Book Review: The Unicorn Project
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Having never read another book by Gene Kim, he has captured everything I fear from the process and roadblocks and “checks” in a large corporation (and even small startups). While I find his choice of technologies a little hype focused (noSQL, functional programming, microservices), I think the business principles may have merit. But where do people randomly find servers from in a company?
Even if the business principles are part of a hype cycle like the technologies, the book was a fun read. It felt like epic fiction meeting corporate America, and the good guys won. The frameworks were well presented within the narrative and the references section has left me with a lot of reading from Erik’s “sensei’s”.
His seamless blending of technology and business, with all the politics and conflicts it can create (and synergies), was well written to be approachable and familiar while providing plenty of context for those outside a corporate behemoth.
The timelines feel too condensed for any corporation I’ve seen or heard about, but they add to the fun narrative of the story. Most of the individuals details felt exaggerated like that: not too much, but enough to add enjoyment and suspense to the narrative. I hope I never work for or run a company asking their IT staff to work so much without properly recognizing or compensating them.
Some links to the book: