5 ms·

I'll suggest Goleman's Emotional Intelligence (for empathy) and Pirsig's Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (for quality and values).

• maerF0x0 6y ago
  Massive upvote for Pirsig. I did not understand Apple until reading this book. I think Tesla maybe our contemporary equivalent.
  • someperson 6y ago
    Can you please explain in a paragraph what this book made you understand about Apple?
    • electrondood 6y ago
      It's basically an exploration of the elusive quality of Quality, which Apple is obsessive about.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • maerF0x0 6y ago
      Granted it's been about 10 years since I read it... In addition to what electrondood said. It helped me understand that there are some people who just want their technology to work. Not to understand it's qualities. John Sutherland (the character with the BMW). Many Apple users are like that. They want the defaults to work for them. They want to remain clueless and it "just works" ...
      • phist_mcgee 6y ago
        And I think getting to the end of the book, and seeing Pirsig descend into a pretty dark place in understanding quality being undefinable in any actionable way, I guess sometimes it's easier to just let go, and not understand something. A lot of times, understanding just makes us more miserable. Fantastic book, read it as a teenager and it deeply affected me.
        • maerF0x0 6y ago
          A gross paraphrase I got was "I cant define quality, but I know it when I see it".
          • phist_mcgee 6y ago
            That's a great one! Something that can be validated yet not easily calculated. Kind of like hashing!