Episode · Lenny's Podcast · 2026-06-07
Lenny Rachitsky & Tony Fadell: books mentioned on Lenny's Podcast
Father of the iPod and iPhone on building taste, judgment, and creativity in the AI era | Tony Fadell
Tony Fadell created the iPod, co-created the iPhone, and founded Nest (which he sold to Google for $3.2 billion). He’s co-authored over 300 patents, was part of the legendary team at General Magic, and wrote one of the most important and inspiring books for builders, called Build.
Tony Fadell discussed Build by Tony Fadell and Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore. Lenny Rachitsky discussed Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and others.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Build
Discussed“And so it came down to So this was a you know, classic like I I say in build the data versus opinion based decision.”
Where to get it
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Crossing the Chasm
Discussed“I I also updated the Crossing the Chasm uh you know, Crossing the Chasm graphic um in the book saying how we go about this in our in our in in in in uh in our product developments.”
Where to get it
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Working Backwards
Discussed“There's a whole chapter on that. Uh we had the found the um like Amazon's also very famous for that. There's a whole book on working backwards that goes really deep on this approach.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (3) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing Build
“He's co-authored over 300 patents. He also wrote one of the most important and valuable and inspiring books for builders called Build.”
Passing Bible
“There's this quote that I I used the other day on a different podcast that I think applies to you. It's a quote from the Bible that you were made for a time like this.”
Passing Build
“I love just all the levels of ways you are helping people. There's the investing, there's this book, there's MIT, there's these conversations.”