Fred Wilson

Brad got this book from someone, not sure who, and when he finished it, he said "you have to read this." I did and it became the basis for much of our investment thesis. We concluded that the period of building and investing in the infrastructure of the Internet revolution had passed and it was time to invest in the application layer. But much more than that important and simple insight, this book gave us a framework to think about what the Internet was doing to markets, society, and business. We still refer to it frequently. And I think it is still very relevant to the environment we are operating in right now because the Internet is the mother of all technological revolutions and it is important to understand exactly what that means.

That’s when I realized that Startup CXO is not really a book. It’s a “field manual” to scaling a leadership team and company. It is the kind of book you will keep by your desk and pull out from time to time to figure out how to approach an issue or to help one of your senior leaders figure out how to do that.

And in that context, it’s a very valuable resource for CEOs and leadership teams as they scale a company and find new challenges around every corner.