Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries
byPeter Sims
Little Bets is a very short read. The central message is about experimentation, doing things to discover what you should do. Act small so you can reduce the barrier towards getting standard, and learn from you actions so you can iterate over time. You can learn a lot from a little and the book laid out great examples from Thomas Edison to Pixar. Little Bets however, took repetition a bit too seriously and recycled a lot of the same talking points and anecdotes, moving slow to push the idea farther; the book lacked depth and could have been a blog post. This book did inspire me to go buy Creativity Inc, the story of Pixar by co-founder Ed Catmull, with how much they referenced the book.
Motivations to Read
This is a very strong title that can have a lot of impact if the author brings some substance to the area. Taking little bets is relevant to me as I have a number of constraints in my life, that make it difficult to take large risks or invest large amounts of time into projects. I'm looking for ways to become more effective per hour and learning from other people who are able to do that consistently.
3 Reasons to Read
- Stories from successful entrepreneurs on experimental methods to take little bets.
- Little Bets offers a whole new way of thinking about how to break away from the narrow strictures of the methods of analyzing and problem-solving we were all taught in school and unleash our untapped creative powers.
- A new approach to risk taking.
Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries Notes & Summary
