Recently, Baoding Publishing invited me to read a newly released book, Silicon Valley Thinking (矽谷思維), and my blog’s endorsement also appears on its cover. The author, Han, is a senior software engineer working in Silicon Valley. He has summed up the experience and ways of thinking he has accumulated over time at tech companies here in a book for readers who work in tech (wait, that sounds a little like me! XD). The book has five main threads, product thinking, data thinking, startup thinking, growth thinking, and personal growth thinking, each introduced at a broad level and illustrated with detailed examples from real Silicon Valley tech products. Whatever your role at a tech company, you will find things that resonate and things to learn. As I read, I marveled that his work experience is probably not much longer than mine, yet his insights and thinking run much deeper than mine. I was thoroughly impressed.
In a recent livestream, “How to Organize and Internalize Information, and Use Frameworks to Evaluate Opportunities at Work and in Investing”, Scott mentioned that he has seen some Asian companies that simply have no exposure to ways of working on products that Silicon Valley takes for granted. That is not to say Silicon Valley’s way of doing things is the only right way. But because competition among tech companies here is so intense, they have developed a highly effective model across product, growth, developing people, and how organizations respond to challenges. By learning Silicon Valley’s perspective, ways of thinking, and ways of working, I believe both companies as they grow and individuals as they build themselves up can find good reference points and improve much more efficiently.
I was inspired by the stories of various tech products in the book, which walk through the real problems each product faced, how it was designed, and how it got from a relatively poor state to where it stands today by solving all kinds of problems for its users. But the part that touched me personally was the last big chapter: growth thinking. Section 5.1, for example, asks why we in Silicon Valley push ourselves so hard. Beyond the money and benefits, which are good compared with other industries (for a similar introduction, see my earlier post, “My Days Working at Facebook: The Offer, Bootcamp, and Choosing a Team”), the biggest driver is strong peer pressure. Beyond the examples in the book, in Silicon Valley you will often see outstanding colleagues all around you: impressive credentials, remarkable professional ability, strong communication skills, work that is both fast and good, excellent ratings in every annual review, and promotions and raises that shoot up like a helicopter taking off (for how reviews work at Silicon Valley tech companies, see “Performance Reviews at US Tech Companies”). Colleagues your age, or younger than you, blow past you at incredible speed, and the motivation that creates keeps many people working diligently to keep improving themselves. On top of that, the biggest consideration when many people change jobs, companies, or teams is often simply that they feel they are no longer learning anything new in their current situation. For the sake of their own continued career development, they will resolutely jump into a new environment to develop themselves. Sometimes they even choose an opportunity that looks unstable, or one that comes with a pay cut, just because it matches an ideal or a learning goal they have committed to. Even when the external conditions look unfavorable, they can endure them for the time being in exchange for better development opportunities in the future.
Silicon Valley is not just a cluster of the famous tech companies we all know by name. It is also a culture and a way of thinking that keeps you wanting to surpass your competitors, and yourself. If you are curious about how work gets done in Silicon Valley, or want to understand it better, and you approach it with an open mind, this book is a good way to learn about it.
If you cannot wait and want to buy the book and read it first, here is the link. Because of the pandemic this year, the book fair was canceled, which has made things hard for many publishers. Since everyone has to spend more time at home anyway, take this chance to invest in yourself: read more, and summarize and write more (see my earlier post, “Why I Recommend You Start Writing, or Creating Anything”). Not only do you improve yourself, you also help a publishing industry that has been having a tough time.
博客來 (Chinese edition): https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/pivotsw/products/0010881357 (This is an affiliate link. If you buy through it, I may earn a small commission.)
This post was originally published on my former blog, 「半路出家軟體工程師在矽谷」, on February 11, 2021. The blog is now offline; the original is preserved via the Wayback Machine. It has been lightly edited for this site; the expired book giveaway and a self-promotion paragraph have been removed.
