Matt Mochary is a CEO coach and probably one of those unknown heroes of Silicon Valley. He coached CEOs of several Silicon Valley startups, such as Steve Huffman, Sam Altman and Justin Kan. His book, The Great CEO Within, is on how to run a company as a CEO. The information density is amazing, it’s an excellent reference book with 200 pages of pure practical information. It’s been really refreshing to come across a business book without all the story telling and filler fluff.

I usually have a hard time applying things I’ve read in a book and building new habits, but I’ve been able to apply two individual habits described in the book:

• Applying a simple version of GTD to my Gmail inbox: having an inbox with multiple sections: unread, to-do and awaiting reply. Details here
• Scheduling time each morning to wok on your top goal only

I’ve found decision making, conflict resolution, company culture, areas of responsibility and key performance indicator sections informative for my engineering management days. Having run an engineering team at Facebook, a lot of the practices described in the book were very familiar – speaks to how Facebook implemented good management practices in the company.

Overall, if you manage a team or run a company, this book is pure gold!