Arthur Andersen

The Personal MBA

by Josh Kaufman

I don’t know how I came to reading this book. If I remember correctly I found the link to its Amazon page via a blog article that recommended it due to its form. It reads a lot like a glossary, introducing all the keywords necessary for starting and running a business and pointing into the direction of further reading material.

I enjoyed it a lot. Most of the stuff wasn’t new to me, but some were formulated differently changing the perspective a bit.

It felt a lot like a reference book. You can directly jump to the topics of your interests. If a keyword is occurring again throughout the book, it is printed in bold so you know there is a mini chapter for an explanation.

I don’t know whether this book replaces an actual MBA degree but I think it is a wonderful introduction for people who started a business with a different skill set (like engineering) and want to learn more about the basics of management.

Value Creation

Marketing

Sales

Value Delivery

Finance

The Human Mind

Working With Yourself

I liked the concept of Akrasia, which describes the experience of knowing that we should do something or that a specific action would be in our best interest but we do something different instead…

The idea of Monoidealism reminds me of the book *Deep Work* by Cal Newport.

Working With Others

Understanding Systems

Analyzing Systems

Improving Systems