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Magda Marcu's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Magda Marcu recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Magda Marcu's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1
Practical advice from some of today's top early stage investors and entrepreneurs TechStars is a mentorship-driven startup accelerator with operations in three U.S. cities. Once a year in each city, it funds about ten Internet startups with a small amount of capital and surrounds them with around fifty top Internet entrepreneurs and investors. Historically, about seventy-five percent of the companies that go through TechStars raise a meaningful amount of angel or venture capital. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup is a collection of advice that comes... more

Joel GascoigneThere is so much great content packed into this book across all aspects of a start: ideas, execution, culture, hiring, firing, fundraising, product, metrics, incorporation, work-life balance. It is a book I can highly recommend if you're interested in or are getting started with a startup. Brad Feld and David Cohen are super smart and have a lot of experience, and it shows. I especially loved the... (Source)

Nelson ChuIt will give you a lot of ideas how to be more productive. (Source)

Magda MarcuMy career path took many turns over the years, and in the end I think that my core prevailed. As an entrepreneur, one must be a dreamer, a risk-taker, an agent of change and not be afraid of barriers. For young people interested in that, I recommend a few great books recommended to me by the Techstars incubator when my company Sailo went through their program: “Do more faster” “The Lean... (Source)

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2
Your project went off without a hitch--but somebody else got the credit...You averted a crisis brilliantly--but no one noticed...You came to the meeting with a sensational idea--but it was ignored until someone else said the same thing...



HOW CAN YOU GET CREDIT & GET AHEAD?In her extraordinary international bestseller, You Just Don't Understand, Deborah Tannen transformed forever the way we look at intimate relationships between women and men. Now she turns her keen ear and observant eye toward the workplace--where the ways in which men and women...
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Recommended by Magda Marcu, and 1 others.

Magda MarcuI used to listen to the audio book “Talking from 5 to 9: Women and Men at Work” while driving to work in the morning. The book is about the differences between how women and men communicate at work, such as the words they use, tone of voice, structure of phrase and the impact it has in the way we are perceived differently in a work environment. Some of these differences are quite obvious, others... (Source)

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3

Lust for Life

Lust for Life is the classic fictional re-telling of the incredible life of Vincent Van Gogh.

"Vincent is not dead. He will never die. His love, his genius, the great beauty he has created will go on forever, enriching the world... He was a colossus... a great painter... a great philosopher... a martyr to his love of art. "

Walking down the streets of Paris the young Vincent Van Gogh didn't feel like he belonged. Battling poverty, repeated heartbreak and familial obligation, Van Gogh was a man plagued by his own creative urge but with no outlet to express it. Until the...
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Recommended by Magda Marcu, and 1 others.

Magda MarcuFor non-business books, I really enjoyed the book about Vincent Van Gogh’s life “Lust for life”. (Source)

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4

All the Names

Senhor José is a low-grade clerk in the city's Central Registry, where the living and the dead share the same shelf space. A middle-aged bachelor, he has no interest in anything beyond the certificates of birth, marriage, divorce, and death, that are his daily routine. But one day, when he comes across the records of an anonymous young woman, something happens to him. Obsessed, Senhor José sets off to follow the thread that may lead him to the woman-but as he gets closer, he discovers more about her, and about himself, than he would ever have wished.

The loneliness of people's...
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Recommended by Magda Marcu, and 1 others.

Magda MarcuI also have a soft spot for Jose Saramago, specifically “All the names” and “Death with Interruptions”. (Source)

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5

Death with Interruptions

Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago's brilliant new novel poses the question -- what happens when the grim reaper decides there will be no more death? On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This of course causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration—flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become... more
Recommended by Magda Marcu, and 1 others.

Magda MarcuI also have a soft spot for Jose Saramago, specifically “All the names” and “Death with Interruptions”. (Source)

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6

The Kite Runner

The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies.

A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an...
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James AltucherExcellent novel. (Source)

Vanessa KengI've always loved fiction - mainly crime and legal thrillers, but there's something wonderful about reading a completely different style of writing from what I'm used to. I found myself absorbed in the narrative of guilt and love in The Kite Runner, and The Curious Incident told me a story from a completely different perspective. (Source)

Magda MarcuI’m currently reading “The Kite Runner”. I never have expectations from books, I let them surprise me as I get into the story. Learning about characteristics of different cultures, in this case the Afghan one, it’s one aspect I am interested in. (Source)

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7
Everyone knows that high IQ is no guarantee of success, happiness, or virtue, but until Emotional Intelligence, we could only guess why. Daniel Goleman's brilliant report from the frontiers of psychology and neuroscience offers startling new insight into our "two minds"—the rational and the emotional—and how they together shape our destiny.

Through vivid examples, Goleman delineates the five crucial skills of emotional intelligence, and shows how they determine our success in relationships, work, and even our physical well-being. What emerges is an entirely new way to talk...
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Drew HoustonIt’s nonfiction, but it spelled out something that I just didn’t know you could kind of break down in a logical way. And, suddenly, I had this understanding about the world that I didn’t have before. (Source)

Sharon Salzberg[Sharon Salzberg recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

Roxana Bitoleanu[One of the books recommends to young people interested in her career path.] (Source)

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8
Get the inside scoop on what venture capitalists want to see in your startup as you hit the fundraising trail.

This is the highly anticipated third edition of the best-selling book which has become the definitive resource for understanding venture capital fundraising. Whether you are an entrepreneur, lawyer, student or just have an interest in the venture capital ecosystem, Venture Deals is for you. The book dives deeply into how deals are constructed, why certain terms matter (and others don't), and more importantly, what motivates venture capitalists to propose...
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Timothy FerrissFor the fellow tech nerds among you, here are a few resources for learning about angel investing, founding tech companies, or picking the right startup to work for. (Source)

Tracy OsbornWhen I was fundraising, I probably referred to Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson every single day. So straightforward and easy to read — needed when one is fundraising! (Source)

Auston BunsenI’m actually a self-taught programmer, so these books have really helped me with practical skills that I could put to use & yield results. The return on investment for these kinds of books is off the charts for me! (Source)

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9
Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.
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Sheryl SandbergProvides a great inside look at how the tech industry approaches building products and businesses. (Source)

Dustin MoskovitzAt Asana, we've been lucky to benefit from [the author]'s advice firsthand; this book will enable him to help many more entrepreneurs answer the tough questions about their business. (Source)

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10

Positioning

The Battle for Your Mind

A dynamic new cover heralds the reissue of this bestselling business classic, which Spencer Johnson, M.D., co-author of The One Minute Manager praised as "One of the most important communication books I've ever read. I recommend it highly!" less

Tim O'ReillyPositioning, and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Anyone who wants to start a business with impact needs to read these books. (Source)

Seth GodinThis book is built around the brilliant insight that your prospect doesn't care nearly as much about what you do as you do, and thus you must boil down your offering into a unique slot that repositions the competition. (Source)

Marvin LiaoMy list would be (besides the ones I mentioned in answer to the previous question) both business & Fiction/Sci-Fi and ones I personally found helpful to myself. The business books explain just exactly how business, work & investing are in reality & how to think properly & differentiate yourself. On the non-business side, a mix of History & classic fiction to understand people, philosophy to make... (Source)

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