{"id":465,"date":"2012-02-23T13:25:05","date_gmt":"2012-02-23T18:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pchristensen.com\/blog\/?p=465"},"modified":"2012-02-23T04:53:50","modified_gmt":"2012-02-23T09:53:50","slug":"writers-i-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/articles\/writers-i-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers I Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I read.  A lot.  In fact, I&#8217;d probably write more if I read less.  Blogs have a special place in my heart, because reading a few special blogs back in the mid aughts guided me to where I am professionally today.<\/p>\n<p>Three classic tech blogs were especially influential on me:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/joelonsoftware.com\">Joel on Software<\/a> &#8211; most of my understanding of the software business comes from Joel or things Joel linked to.  It&#8217;s also interesting to see his evolution, given his early emphasis on slow, Ben and Jerry growth and desktop software, to heading a VC funded Amazon-style monetize later service like Stack Exchange and Trello.  He defined many terms that people use to describe the software business today.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.paulgraham.com\/articles.html\">Paul Graham<\/a> &#8211; full of powerful, challenging ideas.  He has about half of the entries on my list of &#8220;Life-changing, perception-altering quotes.&#8221;  Again, interesting to see how he changed his leverage from spreading ideas through writing to spreading ideas through investing, mentoring, and execution.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/weblog.raganwald.com\/\">Raganwald<\/a> &#8211; doesn&#8217;t have as many &#8220;big idea&#8221; posts that stand out in my memory, but his writing felt closer to home.  Unlike Joel and pg, Raganwald always felt like a programmer, exploring issues that programmers cared about.  Joel and pg felt like something else, but Raganwald seemed like a better version of what I could become.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Even though they&#8217;re 5+ years old, you&#8217;d still be better off today reading their old essays than most of what&#8217;s new.  None of my three favorites still write much, but there&#8217;s so much gold on the table already.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m in a very different place than I was in 2005, 2006 when I started reading blogs.  The cutting edge thoughts and ideas from back then have spread and in many cases become common knowledge.  So I want to mention three new writers that excite me the way Joel, pg, and Raganwald did back then:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/iwillteachyoutoberich.com\">Ramit Sethi<\/a> &#8211; I came across Ramit&#8217;s blog several years ago and I thought he came off as a cheesy hustler.  His cockiness and attitude kept me from believing his savings tactics.  I wrote him off until a few months ago he came onto my radar again, and it&#8217;s different between us now.  Now he dives deep into the psychology of high performance, how to make changes when most people fail, and more.  Very strategic things.  Now I think Ramit&#8217;s writings are some of the most exciting things for an ambitious person to read.  Here&#8217;s a good recent post about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com\/blog\/2012-the-year-of-mastering-the-game-being-played-around-you\/\">mastering the game being played around you<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ellsberg.com\/\">Michael Ellsberg<\/a> &#8211; Speaking of exciting, I can&#8217;t get enough of Michael Ellsberg since I heard him on <a href=\"http:\/\/mixergy.com\/michael-ellsberg-education-of-millionaires-interview\/\">Mixergy<\/a>.  He covers a lot of the same ground as Ramit but in a different way.  Ramit seems to dance around the point more and use sales and persuasion techniques like testimonials a lot, but Ellsberg just attacks like a tiger wielding Thor&#8217;s hammer.  I believe Ramit because he&#8217;s convincing, but I believe Ellsberg because he&#8217;s so aggressively open and confident.  My favorite example of this is his article about his brand promise &#8211; to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ellsberg.com\/i-shatter-limited-thinking\">shatter limited thinking<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ribbonfarm.com\/\">Venkatesh Rao<\/a> (also has a book called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tempobook.com\/\">Tempo<\/a>)- While Ramit and Ellsberg cover a lot of the same ideas, Venkatesh is completely off the wall.  He explores history, technology, psychology, culture, business, and whatever he feels like, and he does it in a way unlike anyone else I&#8217;ve read.  I don&#8217;t always agree with or understand everything he says, and I&#8217;m never sure if it&#8217;s because my thinking is too limited or if he&#8217;s off in left field.  But there&#8217;s no one else today who has repeatedly reshaped my perception of things I didn&#8217;t even know I didn&#8217;t understand.  Good places to start are his articles about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ribbonfarm.com\/2011\/12\/08\/acting-dead-trading-up-and-leaving-the-middle-class\/\">leaving the middle class<\/a> and a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ribbonfarm.com\/2011\/06\/08\/a-brief-history-of-the-corporation-1600-to-2100\/\">brief history of the corporation<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Give these writers a try and maybe they will reshape your mind forever too!<\/p>\n<p>Discussion: Who do you think is writing the best stuff right now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I read. A lot. In fact, I&#8217;d probably write more if I read less. Blogs have a special place in my heart, because reading a few special blogs back in the mid aughts guided me to where I am professionally today. Three classic tech blogs were especially influential on me: Joel on Software &#8211; most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-book-review","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pazgP-7v","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pchristensen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}