I’m going to occasionally review books that have influenced me as the founder of 24PageBooks. Start-Up Nation by Dan Senior and Saul Singer (Twelve/Hachette 2009) is ostensibly about economic development in Israel. I say ostensibly because it is one of the best overall business books I have read in recent years. It uncovers the peculiar nature of Israeli society that makes it a leader in technological innovation and entrepreneurship. The society has developed an amazing ability to improvise based on their dangerous geo-political environment, their mandatory military service for all with its very flat decision-making structure, their openness to immigration by any Jew (who immediately become citizens)- the list of attributes goes on and on. When you break down these attributes and apply them to the profile of a successful entrepreneur you realize that, whether they planned it or not, the Israelis have created a culture of innovation.
The authors have done an incredible amount of homework putting this together and they take a Malcom Gladwell/Michael Lewis storytelling approach, building their points over a skein of interrelated relationships, political realities, military tales and more. The result is a ‘business book’ that is a great read with many lessons to be learned.
One of the inspirations (if you can call it that) for starting 24PageBooks is the generally awful range of business books out there. Inevitably the bad ones tell you everything they have to say in the first few chapters then fill up rest with repetition, anecdotes and tired retelling of ‘stories’ told in many other similar books. Start-Up Nation is a real book that justifies its length (not very long actually) because it is filled with value, something we strive for in our little products.