Blitzscaling
by Reid Hoffman · first published 2018
31% recommend54% neutral15% critical
Why HN recommends it
Explains how fast-growing startups trade efficiency for speed to win markets using venture funding. Shows why companies like Uber and Lyft spend so heavily; for founders and strategy-minded readers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
What entrepreneur or founder doesnt aspire to build the next Amazon, Facebook, or Airbnb? Yet those who actually manage to do so are exceedingly rare. So what separates the startups that get disrupted and disappear from the ones who grow to become global giants? The secret is blitzscaling: a set of techniques for scaling up at a dizzying pace that blows competitors out of the water. The objective of Blitzscaling is not to go from zero to one, but from one to one billion as quickly as possible.
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…can also find books on audible to listen to that might save you time especially listening to them at a faster speed like 1.5x - Also check out some startup podcasts as well. Another good book might be Blitzscaling by Reid Hoffman. One thing to keep in mind is not to get distracted by all these items (they are good, but can be useful) but there are no shortcuts. Most of the largest companies were built without…
on “Ask HN: Suggest good books on bootstrapping a startup” ↗I see a lot of comments on here about the efficiency of Lyft/Uber's and lots of comments about their overspending. The new book by Reid Hoffman, Blitzscaling, was an eye-opener for me as to how these companies operate and what seems as incredibly inefficient now will all be but forgotten tomorrow when they have complete monopolies over all transportation...…
on “Lyft Files for IPO” ↗…slow financed by revenue. The problem is others are going to copy the idea and grow fast with VC money and crush the original company. May be possible in the next downturn when VC money dries up Read Blitzscaling by Reid Hoffman - https://hbr.org/2016/04/blitzscaling
on “MailChimp’s founders built the company slowly by anticipating customers’ needs” ↗I like simple books like BlitzScaling which touches topics like PMF lightly while painting a birds eye-view of a lot of other related things. Also, not a book but sir david skok's breakdown of saas metrics might also help. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCBccKfG9U0…
on “Ask HN: Books for founders before product market fit” ↗I took one of his intro courses online and read the Blitzscaling book and I have no idea what the author here is ranting about
on “Reid Hoffman’s Stanford course teaches founders to break the law” ↗…monopolies can be regulated. On the other hand, you are interested in why the status quo isn't an accident and what we would need to do to accomplish those things, I recommend reading Reid Hoffman's book "Blitzscaling" side-by-side with Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson's book "Winner-Take All Politics": you can see the same dynamics presented in two very different lights.
on “Meta torrented & seeded 81.7 TB dataset containing copyrighted data” ↗read the book Blitzscaling for how private efforts defeat regulations
on “A second Bitcoin exchange collapses in Turkey amid crackdown on cryptocurrencies” ↗…(Constance Bagley and Craig Dauchy) Company Strategy and Direction (post-product/market fit) - Crossing the Chasm (Geoff Moore) - Zone to Win (Geoff Moore) - Only the Paranoid Survive (Andy Grove) - Blitzscaling (Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh) - The Innovator's Dilemma (Clayton Christensen) - Good to Great (Jim Collins) - Playing to Win (A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin) - Tape Sucks (Frank Slootman) - Strategy vol.…
on “Ask HN: What books helped you in your entrepreneurship journey?” ↗He wrote a book called Blitzscaling regarding how to execute: https://www.amazon.com/Blitzscaling-Lightning-Fast-Building-... The book Netflixed (mentioned in the article) is likely also a good source: https://www.amazon.com/Netflixed-Epic-Battle-Americas-Eyebal...
on “Netflix's New Chapter” ↗the idea of the tribe/village/city is a model that he stole from the book "Blitzscaling" by Reed Hoffman, I guess? Or did Hoffmann steal from Ferriss?
on “Reasons not to become famous (2020)” ↗…despite many lawsuits over the years. Why is their reputation still so in tact even when Zuck/Sandberg's is hurting over the exact same privacy violations? Why is Reid Hoffman today selling a book on "blitzscaling" which is all about achieving hypergrowth at all cost? Could you imagine how tone deaf it would be if it was Zuckerberg who authored that and not Hoffman?
on “LinkedIn violated data protection by using 18M email addresses of non-members” ↗I wonder how history will look back on Reid Hoffman's book, "Blitzscaling". The premise seems bit ridiculous now in light of recent problems at WeWork and Uber.
on “WeWork considers IPO valuation of as low as $10B” ↗…variation of "never give up", mixed with "the power of habit". I agree with "the power of habit" part. From the "never give up" point of view, I've changed my mind, thanks to books like The Lean Startup, Blitzscaling, and my own experience. The bottom line message seems to be "keep insisting and you'll be successful". I spent 3+ years working in a game that never took off as a side project. In hindsight, I should…
on “The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday” ↗I haven't read the book, but WeWork doesn't seem to fit the principles of Blitzscaling. They haven't been able to dominate their market (office space) in the same way that Google owns search or Airbnb owns home rentals. A quick search for "Reid Hoffman WeWork" returns no relevant results…
on “WeWork considers IPO valuation of as low as $10B” ↗Pretty good summary but I think you were a little off on the Softbank side of things. SB pioneered the practice, based on the concept of Blitzscaling, of pushing entrepreneurs to take an insane amount of money. WW's CEO likely convinced SB that it was a great idea, and then SB likely just ran it through their playbook of throwing money in. If you read…
on “SoftBank Backs Away from Part of Planned WeWork Bailout” ↗