Drue's Reading List
Here is a select list of relevant books for readers involved in or interested in the automotive industry, startups, or just improving your business.
"The Mobility Diaries"
By Sven Beiker
June 24, 2024
The Mobility Diaries by Sven Beiker is not your typical treatise on the future of Connected, Autonomous, Shared, and Electric (CASE) vehicles (or ACES, as Beiker prefers to order the acronym). Beiker doesn’t attempt to tell the reader how to do automotive innovation. He doesn’t attempt to predict when and how the world will be dominated by CASE vehicles. He certainly doesn’t argue for one technology over another or attempt to engage in any of the usual ‘religious’ debates that invariably arise when ‘Silicon Valley’ meets mainstream automotive (e.g., “The automotive industry is too slow” vs “Silicon Valley doesn’t understand safety,” etc.).
Instead, The Mobility Diaries is a fun, easy to read, reflection on Beiker’s more than 25 years of hands-on experience as both an industry insider and as an industry disruptor. Beiker takes the reader on a very personal journey through his life and career, drawing fascinating and often non-obvious parallels between significant events and developments spread out over 40 years of automotive industry innovation. The argument is made that, despite various twists and turns, the industry has been on a path towards CASE for many years and it will eventually get there, even if the resulting vehicles turn out somewhat different than what we might expect. To be clear, though, The Mobility Diaries is not really about the inevitability of CASE; Beiker takes that as a given. It is about the “Milestones of Innovation” that brought the industry to its current state. It is a first-hand account of what has made the automotive industry one of the most interesting industries that one can spend a career in.
The Mobility Diaries is specifically written so that it can be enjoyed by the casual reader with no background in Automotive or Engineering. Automotive engineering and autonomous driving can be very technical subjects. Beiker makes the topic accessible to anyone by providing short and easy to understand sidebar explanations of the more important automotive systems and their foundational technologies. His personal anecdotes are sincere, heartfelt, and sometimes humorous. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in innovation. If you happen to be a gearhead, all the better, but it is not a prerequisite for enjoying this book.
"Transportation Transformation"​ by Evangelos Simoudis, PhD
June 30, 2021
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I don't write a lot of reviews. But as I have been thoroughly enjoying "Transportation Transformation" by Evangelos Simoudis, Ph.D., I thought it might be a good idea to share my thoughts on the book and the subject matter.
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Technology innovations are disrupting the transportation industry at a pace not seen in over 100 years. Advances in connectivity, sensors, computation, artificial intelligence, and electrification are enabling new business models and new value chains in an industry that has remained remarkably stable for decades. In his first insightful book, “The Big Data Opportunity in our Driverless Future” (2017), Dr. Simoudis argued that the traditional Car OEMs were at risk of missing a major business opportunity: capitalizing on the exponential growth in the demand for data that would be generated by the emergence of autonomous vehicles. His newest book, “Transportation Transformation” (2020) picks up where “The Big Data Opportunity” left off, exploring not only the data monetization opportunities being enabled by self-driving vehicles, but examining the system level implications across the broader spectrum of transportation modalities involved in Mobility as a Service. Car OEMs, New Mobility Service Providers, Infrastructure Providers, and the Government will all have an influence on the future of transportation, and they will all undergo their own transformations in the process.
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In the last three years the world has undergone significant change - from the political backlash against the gig economy to a global pandemic; from breakthrough innovations in the underlying technology that will enable autonomous driving to the growing realization that in spite of these breakthroughs, widespread adoption of fully self-driving vehicles is likely still a decade away. These changes, in turn, have presented the transportation industry with a unique set of challenges and opportunities. In “Transportation Transformation,” Dr. Simoudis tackles these challenges and opportunities head on.
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Transportation companies and providers, whether carmakers, on demand mobility providers, fleet managers, or municipalities attempting to orchestrate competitive public transportation must consider very carefully how to adopt the evolving technology and how to adapt their business models accordingly. Dr. Simoudis provides the reader with a helpful framework for thinking through the key decisions these players will have to make along the technology and business model axes as they compete, grow, and transform. Each of these decisions, in turn, has implications in terms of required core competencies. Unfortunately, for many of the key players, the required competencies do not always exist inside the established value chain, forcing companies to look at acquisitions or to develop sourcing strategies for working with suppliers outside of their traditional supply base.
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Dr. Simoudis makes the case that multimodal Mobility as a Service (MaaS) will eventually emerge as the norm for our daily transportation needs, transportation service providers will become increasingly multimodal, and ownership of vehicles will shift from individuals to fleets. The multimodal MaaS ecosystem will be much more complex than any traditional transportation ecosystem. Entirely new value chains will emerge, creating opportunities for new kinds of companies that did not exist even a few years ago. Dr. Simoudis examines in detail each of these value chains and their constituent elements, offering the reader insights into how these value chains may continue to evolve over the coming decade as autonomous driving technology, business and regulatory environments interact and influence each other throughout the transformation process.
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As always, Dr. Simoudis is thorough in his research and thought provoking in his hypotheses. But don’t be fooled by the author’s excellent academic rigor. This is much more than mere a theoretical synthesis of the more than 250 references cited in the book. Dr. Simoudis’ key insights come from his years of experience as a hands-on consultant to the automotive industry and as a venture capitalist placing bets on some of the companies at the nexus of these transformations.
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Regardless of whether the reader is an interested observer or an industry insider looking for new insights into how to gain a competitive advantage, “Transportation Transformation” is thought provoking and challenging, making it one of the best handbooks available for making sense of all the excitement and hype around the transportation industry.
"Aligning the Dots," by Philippe Bouissou, Ph.D.
March 16, 2020
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Hands-on, practical approach to unlocking your company's full growth potential
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While Aligning the Dots won’t make it magically easy, Bouissou’s A4 Precision Alignment methodology and compelling case studies will help you avoid the critical misalignments that keep many companies from achieving their full growth potential. Having spent much of my career driving a large sales & marketing organization, I was able to personally relate to many of the examples, but I also found a lot of new insights as well.
The one topic that has always been top-of-mind for me is the alignment of "Offering with Customer Delight," - Bouissou's 4th axis. So many companies get this wrong - either disappointing customers in the pursuit of short term profit or setting expectations too low and way over delivering and leaving revenue (and profit) on the table. Bouissou helps you put this alignment in the right perspective, as he does with the other 3 alignments.
Because of the way the book is organized, it's actually both a pretty quick read and also something you can read in snippets, taking time to digest the information in each section and in each example.
September 21, 2017
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This book should not be ignored if you are in the Automotive Industry
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I expected this book to be a quick read. It presents the author's thesis in a clear and easy to follow manner. However, instead, I found myself pausing every few pages and really contemplating the implications of the Big Data revolution in Automotive. Dr. Simoudis is one of a relatively few people who can credibly straddle the chasm between "Silicon Valley" and "Detroit" (or Munich or other hubs of traditional automotive innovation). The book provides clear examples of the disruption that is already taking place and practical ideas of how the incumbent automotive industry can adapt to the new reality and create (and thereby profit from) their own disruptions. For sure I do not agree with every conclusion in the book. But I learned many new things, found some of my beliefs challenged, and found other beliefs re-confirmed. I spent more time thinking about this book than reading it and enjoyed that process very thoroughly. This book should not be ignored.
"7-Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey
July 5, 2023
A genuine classic of business and self-improvement literature.
“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is perhaps even more relevant today than when it was first published in 1989. The book holds a place of honor on my bookshelf. Stephen R. Covey’s lessons focus on systematically developing a strong character ethic that strikes a balance between achieving goals and nurturing the relationships, skills and knowledge that enable you to achieve those goals. Covey contrasts the Character Ethic, which focuses on who you are inside and traits such as integrity, courage, patience, and humility, with the Personality Ethic, which focuses more on how others perceive you through such traits as attitude, confidence, and public image. According to Covey, lasting change can only be achieved through developing our character: digging deep into the root causes of our behaviors, developing our core values, and affecting a paradigm shift in our assumptions and beliefs. Shortcuts aimed only at the external surface, or our outward facing personality, may produce some quick short-term benefits, but those benefits quickly wear off and the techniques are ultimately ineffective.
While I don’t pretend to practice each of the habits perfectly, I do strive to put them into use on regular basis both personally and professionally.
I will list the 7-habits here, as they are all important and work together as a whole, but I will also share my thoughts on two that I find particularly powerful on a day-to-day basis and which I find to be very often under-appreciated in business today:
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Habit 1: Be Proactive
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Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
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Habit 3: Put First Things First
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Habit 4: Think Win-Win
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The fundamental idea here is to foster an abundance mentality rather than a scarcity mentality. Too often, people assume there is only so much “pie” to go around. The more they win at the expense of someone else in a transaction, the better. Covey calls this “I Win – You Lose” and it grows out of the scarcity mentality. He goes on to explain why “Win-Lose” (as well as “I Lose – You Win”) ultimately devolves into “Lose-Lose,” where both parties ultimately end up worse off from the transaction. The abundance mentality, on the other hand, starts with the assumption that not only is there is enough pie to affect “Win-Win” solutions, but that it is possible to create a bigger pie when everyone benefits. Companies will sometimes strive for “Win-Lose” in a misguided effort to bolster short-term profits, but at the expense of long-term customer or partner loyalty. Striving for “Win-Win” is not always easy as it requires bringing trust to the negotiating table.
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Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
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This is perhaps my favorite of the habits. How many hours have been wasted in meetings in which the participants talk at each other, each attempting to convince the others of their invested positions, while no one seems to make any effort to listen to and deeply understand the other participants’ perspectives? Habit 5 is all about building trust and better relationships, whether professional or personal. This is not some quick “trick” to get people to trust you so you can win them over. It is about fundamentally changing how you interact with others. Habit 5 is very much about practicing empathy. Everyone wants to be understood. In most situations, everyone genuinely wants to achieve the best possible outcome, but everyone also has their own vested interests and their own baggage that they bring to the table. This baggage is usually the starting point of any difficult discussion or negotiation and the divergent vested interested create a chasm that prevents understanding. Empathy builds bridges, but you cannot practice empathy by talking. You practice empathy by listening. In my own years of experience, when I make a sincere attempt to practice Habit 5, the result is almost always one of three possible outcomes, all of which are positive in my opinion: (1) by understanding the other person better, I change my own position and discover a better way than what I would have been advocating for; (2) by making the other person feel valued and by demonstrating that I truly understand their concerns and their positions, they are more open to listen to my position and are willing to move their own position closer to mine; or (3) occasionally we create a dialogue of collaboration and trust that leads to mutually building on each other’s ideas and coming with a third solution that is even better than what we individually had been advocating for (this of course leads into Habit 6).
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Habit 6: Synergize
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Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
When business leaders and entrepreneurs ask me for recommendations on what to read that might help them with their personal and professional development, Covey’s “The 7-Habits of Highly Effective People” is almost always my first recommendation. Since I first bought my cherished copy, many new editions have been published, including personal workbooks, guided journals, audiobooks, teen editions, and even collector’s editions. Whichever edition you choose, practicing the 7 Habits is a journey worth undertaking.