The Creator's Code

The Creator's Code, The Six Essential Skills of Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, by Amy Wilkinson, Simon & Schuster  2016

Walter Isaacson, my favorite business author who wrote Steve Jobs, likes this book.  

Based on 200 interviews with entrepreneurs such as the founders of LinkedIn (just acquired by Microsoft), Chipotle, ebay, Under Armour, Tesla, SpaceX, Spanx, Airbnb, PayPal, JetBlue, Gilt, Theranos, and Dropbox, Wilkinson has boiled down her research to give us the actions and characteristics that these success stories all share:

Daring

Discipline

and

These 6 skills:

1.  Find the gap:  Spot opportunities that others don't see

2.  Drive for daylight:  Manage speed by focusing on the horizon

3.  Fly the OODA loop:  Master fast-cycle iteration to observe, orient, decide, and act

4.  Fail wisely:  Set a failure ratio and hone resilience

5.  Network minds:  Harness cognitive diversity to build on each other's ideas

6.  Gift small goods:  unleash generosity to increase productivity

Wilkinson believes that everyone who succeeds in creating a product or service that's new to the marketplace shares these six key skills, even if they don't realize it.  

Readers will love Chapter 4, Fail Wisely - it proves the concept of failure bragging rights!  In fact David Kelley, co-founder of design firm IDEO says, "One of the things that's great about Silicon Valley is that failure is a badge of honor because people here value the learning that goes on."  This chapter is filled with failure and pseudo-failure examples, from Hemingway re-writing the ending of A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times, to Hitchcock shooting the shower scene in Psycho seventy-eight times.  The author finally asks, "Why would creating a company be any less difficult?".  

Finally, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is quoted - "Our premise starting out was that we might have to fail a thousand times, but we would get it to work.  We joked about calling our product 'The Edison,'" referring to Thomas Edison's famous quote, "I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."  

Beyond Chapter 4, The Creator's Code is filled with memorable quotes from real creators, a fun read.