Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books
Every startup founder has had an advisor say "read this!" and hand them a book. But how many founders have time to read? Why this book and not hundreds of others with conflicting notions of success? Why read about building a business instead of doing it? Is knowledge-gathering and personal development a seed stage activity or can it wait?
In this session, author/startup veteran Kevin Smokler will look at three reasons why entrepreneurs must hit the books--Canonical (i.e. which books to read and when), and Contextual (how reading improves product vision, market understanding and issues of user experience) and Historical (avoiding fatal errors of the past).
You'll exit with your own reading list inspired by the reading lists of great entreprenerus as well as tools on maximizing reading time.
Y Combinator's Paul Graham said, "Startups take over your life." We say: A well read entrepreneur means a well-run company. And a well-lived life.
Presenters
Kevin Smokler (www.kevinsmokler.com) is the author of the forthcoming essay collection "Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books you Haven't Touched since High School" (Prometheus, Feb. 2013). Called "a publishing visionary" by the Huffington Post, his writing on the arts and technology has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Fast Company and on NPR. He's the editor of the anthology Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times (Basic Books, June 2005), which was a San Francisco Chronicle notable book of 2005.