Amp It Up

Amp It Up is not a good business book. It is, in book terms, quite bad: there is no through-line, no overarching theme, no clear message. It reads as if Frank Slootman has cornered you in a room for an hour and just started talking about whatever came to mind. He bounces from stint to stint at varying resolution; he re-introduces concepts and quotes multiple times as if he hadn't mentioned them before; he diretly contradicts himself multiple times. It's a mess.

The thing is — ghostwriting horrors aside — it's actually opinionated, which sets it aside from many other books in the semi-autobiographical hagiography genre. I respect Slootman for treating the reader with enough respect and honesty to say things like "yeah, just fire the executive team; it's faster than figuring out who'se worth keeping" — which is not to say that I think that advice is great, but it's at least not mealy-mouthed.

It's a short book, and its one that is not really worth reading over the essay-length LinkedIn post that sparked its publication. But it took me all of like four hours to listen to, and has the same level of value as an above-average podcast.