Build
An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
by Tony Fadell · first published 2022
62% recommend33% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
Part memoir, part startup and product advice from the maker of the iPod, iPhone and Nest, told through stories about sweating small details and launch culture. Suits founders and product people.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
Related books
2022–2023Burnout
Emily Nagoski, Amelia Nagoski
Recommended by 2 · mentioned by 22 recommend · 2 mention2 recommend · 22 recommend
2021–2024Working Backwards
Colin Bryar, Bill Carr
Recommended by 3 · mentioned by 63 recommend · 6 mention3 recommend · 63 recommend
2025Source Code
Bill Gates
Recommended by 1 · mentioned by 41 recommend · 4 mention1 recommend · 41 recommend
2022–2025Upgrade
Blake Crouch
Recommended by 5 · mentioned by 85 recommend · 8 mention5 recommend · 85 recommend
2022–2026Tuxedo Park
Jennet Conant
Recommended by 5 · mentioned by 55 recommend · 5 mention5 recommend · 55 recommend
2021–2026Ducks
Kate Beaton
Recommended by 4 · mentioned by 64 recommend · 6 mention4 recommend · 64 recommend
2019–2025Working
Robert A. Caro
Recommended by 3 · mentioned by 63 recommend · 6 mention3 recommend · 63 recommend
2021–2025Press Reset
Jason Schreier
Recommended by 4 · mentioned by 74 recommend · 7 mention4 recommend · 74 recommend
I've been reading Tony Fadell's book "Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making" and it's great so far! https://www.amazon.com/Build-Unorthodox-Guide-Making-Things/...
on “Tony Fadell Joins Arm Board of Directors” ↗- Build by Fadell - Hard Drive by Wallace - The Inmates Are Running the Asylum by Cooper These three books are some of the best books in their respective categories. All three are about product design in a…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023” ↗Tony Fadell in his book 'Build' gave insight of the culture clash when Google acquired Nest. Not only with Nest employee, but with himself as well - he decided to vote with his feet and quit Google. Excerpt from the (excellent) book:…
on “Leaked Slack all-hands meeting reveals a ‘strong culture clash’ with Salesforce” ↗Build by Tony Fadell
on “Ask HN: What books helped you in your entrepreneurship journey?” ↗I really enjoyed reading Build by Tony Fadell. It's about building startups, but the stories embedded throughout the book really makes it. He speaks about pouring his heart into little details highlighting his experience designing…
on “Ask HN: What are some of the best books you have read in 2022?” ↗On „General Magic“, recently read „Build“ by Tony Fadell. I can recommend that for people interested in building startups. Will also give a bit more background on General Magic
on “TV series about startup failures, portraying greedy founders, and the damages” ↗Tony Fadell's book, Build, has some interesting discussion of “launch events” and it persuaded me onto the idea that they are a good thing. Basically, he contrasts the launch culture of Apple (WWDC + a few other events throughout…
on “Ask HN: What's Happening at Cloudflare?” ↗If you’re looking for a good read, pick up a copy of Tony Fadell’s “Build”. There are a few interesting chapters where he writes about the process of selling Nest to Google.
on “I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again” ↗…https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/13856600 Google's acquisition of Nest should stand as one of the sadest bad-outcome acquisition case studies. I really enjoyed reading [the founder] Tony Fadell's biography/advice book "Build" last year. He was professional about it, but the animus was unsubtle. Google ruined an amazing product company.
on “Google Nest subscription will soon increase by 25%” ↗…history of computing. 52. Mindstorms by Seymour Papert - Groundbreaking work on computers in education. 53. Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir by Don Eyles - The Apollo Guidance Computer. 54. Build by Tony Fadell - Memoir and innovation lessons. 55. Fall of Carthage by Adrian Goldsworthy - Punic Wars and Carthage's fall. 56. Making PCR - The story of polymerase chain reaction development. 57.…
on “Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things” ↗Here’s a human recommendation if you like that you may like these that I’ve read: 1.Sid Meier’s Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games — Sid Meier 2.Source Code: My Beginnings — Bill Gates 3.Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making — Tony Fadell 4.Prince of Persia: The Journals — Jordan Mechner 5.A Theory of Fun for Game Design — Raph Koster 6.Ask Iwata: Words of Wisdom from Satoru…
on “Show HN: I scraped 3B Goodreads reviews to train a better recommendation model” ↗Build by Tony Fadell (iPod, Nest).
on “Ask HN: What is the best thing you read in 2022?” ↗…Hard Things (Ben Horowitz) - Straight Talk for Startups (Randy Komisar and Jantoon Reigersman) - The Founders’ Dilemmas (Noam Wasserman) - The Entrepreneur’s Daily Nietzsche (Brad Feld and Dave Jilk) - Build (Tony Fadell) - Zero to IPO (Frederic Kerrest) - The Great CEO Within (Matt Mochary) Finance - Wharton's Introduction to Financial Accounting course: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton-accounting](https://w... -…
on “Ask HN: What books helped you in your entrepreneurship journey?” ↗I think this is an OpEd for the book "Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making" by Tony Fadell
on “Failure Is the Mother of Invention” ↗…requirement. Very interesting read about delivery of really big projects. I also read 'Built'[2] which was a little more relatable about civil engineering, specifically the Shard in London. And finally 'Build' by Tony Fadell but this didn't quite hit the mark for me as it was more a memoir about how great he is. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61327449-how-big-thin... [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34921647-built…
on “Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things” ↗