Mia Junghae Rong

What is the common theme about these three? Elon musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson. They all are successful entrepreneurs, and, more importantly, they are dreamers.  They all are dreamers and founded a company, on top of their other companies, with a goal of sending people to space. Whether you are a dreamer like Elon Musk or Star trek/Star Wars fans as a child, if you want to see a glimpse of what lies ahead of you, Michio Kaku's the future of humanity will be a book for you.  In this book, the author walks you through from humans' efforts for leaving the earth, all the way to theoretical scenarios into immortality and advanced civilization, and the end of universe. This book to me was one of the most difficult books to digest, and therefore made me really proud to finish reading. I must admit my knowledge about space was very limited. I don't remember being interested in physics outside of school curriculum. I remember picking up String Theory book in college,...

The Upstarts gives you a glimpse of what it feels like being a startup like Uber and Airbnb. Best seller author, Brad Stone, artfully juxtaposed the two upstarts, narrating phases of the company growth: from a burgeoning start-up to a company, facing regulation as well as fierce competition in both domestic and international. Both are fearless and resilient. As a person who started living in the Silicon Valley in the year 2008, this book made me look back my own life journey with adopting new technology as a consumer. Hope this does the same to you.   Regulation - I think the greatest achievement of both Uber and Airbnb is that they executed despite a mountain of obstacles. Many people came up with the similar idea, but not all of them fought head-to-head the regulation and existing industry's objection like these two. It is well worth to note that both founders shared the similar philosophy in how to navigate this.  Uber had this 'Travis's Law.' Bas...

It is the most entertaining and nerve-breaking book I have ever read in my entire life. Every chapter is full of evil acts. After reading this, you will still feel overwhelmed by the chills you had while you were reading. Elizabeth Holms, with her company Theranos valued at $9B in 2015, is the most audacious liar in the Silicon Valley startup history. By early 2017, the value of Theranos became zero, and in June 2018, she was indicted on federal wire fraud charges. Pulizer prize -winning investigative reporter, John Carreyrou's narration completes suspense to readers and the severity of the truth.   Evil 1: Elizabeth Holms Needless to say, or should I say needleless to say, the first person and the biggest culprit is the CEO of of Theranos. She is the world most talented salesperson. To start with, her board of directors are all-star board - Larry Ellizon, Tim Draper, Don Lucas, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, George P. Shultz to name a few. Her ability to re...

History of Nike, the Swoosh, the sweat of Phil Knights and Nike's early members are described in this fun, genuine, riveting book. Such a great story teller, Phil Knight, takes us the early days of his journey to build Blue Ribbon, and eventually Nike till its IPO in 1979. This book will make you want to finish the book in one seating.  This book was chosen as a part of our book club meeting (ABBA - Adobe Business Book Association), I created late last year. I would not have chosen such book without this external influence. For that, I would say I was lucky!  In Shoe Dog, Phil narrates monumental events for each year chronologically. Phil's life is full of adventure from his traveling around the world at the age of 26 to the journey of building Nike that you know now. What a journey! He believes in product. He is a risk-driven. He manages his business in a way that any odd will put him under easily ('live on the float' was the term). He is eccentric. He i...

It had so much nuggets of wisdom for building product and growing a company, sometimes contradictory, sometimes philosophical. I would keep this on a shelf, and take out whenever I want any directional advice. It is not a book that increases your expertise on a certain area. It will be a book to get a little glimpse about how Scott thinks about the world.  The book contains such a wide range of topics. It has three big chunk. Endure, Optimize, Finish Line. All of the messy middle - Endure, Optimize - is extremely difficult, however in my personal opinion, finishing well is the most important. How would you determine anyone being successful or failed? Abraham Lincoln failed many consecutive years prior to him becoming the US president.  Is it a middle or finish line? I'd say 'finishing well' is more important.  That said, I appreciated Scott shared the two examples of his family members about finish line. His grandfather, Stanley Kaplan, suffered from de...