua Bengio和Aaron Courville合著的书籍正在筹备阶段,有可能是未来最佳的关于深度学习的书籍。这本书的开发版每月都在更新,在最终出版的时候读者可以免费获取。


08.数据挖掘DISCOVERY

畅销付费书籍推荐:

《据挖掘:概念与技术,第三版(摩根考夫曼数据管理系统系列)》

Data Mining:Concepts and Techniques, Third Edition

数据挖掘是对这个领域的综合性概览,我认为这本书是数据挖掘专业毕业生的绝佳之选,或者也可以做为一本参考书来使用。该书以技术为焦点(比如如何分析数据,包括准备),而且这本书包括了该领域内涉及数据存储和预处理在内的所有主要专题。然而这本书真的是非常好的方法分类资源,在第二章你可以发现非常强大的聚合分析的方法。

——来自Amazon用户SusanKatz的读后感


畅销免费书籍这本书推荐:

《巨型数据库的挖掘》

Mining of Massive Datasets

这本书的设计是在没有正式先决条件的本科计算机科学水平基础上进行。为了满足读者的进一步学习,很多章节都从读者参考的方式进行补充。

——来自官网的书评


09.SQLDISCOVERY

畅销付费书籍推荐:

《SQL 第二版》

Learning SQL,Second Edition

如果你正在编写任何种类的数据库驱动代码并且你认为你不需要懂SQL,你需要读这本书。之后你会发现你需要懂得SQL并且这本书可以很好地辅导你。

——来自Amazon用户Jack D. Herrington的读后感


畅销免费书籍推荐:

《SQL的艰难学习之旅》

Learn SQL The Hard Way

这本书可以教会你80%你所需要使用的SQL语言,同时会将数据建模的理论混杂在其中进行讲解。如果你还在因为无法了解SQL而摸索如何建立网站。桌面系统或者移动应用的话,那么这本书就是为你准备的。这本对那些之前不懂数据库和编程,但是知道至少一种计算机编程语言的人有很大的帮助。

——来自官网的书评

10.数据科学统计学DISCOVERY

畅销付费书籍推荐:

《用白话文解释何为统计学,第三版》

Statistics inPlain English, Third Edition

作为一名数据分析师并且日常工作就是处理统计学数据,我很期待知道更多的算法和模型。尽管统计软件可以我们完成每件事,但是识别出软件咀嚼后得到的结果的确是这个工作最难以拿捏的部分。我主修生物技术专业并且对这些我生命中遇到的大部分的统计学像白痴一样。长话短说,我真的需要这本书帮助我理解更多的统计学概念。

——来自Amazon用户Shyam Goli的读后感


畅销免费书籍推荐:

《Think Stats:程序员需要的概率论统计学,第二版》

Think Stats:Probability and Statistics for Programmers, Second Edition

Think Stats强调了让你使用简单的技术进行数据和有趣问题答案的开发。这本书介绍了美国国家卫生研究院使用数据进行的案例的研究。

——来自官网的书评

Recommended Reading for Developers

Jeff Atwood

This list was last updated in March 2015.

Why are updates to my reading list so rare? Because computers change a lot in 10 years, but people don’t.

To make better software, you need to understand how people work, and that is what the books I recommend tend to focus on.

Code Complete 2

cover

Steve McConnell’s Code Complete 2 is the Joy of Cooking for software developers. Reading it means that you enjoy your work, you’re serious about what you do, and you want to keep improving. In Code Complete, Steve notes that the average programmer reads less than one technical book per year. The very act of reading this book already sets you apart from probably ninety percent of your fellow developers. In a good way.

I like this book so much that the title of this very website is derived from it – the examples of what not to do are tagged with the “Coding Horror” icon. There’s nothing funnier than a Coding Horror – until you have to deal with one yourself. Then it’s suddenly not so funny any more. Do yourself a favor. Make this the first book you read, and the first book you recommend to your fellow developers.


The Mythical Man-Month

cover

Arguably the only classic book in our field. If you haven’t read it, shame on you.

I challenge any developer to pick up a copy of The Mythical Man Month and not find this tale of a long-defunct OS, and the long-defunct team that developed it, startlingly relevant. This twenty-five year old book boldly illustrates one point: computers may change, but people don’t.

Reading this classic work will certainly be a better use of your time than poring over the latest thousand page technical tome du jour.


Don’t Make Me Think

cover

The single best book on usability I’ve ever read. The title says “web usability” but don’t be fooled by its faux specificity. Steve Krug covers every important usability concept in this book, and covers it well. It’s almost fun. If you choose to read only one book on usability, choose this one. It’s chock full of great information, and it’s presented in a concise, approachable format. It’s suitable for any audience: technical, non-technical, user, developer, manager, you name it.

sample graphic from Don't Make Me Think

Er… yeah. Never been in a meeting like that. The solution to this problem, by the way, is quick and dirty usability testing. Imagine that: making decisions based on actual data instead of never ending, last man standing filibuster style religious debates. Revolutionary!


Rapid Development

cover

The full title of this book is Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Development Schedules, which isn’t just long-winded and vaguely ridiculous, it’s also an unfortunate misnomer.

Rapid Development isn’t about rapid development. It’s about* the reality of failure* . The vast majority of software development projects will fail: they will overrun their schedules, produce substandard results, or sometimes not even finish at all. This isn’t an argument; it’s a statistical fact. The unpleasant truth is that your team has to be very good to simply avoid failing, much less to succeed. While that may sound depressing – okay, it is depressing– you’ll still want to read this book.

Why? Because half* of success is not repeating the same mistakes you, or other people, have made. The epiphany offered in this book is that making mistakes is good– so long as they are all new, all singing, all dancing mistakes. If you’re making the same old classic mistakes, you’ve failed before you’ve even begun. And you probably have no idea how likely it is that you’re making one of these mistakes right now.

Our field is one of the few where change is the only constant, so it’s only natural to embrace that change and try different “Rapid” development techniques. But the converse isn’t true. We can’t assume that so much has changed since 1970 that all the old software development lessons are obsolete and irrelevant when compared to our hot new technology. It’s the same old story: computers have changed; people haven’t. At least have some idea of what works and what doesn’t before you start– in McConnell’s words, “read the instructions on the paint can before painting.” Sure, it sounds obvious enough until you read this book and realize how rarely that actually happens in our field.

* According to the book, technically, one-quarter. But I think it’s more than that.


Peopleware

cover

If you’ve ever seen the performance of an all-star sports team suffer due to poor coaching, you’ll appreciate this book. It doesn’t matter how many “coding superstars” you’ve got when none of them can talk to each other, or agree on anything. And it no developer, however talented, can work effectively when constantly being barraged with minor interruptions. Developers aren’t known for their people skills, per se, but here’s the ironic part: the success of your project may hinge on just that. If you have any legitimate aspirations to be a “Team Leader” in practice instead of in name only, you need to pick up a copy of this book.

While Peopleware is full of great, totally valid points, it also implies a level of employee control over the workplace that is pure fantasy at most companies. But at least you’ll know when your work environment, or your team, are the real problem – and more importantly, what to do about it.


The Design of Everyday Things

cover

It can be incredibly frustrating to develop software, because so much can go wrong. A lot of what we do is defensive: trying to anticipate what will go wrong before it does. It’s mentally fatiguing, and can eventually manifest itself in some negative ways. I sometimes describe this to non-technical people as building a watch with a thousand moving parts, all of which can fail randomly at the slightest provocation. Good times!

Designing software is difficult, to be sure, but designing a door is difficult too. The nuances of design extend into every object you touch, whether it’s some hot new SQL engine, or a humble shoe. This book will give you a new appreciation of the “devil in the details.” If designing a door isn’t the no-brainer we thought it was, maybe it’s time to give ourselves a break for not being able to design software perfectly, either.


About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design

cover

Alan Cooper, father of Visual Basic, godfather of usability. I’ve owned a few versions of this book now (this is version four), and it is the rare book which is getting better and better as it is revised, and more authors are added for different perspectives.

About Face is full of generally applicable guidelines for mobile and web. Of the GUI problems used for illustration – with examples from the hoary old Windows 95 UI – it’s interesting to compare which have been mostly resolved (using visual examples to show the effects of dialog selections before you make them), and which have not (stopping the proceedings with modal idiocy).

It’s a fantastically useful book; I’ve used whole chapters as guides for projects I worked on.


The Inmates Are Running the Asylum

cover

This is the book that introduced the world to the concept of personas: rather than thinking of users as an abstract, difficult-to-describe, amorphous group of people, personas instruct us to talk about specific users who have names, personalities, needs, and goals. Would our users want a print preview feature? Who knows? But if Gerry Manheim, Account Executive, has to print out his weekly expense report as a part of his job, you better believe print preview needs to be in there. There’s nothing magical here; as always, it boils down to knowing who your users are and what they really do – and the personas technique is a great way to get there.

There’s also an interesting analysis here of how developers tend to think themselves qualified to make usability decisions on behalf of “regular” users, when in reality they’re anything but. Developers are freakish, extreme users at best– “Homo Logicus” versus “Homo Sapiens.” Unless you happen to be writing a compiler where developers are the end users.

One hidden lesson in this book is that sometimes it doesn’t matter how good your design is: the scanner software and the web development software which Alan consulted on, and uses as examples in this book, both failed in the marketplace for reasons that had nothing to do with their usability– which was verifiably excellent.* Sometimes great products fail for reasons beyond your control, no matter how hard you try. Feel free to use this fact to counterbalance the sometimes bombastic tone of the book.

* I owned the exact model of “behind the keyboard” USB scanner pictured in the book, and I was quite impressed with the bundled scanning software. I eventually gave this scanner to my Dad. One time I was chatting on the phone with him and without any prompting at all, he mentioned to me how much he liked the scanning software. This was before the book had been published!


Programming Pearls

cover

I hesitated to include Programming Pearls because it covers some fairly low-level coding techniques, but there are enough “pearls” of software craftsmanship embedded in this book to make it well worth any developer’s time. Any book containing this graph..

.. is worth its weight in gold. TRS-80 versus DEC Alpha to illustrate 48n versus n3 algorithms? Come on folks, it just doesn’t get any better than that. Programming Pearls is the next best thing to working side by side with a master programmer for a year or so. It is the collective wisdom of many journeyman coders distilled into succinct, digestible columns.

I won’t lie to you: there are entire chapters that can probably be ignored. For example, I can’t imagine implementing sorting, heap, or hash algorithms as documented in columns 11, 13, and 14 respectively, given today’s mature libraries of such basic primitives. But for every textbook-tedious exercise, there is real, practical advice alongside. Just scan through the book, ignoring the code sections, and I doubt you’ll be disappointed. Column 8, “Back of the Envelope” is essential, probably the best treatment of estimation I’ve seen anywhere. It also goes a long way towards explaining those crazy interview questions that companies love to annoy us with.
You can read sample sections of the book online if you’re still on the fence. I recently used the chapter on strings to illustrate the use of Markov chains in generating synthetic data to fill an empty database with – a performance estimation technique covered in “Back of the Envelope”.


The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

cover

This book reminds me a lot of Programming Pearls, but it’s actually better, because it’s less focused on code. Instead of worrying about code, the authors boiled down all the practical approaches that they’ve found to work in the real world into this one book. Not all of these things are technically programming. For example, asking yourself “why am I doing this? Is this even worth doing at all?” isn’t thinking outside the box; it’s something you should incorporate into your daily routine to keep yourself – and your co-workers – sane. And that’s what makes Pragmatic Programmer such a great book.

If you’d like to know a little more about the book, I created a HTML version of the pullout reference card included inside, which provides a nice overview of the contents.


Designing Web Usability

cover

Jakob Neilsen is well known for his usability site, and his career as a usability expert extends back to 1989 when his first book was published. Designing Web Usability is of course a full-on web usability primer, so it’s a bit different than the GUI-oriented Cooper books.


The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

cover

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

cover

Envisioning Information

cover

Beautiful Evidence

 

cover

Information is beautiful. And so is a well-designed GUI.

You don’t need to own all four books in the series unless you’re a completist (or a masochist, I suppose), but the first two are essential.

Chris Sells has some interesting insight on the Tufte books based on a Tufte seminar he attended in June 2004.


Regular Expressions Cookbook

cover

UNIX has a well-deserved reputation for being complex and impenetrable. So do Regular Expressions.

I may be a card carrying member of the “Keep It Simple Stupid” club, but I’m making a meteor sized exception for regular expressions. Written properly, they will save you a tremendous amount of time in string manipulation, and I’ve never run across a project where they didn’t come in handy somewhere.

Once you delve into the world of regular expressions, you may become drunk with the amazing power and potential they have, which results in things like Perl. Remember, absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it also rocks absolutely.

5 insanely great books about mathematics you should read

Kelly J. Rose

Source: https://wp.kjro.se/2013/12/27/5-insanely-great-books-about-mathematics-you-should-read/

I’ve been asked over and over for good books about mathematics for a layperson, someone who hasn’t taken advanced courses in university and is more simply interested in learning about what math is, and some of the more interesting historical figures and results from mathematics. Ironically, when you are a mathematics major at Waterloo, you get the opportunity in 4th year to take a course on the history of mathematics and you get introduced to a few really good books that start to explain the mindset and philosophy behind mathematics and not simply just the theorems and proofs.

Here are the 5 books about I most recommend to those who want to understand the mathematical mind and philosophy.

Boyer’s a History of Mathematics

A History of Mathematics,
Carl B. Boyer

This is the textbook from the History of Mathematics course I took almost a decade ago now, and it is still one of the best and most thorough discussions of how mathematics developed over the past millenia. It starts in with Egyptian and pre-classical mathematics, explaining how simple tasks were complicated by a lack of mathematical tools and then how over time different tools were developed that led to quantum leaps in our understanding of the field. It’s quite a tome, with over 700 pages of details, but it is fully accessible to the non-technical reader.

This is well worth having in any library and it can be read in chunks as each chapter covers a different aspect of mathematical history.

Journeys Through Genius

Journeys Through Genius

Journey through Genius
William Dunham

I picked up this book at a secondhand store many years back simply because it caught my attention and was a good price. I thought it would be an enjoyable read, but I never expected to be as amazed and excited by the contents as I started to dig through it. This book takes some of the most important and paradigm-shifting theorems of mathematics and explains them in a clear and accessible fashion. Historical artifacts around the development of the theorems are displayed in a fun and pleasing fashion, keeping the importance of the discovery in context with the time. As well, most importantly, beyond explaining the theorems, the characters behind the work as shown and their lives are taken into context with the immensity of their work. This is a beautiful read and worth picking up if you want to learn more about the biggest theorems in mathematics.

The Mathematical ExperienceThe Mathematical Experience,
Philip J. David, Reuben Hersh

My professor for the history of mathematics course lent me his copy of this book and it was probably one of the most eye-opening reads I’ve ever had. I spent an entire weekend reading it cover-to-cover and then re-reading it again, devouring and absorbing all of the ideas and concepts within it.

Without a doubt, this is the best book I’ve got on my library from the perspective of discussion what it means to be a mathematician and the experience shared by mathematicians worldwide. This book covers the entire gamut, from the philosophical to the social-emotional experience of a mathematician. It is well-written, concise and strikes a real chord with me. In this book I really felt that I was reading someone who got what it meant to love mathematics and get excited by it without delving really deep into difficult to process material. If there is one book on this entire list that I recommend going and purchasing right now, it is this one.

Go, buy it now!

Proofs from the Book

Proofs from the Book

Proofs from the Book,
Martin Aigner, Günter M. Ziegler

Paul Erdös, one of the most prolific mathematicians of the 20th century would commonly refer to a proof that was singularly beautiful as being “from the book.” As in, “from the book of God himself.” This book is a collection of some of the proofs that many mathematicians think to be essential and important, while still be uniquely beautiful in their elegance. If you want a book which is still accessible, but allows for exploration of the theorems themselves in am ore rigourous fashion, this is the book for you. It’s clean and covers some of the best proofs in a very wide variety of fields.

Proofs and Refutations

Proofs and Refutations

Proofs and Refutations,
Imre Lakatos

This books is probably the most advanced of the books on this list. It is however brilliantly written in the form of a discussion between a professor and their students. Lakatos weaves in and out over the process of mathematics, covering how mathematics is really done and evolves as theorems adapt based on a variety of very easy to understand techniques.

If you, or anyone you know, is actually considering to go into mathematics as a profession, I would recommend reading this book. This especially includes teachers as it explains how working through the technique and philosophy can help with overall understanding and creative use of the new tools learned as you move forward. This is a truly wonderful book and can be a very quick read.

 

2016年,互联网创业者一定要读这20本书

2016-02-10 方军 做書

创业成为热潮,互联网创业更热,从2016开始暂列名为“互联网创业的二十本书”清单,和在创业的朋友们“共同学习”,或者说“共同度过”。

在创业或创造的过程中,我们会有很多的迷惑和困惑,而其中一个重要的解决方法是去读书,和伟大的头脑对话,在他们的思考中印证和反思。

这个书单将分为几个部分:关于观念,关于方法,关于思维。

这个清单基本上没有商业人物传记,那是创业者获取灵感和激励的重要阅读品类,但正因为其明显而无需纳入;也没有纳入商业模式讨论的,那也是自然的阅读选择。

这个清单有不少新书,但也有很多老书,这个清单并不需要一口气读完,它所列的图书及提到的只是给出一个提示,当你遇到困惑或者有空闲时,你可以找到它。

关于观念

 01 《网络经济的十种策略》

凯文·凯利(Kevin Kelly, KK),广州出版社,2000年

“蜜蜂比狮子重要;级数比加法重要;普及比稀有重要;免费比利润重要;网络比公司重要;造山比登山重要;空间比场所重要;流动比平衡重要;关系比产能重要;机会比效率重要。”

虽然清单并无先后,但把凯文·凯利的这本《网络经济的十种策略》放在第一个,还是有选择的:

在2013年再听到他拿二十年多前的PPT讲述时,发现这些思考者的厉害之处在于,他们预见到了我们正在经历的一切。

正如这几年我一再推荐的科幻小说《雪崩》(斯蒂芬森)一样,在所有人设想的未来是控制操作系统的人控制世界的科幻小说界,它描绘了一个“快递员”控制的世界——我们就活在这样的世界。

 02 《创业维艰:如何完成比难更难的事》

本·霍洛维茨/著,中信出版社,2015年

“创业公司的CEO不应该计算成功的概率。创建公司时,你必须坚信,任何问题都有一个解决办法。而你的任务就是找到解决办法,无论这一概率是十分之九,还是千分之一,你的任务始终不变。”

这本书的英文版、中文版,我读过很多遍,因为已经转型成为成功风险投资人的本·霍洛维茨没有讲漂亮话,他讲自己所面对的处境,他如何选择的,他如何思考的。

这本书遍是金句,因此除了上面所引这句外,我另加一句:

“真正的难题不是绘制一张组织结构图表,而是让大家在你刚设计好的组织结构内相互交流。”

 03 《麦哲伦传》

茨威格/传,海燕出版社,2001年

“这个从来不再任何人面前流露自己感情的严厉的军人,突然被内心深处涌出的一股热流所制服了。他的眼睛模糊了,激动的热泪盈眶而出,滚落到他那散乱的黑须上。”

是的,就是那个第一个完成全球航行的麦哲伦传,是的,就是那个作家茨威格。

自从申音在某次推荐这本书之后,我一再阅读,读的理由不是麦哲伦在那个时代如何证明地球是圆的,对我们今天来说,环绕地球不过是坐飞机而已。

读它是反复体会他所经历的那个过程:拥有一个大胆的计划,怀着一个后来被证明正确的信念,成功找到钱和一大批人,带着错误的假设和错误的行动方案出发,遇到困难和团队不断地哗变,但最终完成第一人的航行。

 04 《一代新机器的灵魂》

特雷西·基德尔/著,机械工业出版社,1990年

“至于机器的真正发明人,工程师们,我看他们在这种活动中显得有点不合群、或许是因为这些人很少经历这样的场合。……不知为什么,我竟冷不丁冒出这样一句话:“只不过是台计算机,你知道,这在世界上确实是件很小的事。””

这本书讲述了还在小型计算机时代,一台计算机被创造出来的历程。

如果不是这两年的智能手机制造和智能硬件热潮,我们很多人应该很少有机会感受一个“机器”创造出来的过程。

我们创造的多数是网站、APP、商业系统,但是,所经历的过程是一样的。其实这本书和迈克尔·刘易斯记录早期互联网创业的《将世界甩在背后》(The New New Thing)争夺一个清单推荐位,而最终选择了《机器》,因为读它的过程很多感慨,而《世界》并没有。

 05 《黑客与画家:硅谷创业之父Paul Graham文集》

Paul Graham/著,人民邮电出版社,2011年

“创造优美事物的方式往往不是从头做起,而是在现有成果的基础上做一些小小的调整,或者将已有的观点用比较新的方式组合起来。”

YC创业营的创办人Paul Graham已经变成一种象征,推荐这本书实际上并非仅仅推荐这本书,因为这本书是完结不变的,而他还在不断地写作长文(essay),讲述他的思考,值得持续关注。

比如他最近有一篇新文章讨论的是“Life is short”,他讨论的这个问题,他的答案隐藏在题目中:“从问题的终极反过来看,去培养一种对你想做的事迫不及待的急躁习惯。”

关于方法

 06 《精益创业:新创企业的成长思维》

埃里克·莱斯/著,2012年

“新创企业是一个由人组成的机构,在极端不确定的情况下,开发新产品或新服务。”

精益创业度过了一次热潮大概在慢慢地沉寂,但偶尔看看还是很有价值,因为他以一个逻辑模型讲述了我们在过程中必然经历的学习过程,一个公司(产品)从没有到有的过程。

 07 《创业必经的那些事》

1/2共两册,迈克尔·格伯/著,2010年10月

“如果你正在经营一家小公司,或者说你想拥有一家小公司,那么,本书正是为你而写的。”

格伯的这本书不是为那些要创办指数级公司的创业者写的,其实这本书在创业热潮之前的书名是很朴实的《突破瓶颈》,它是一个管理故事,把小企业主所要经历的一些体会、知识放进去了。

但是,谁不是从小企业主走过来的。

我隐约还记得当时从这本书得到的一个实用智慧:即便只有一个人,也要把管理结构图画出来。

这个人既是董事长,又是CEO,又是负责市场的副总,又是负责运营的副总,又是负责财务的副总,又是销售经理,又是行政经理……董事长给CEO和管理班子派任务,CEO又给负责市场的自己、负责运营的自己、负责财务的自己派任务,如此下去。

 08 《启示录:打造用户喜欢的产品》

Marty Cagan/著,华中科技大学出版社,2011年

“本书是写给软件产品(包括企业级产品和大众产品)开发团队(特别是互联网软件产品团队)中负责定义产品的成员看的,他们通常被称为产品经理。这个职位常常由公司的创始人、高层主管、主程序员、设计师兼任。”

这是一本朴实的手册,讲些软件或互联网产品(及技术)团队的基本常识,比如需要哪些人、分别是什么角色;比如怎么定义产品;也有一些开发方法的讨论。很朴实,又很全面。

 09 《四步创业法》

Steven Blank/著,华中科技大学出版社,2012年

“提出客户发展方法的目标是解决产品开发方法面临的10大问题。该方法把创业初期与客户相关的活动按目标划分为四个易于理解的阶段:客户探索、客户验证、客户培养和组建公司。”

仔细读过《精益创业》的都了解这本名为《The Four Steps to the Epiphany》的书,它是《精益创业》的灵感之源,埃里克·莱斯说他送了很多箱出去。

这本书还值得单独占有清单推荐位是因为,客户发展方法,是从客户的视角讲述这个过程,和精益强调学习不一样,客户是一切。

 10 《大决策:九个不朽的领导力传奇故事》

迈克尔·尤西姆/著,机械工业出版社,2007年

“此次探险活动需要一个强有力的领导,而不是一个独裁者。”

沃顿商学院教授迈克尔·尤西姆讲述了一系列领导力时刻,我为此还专门找他带队攀登雪山的书阅读。

在读的过程中,几乎都是非商业性的故事却一再激发我去想这个问题:换作是我,会怎么做?

 11 《丰田汽车案例:精益制造的14项管理原则》

杰弗里·莱克/著,中国财政经济出版社,2004年

“丰田模式可以扼要地总结为两大支柱:一为“持续改进”(continuous Improvement),二为“尊重员工”(respect for people)。

一般把持续改进成为日语的改善(kaizen),它挑战所有事,其精髓含义不仅仅是个人贡献的实际改善,更重要的是创造持续学习的精神,接受并保持变革的环境。”

这本不是关于精益的最经典的著作,最经典的是沃麦克等所著的《改变世界的机器》和《精益思想》。

但杰弗里·莱克也是知名的丰田与精益研究专家,更重要的是这本简单明了,比较容易投入实用。

精益创业的思路曾经大热门,但其实精益生产的思路只有到了一定的规模时才有使用价值。

不过,早点了解没有坏处,万一突然高速发展了呢?丰田的例子的价值还在于,它基本上是一个完备的系统,而不是一个的被强调的个别理念/工具,它的整套兄从文化、到组织、到产品开发、到生产都可以沿用。

 12 《跨越鸿沟:颠覆性产品营销圣经》

杰弗里·摩尔/著,机械工业出版社,2009年

“在高科技产品市场的开发过程中,最危险最关键的一点就是由少数有远见者所主宰的早期市场向由实用主义占支配地位的大批顾客所占据的主流市场的过渡。”

这就是提出技术产品接纳周期曲线、指出这条曲线里的 “鸿沟”(Chasm )的那个杰弗里·摩尔最早的作品之一。

要理解那条曲线可以看看他的多本书,其实那条曲线并不如平常所见那么直观,有很多微妙之处。

 13 《创新者的窘境》

克莱顿·克里斯坦森/著,中信出版社,2010年

““技术”一词指的是一个组织将劳动力、资本、原材料和技术转化为价值更高的产品和服务的过程。”

这就是时下热门的“颠覆式创新” (disruptive creation,破坏式创新)的原典,最早读夹杂在汉译大众精品文库中这本时,做了非常多笔记,尤其对克里斯坦森对理论和现实的看法感兴趣,在当面向他请教时提了很多问题,但现在已经完全不记得那一个多小时问了什么,只依稀记得讨论linux、google docs等等。

这本书为什么会在过去三十年吸引创业者的眼光,大概是因为克莱顿·克里斯坦森以超级严谨的案例和逻辑论证了,新事物终究要战胜老的,以及究竟在什么样的场合下最可能战胜。

 14 《企业参谋》

大前研一/著,中信出版社,2007年

“我的处女作《企业参谋》是我30岁到31岁间所做的笔记。29岁那年我进入麦肯锡公司工作,对经营一无所知,于是一边工作一边学习,留下这些笔记。那时我初出茅庐,做这些笔记时完全没有想到有一天能出版,我只是按照自己多年的习惯把学到的东西表达出来,仅此而已。”

没有更好的公司战略思考手册,过了几十年这本书依然有效,它并没有多少结论,仅仅是讲述了方法和过程。

 15 《创业之初你不可不知的融资知识》

桂曙光/著,机械工业出版社,2012年

“VC其实跟一般的生产企业模式类似,他们先从一些优质的创业者手里低价买入原料——这些创业企业的股份,然后对原料进行加工——给企业提供一些增值服务,或者干脆就等着创业者自己努力,从而使这些股份原材料成为更加规范的产品,并获得价值提升。”

读完它,关于风险投资该了解的东西基本上都了解到了。需要时再读,提前读意义不大。

关于思维

 16 《错不在我?》
卡罗尔·塔夫里斯、艾略特·阿伦森/著, 中信出版社,2013年

“在有意识撒谎欺骗他人与下意识地自我辩护欺骗自己之间,有一块被不可靠、自利的记忆掌握的灰色地带。记忆通常都会受自我提升偏误(self-enhancing bias)修正和改变,让过去发生的事情变得模糊,减轻责难,扭曲事实的真相。”

创业者大概很难有机会说“错不在我”,但这本书还是要看,因为它不是讲怎么逃避责任的,而是讲我们的思维习惯的。

我们所有人都有着一种强烈的“事后合理化”的倾向,只有意识到我们的思维习惯,有意识地看它,我们才能看到它对我们的影响。

 17 《创业无畏:指数级成长路线图》

彼得·戴曼迪斯、斯蒂芬·科特勒/著,浙江人民出版社,2015年

“为便于大家更加方便地掌握指数型技术的特点,我构建了一个“6D”框架:数字化(digitalization)、欺骗性(deception)、颠覆性(disruption)、非货币化(demonetization)、非物质化(dematerialization)和大众化(democratization)。这6D其实是指数型技术发展的连锁反应,也是导致巨大动荡并带来难得机遇的快速发展路线图。”

对我来说,多次阅读来自奇点大学的几本著作,的确总能激发技术乐观情绪,包括:《指数型组织》、《富足》、《创业维艰:指数级成长路线图》等。

我们也看到马斯克以一个人的力量在四个领域突破着:电动汽车、私人航天、太阳能和超级高铁,他几乎是技术乐观主义的现实商业代言人。

奇点大学的几位研究者和以往的技术乐观派不同的是,他们不是未来学家的方式,他们是技术实干派,他们将理论和实战混合在一起。

这有时会增加他们的魅力,有时又显得不够未来感,因为过于实用易于被挑刺,实用就需要快速迭代修正。但这是他们真实的状态。

这可能也是我们在实务中的人应该有的状态,保持一种实用的技术乐观,并努力将它实现。

 18 《九败一胜:美团创始人王兴创业十年》

李志刚/著,北京联合出版社,2014年

“我们是一家电商公司,交易额是由B端和C端完成的,怎样把用户从七八千万,变成2亿、4亿、5亿,这需要我们扩展B,也扩展C,有足够的B,足够的C就有足够的交易额。我们会尝试新的机会,包括餐饮、酒店、电影、休闲游等;在公司外面也会有新的尝试。总体上来说,应对这场战争,我们是要增强团队,通过各方面的改进提升人均效率,我们还有太多地方需要改进和提升。”

原来的美团,已经合并大众点评变成新美大(据说英文名为China Internet Plus),但它还在奋战。

书名是借鉴自优衣库的《一胜九败》,把这本书放在思维方式,是因为它是关于我们怎么看待和经历失败,优衣库的更朴实些,一胜九败,但还在继续,其实王兴九败一胜,但也还没最终取胜。王兴的思维应该是中国互联网创业者里面最强大的思维。

 19 《深度生存:生还是死难?》

劳伦斯·冈萨雷斯/著,中国对外翻译出版公司,2006年

“一般而言,我建议大家尽量远离那些英雄气过重的人,比如兰博式的硬汉人物,也不要接近那些总爱抱怨或者啼啼哭哭的人。应该信赖富有幽默感——特别是自嘲的那种幽默感——以及对自己有清醒认识的人。谁能充分利用周围条件,而且能够承认现实,熟悉环境,并且关爱他人,谁的生还几率就往往更大。说来说去,无论身处何境地,生还不外乎是对环境的适应。”

这本是《创业维艰》的户外探险版,这是真的生死。第9章“扭曲的地图”是我最推荐的部分。

 20 《卓有成效的管理者》

彼得·德鲁克/著,上海译文出版社,1999年

““认识你自己”这句充满智慧的古训对现代的凡人来说实在是太难理解了。不过,如果你喜欢自己的工作卓有成效、能为别人作出贡献的话,那你还是可以遵照掌握自己的时间这一条去做的。”

这是一本平淡无奇的书,讲了些普通的道理:卓有成效是可以学到的,掌握自己的时间,问我能能作哪些贡献,如何发挥自己的优势,重要的事先做,等等。

与之相似的,英特尔的格鲁夫也有一本平淡无奇的书《格鲁夫给经理人的第一课》(high output management),他相对更关注系统的高效率一些,也值得推荐。

但是,如果这20本关于所谓互联网创业只看一本的,毫无疑问,请读德鲁克的《卓有成效的管理者》。