Pure Writerly Moments 2 (Short Stories, Essays, Book Reviews, and More)

Review of - The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business

Books about entrepreneurship tend to be sugar and empty calories. Some make you feel really good about changing the world through audacity and insight without giving you many tools. Other business books (not necessarily entrepreneurship) tend to be more prescriptive, with diagrams and checklists, but in their ambition to be as useful as a consultant, tend to be dry and pedantic.

This book does what I think books about strategy and entrepreneurship ought to do: tell stories. The author tells his own story about starting his company Square, but also tells the stories of other entrepreneurs.

Through these stories he teases out his major themes. Because these themes have staying power. Because they haven't been formalized into checklists, it is also easier to take them for what they are, insights contingent on the situation.

What are these themes:

1 – Entrepreneurs are crazy people. Don't let the dilution of the word fool you. These people are much rarer than they seem and their relative scarcity may be explained by the fact that many die off or suffer ignominious failures. To be an entrepreneur means to be crazy about how you want to change the world.

2 – Copying is okay. In fact, copying (not entrepreneurship) is the norm because it is such a universally successful strategy. Copy what you can, and innovate with everything you can't.

3 – Entrepreneurship usually comes a result of trying to survive.

4 – Solutions breed problems which breed more solutions.

5 – From this comes the "innovation stack" a series of interlinked solutions to problems that can make an enterprise unique.

What's interesting about this book is that it is basically a book about science. Entrepreneurship is natural science. A truly unique insight, like a truly unique idea or theory, requires lots of trial and error. Other books on entrepreneurship and strategy have basically said the same thing.

A word about the prose: the book was written in a wandering, unwieldy, honest sort of way. Part thought diary, part exploration, part thematic exploration, it was perfect for this book because I think the style probably mirrored the personality of the author. The strange tangents the book often took seemed like the honest habits of a serial entrepreneur. Thus, every sentence feels genuine.

This book was a pleasant surprise and joins books such as "Zero to One" and "Anything You Want."

Perhaps the last question I need to answer: If this book is good, if I enjoyed every moment, then why do I not rank it in my much vaunted "top books" category on Goodreads. The answer to that question is that there is already one book about entrepreneurship there "Zero to One" and that the themes in that book strike me as more elemental and iconic. If you want to read the most definitive book on the subject, that is probably it. ("Blue Ocean Strategy" might also qualify, but I haven't read that book yet. There are a lot of these books out there.) 

If you were to read a second book...well, I'm not supposed to say it, but I will...If you're looking for a second book then I would recommend my own "Underground Novel: An Alternative Guide to Life After Graduation" (because it is a faithful entry in the genre while also making fun of it.) If you're looking for a third, then I would recommend either this one, anything by Richard Branson, or "Anything You Want." 

All that being said, this book earns its five stars and toast of congratulations.