Management

by First Round

Given that a manager’s journey can often feel like a lonely uphill climb in the dark, we’ve assembled the most essential advice from the archives of the Review to help light the path forward. Whether you’re transitioning from IC to a manager for the first time, stepping into the manager-of-managers role, or just starting to build a company, this collection of articles — beautifully packaged together for an easier read — will help you nail that transition.

Genres: Business

128 pages, ebook

Published October 9, 2019

Reviews

[Minh Quyen Khuat · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Round is my true north star, as always. The book includes all my favorite articles on The Review. I expected a lil more, since a book itself should carry the coherence throughout the content. I would have not be hesitate to give a 5-star badge once the book had tied up every great pieces into one standalone picture.

Anw, 1000x better than a lot of so-called business books with compelling title and annoying media coverage.

[Anis A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Does what it needs to. Apart from one chapter, actually found it useful, unpretentious, and to the point. Could have used with a little better formatting, but you can't expect much from a book that's a compilation of online articles.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, the stories and ideas in this book are useful for managers and founders. It's a pretty easy read, too. Many of the interviews are people from tech, and some of the advice is targeted at CEOs, but the advice is all broadly applicable.

I mostly gave this four stars because everything in here is available as free articles on First Round's website (some of which also have videos of the interviews). There wasn't any editing done to transform the article into a book. It looks like it was truly just copied and pasted. Some of the articles in the book still include lines like "go here to learn more" where there should be a link. There are also multiple typos, all of the page numbers in the table of contents are incorrect, and some pages aren't printed center. So I don't think the book is worth paying for, but the content is worth reading.

[Henry Suryawirawan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great compilation of great First Round Review articles!

[David Brennan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good collection of articles touching on a number of subjects. Found some good insights and actionable takeaways. But lacked overall coherence.

[Mason Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of interviews organized as essays, covering a variety of management topics. Chapters include the idea of "quantum team management", story-telling, decision-making systems, scaling the team and company, crafting culture and creating company values, conversations to develop your people, and why people might leave the company. For the most part, these are solid, practical pieces with clear ideas of things to try, without trying to say "This is the way to do it" -- it's more like, here are things that have worked for me and why. For new managers in particular, there's some clearly valuable thoughts and advice to consider. It doesn't really say so, but (not surprisingly since it's from First Round) the book is very targeted at tech startups, though much of the advice is universal.