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The Transformation Principles: How to Create Enduring Change
USA Today Bestseller
Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller
Featured in Bloomberg's Top Books of 2025
Whether you’re investing, leading a company, or building a career, this guide from the CEO of global investment and transformation company General Catalyst offers powerful principles essential to long-term success.
In a world rapidly being reshaped by technological revolutions and geopolitical realignments, businesses can no longer afford to operate with outdated frameworks. The companies that will thrive in an economic system under both strain and skepticism will be those that reimagine their role in society while harnessing emerging technologies. This new reality needs a new set of guidelines—transformation principles—to guide decision-making for investors, company builders, and anyone navigating a career as they venture beyond.
General Catalyst CEO and eight-time Forbes Midas List recipient Hemant Taneja has developed these principles throughout his life, and they have helped General Catalyst fund, found, and nurture some of the most exciting companies of the past two decades, such as Airbnb, Stripe, Livongo, Anduril, Kayak, Snap, Gusto, and Canva, while having a powerful positive and enduring impact on society.
In The Transformation Principles, Taneja explains in detail the nine principles behind his company’s outsize success in investing and industry transformation. These principles will help
Understand the critical importance of a company’s soul Navigate through the inevitable twists and turns when creating a new future See through trends that don’t matter and focus on what truly matters for enduring success Help build companies that solve society’s hardest problems, making capitalism a force for good Confidently lead with curiosity and generosity for extraordinary success
Moving forward, the most enduring successes will come from those companies whose tangible benefits to the world naturally result in compounding returns. Equipped with these nine principles, any individual or organization will be able to see beyond trends and short-term thinking and instead focus on long-term success that lasts for generations.
Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller
Featured in Bloomberg's Top Books of 2025
Whether you’re investing, leading a company, or building a career, this guide from the CEO of global investment and transformation company General Catalyst offers powerful principles essential to long-term success.
In a world rapidly being reshaped by technological revolutions and geopolitical realignments, businesses can no longer afford to operate with outdated frameworks. The companies that will thrive in an economic system under both strain and skepticism will be those that reimagine their role in society while harnessing emerging technologies. This new reality needs a new set of guidelines—transformation principles—to guide decision-making for investors, company builders, and anyone navigating a career as they venture beyond.
General Catalyst CEO and eight-time Forbes Midas List recipient Hemant Taneja has developed these principles throughout his life, and they have helped General Catalyst fund, found, and nurture some of the most exciting companies of the past two decades, such as Airbnb, Stripe, Livongo, Anduril, Kayak, Snap, Gusto, and Canva, while having a powerful positive and enduring impact on society.
In The Transformation Principles, Taneja explains in detail the nine principles behind his company’s outsize success in investing and industry transformation. These principles will help
Understand the critical importance of a company’s soul Navigate through the inevitable twists and turns when creating a new future See through trends that don’t matter and focus on what truly matters for enduring success Help build companies that solve society’s hardest problems, making capitalism a force for good Confidently lead with curiosity and generosity for extraordinary success
Moving forward, the most enduring successes will come from those companies whose tangible benefits to the world naturally result in compounding returns. Equipped with these nine principles, any individual or organization will be able to see beyond trends and short-term thinking and instead focus on long-term success that lasts for generations.
- GenresBusinessNonfiction
240 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 23, 2025
1522 people want to read
About the author
Hemant Taneja
4 books13 followersI am the CEO of General Catalyst, a founder, investor, and author.
My vision for General Catalyst is to be the world’s foremost investment and transformation company, supporting global resilience through applied AI. I first laid out my AI thesis in my 2018 book Unscaled. I believe in investing in the critical systems that underpin modern democracies and their allies.
I am an early investor in Stripe, Samsara (NYSE: IOT), Snap (NYSE: SNAP), Gitlab (NASDAQ: GTLB), Grammarly, Gusto, Applied Intuition, Anduril, Ro, and Canva. My recent focus has been on Applied AI and sustainability with focus on companies like Crescendo and Re:Build Manufacturing.
My 2020 book, UnHealthcare, co-authored with Dr. Stephen Klasko, CEO of Jefferson Health, details our thesis for how the healthcare system needs to transform a “sick care” system into a Health Assurance system that is proactive, accessible and affordable. I have helped create several companies to architect a health assurance system in America including Livongo, Commure, Transcarent, Tendo, Homeward, and Hippocratic.
I also serve as the Founder and Chairman of the Health Assurance Transformation Company (HATCo) that is working closely with several major health systems worldwide to drive their transformations.
I’m an advocate for Responsible Innovation, as outlined in my 2022 book Intended Consequences: How to Build Market-Leading Companies with Responsible Innovation.
In addition to my roles serving on many of our portfolio company boards, I am also Co-Founder and Chairman of the non-profits Responsible Innovation Labs and Advanced Energy United, trustee at Northeastern University and the Stanford School of Medicine Board of Fellows, and am a founding board member of Khan Lab School, an innovative K-12 school.
I hold five degrees from MIT: M.Eng. EECS, S.M. Operations Research, S.B. Biology, S.B. Mathematics, and S.B. EECS. And I’m a proud husband and father to three kids.
My vision for General Catalyst is to be the world’s foremost investment and transformation company, supporting global resilience through applied AI. I first laid out my AI thesis in my 2018 book Unscaled. I believe in investing in the critical systems that underpin modern democracies and their allies.
I am an early investor in Stripe, Samsara (NYSE: IOT), Snap (NYSE: SNAP), Gitlab (NASDAQ: GTLB), Grammarly, Gusto, Applied Intuition, Anduril, Ro, and Canva. My recent focus has been on Applied AI and sustainability with focus on companies like Crescendo and Re:Build Manufacturing.
My 2020 book, UnHealthcare, co-authored with Dr. Stephen Klasko, CEO of Jefferson Health, details our thesis for how the healthcare system needs to transform a “sick care” system into a Health Assurance system that is proactive, accessible and affordable. I have helped create several companies to architect a health assurance system in America including Livongo, Commure, Transcarent, Tendo, Homeward, and Hippocratic.
I also serve as the Founder and Chairman of the Health Assurance Transformation Company (HATCo) that is working closely with several major health systems worldwide to drive their transformations.
I’m an advocate for Responsible Innovation, as outlined in my 2022 book Intended Consequences: How to Build Market-Leading Companies with Responsible Innovation.
In addition to my roles serving on many of our portfolio company boards, I am also Co-Founder and Chairman of the non-profits Responsible Innovation Labs and Advanced Energy United, trustee at Northeastern University and the Stanford School of Medicine Board of Fellows, and am a founding board member of Khan Lab School, an innovative K-12 school.
I hold five degrees from MIT: M.Eng. EECS, S.M. Operations Research, S.B. Biology, S.B. Mathematics, and S.B. EECS. And I’m a proud husband and father to three kids.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 18, 2025
He’s my boss. His other books are meh at best. This one is actually pretty good. Nothing groundbreaking but I think gives a real view into how he thinks and why I work for him!
Displaying 1 of 1 review