Book · 1983
High Output Management
by Andrew S. Grove
Andy Grove's Intel management playbook from 1983 — two r/startups commenters call it the book that forced them to stop playing player-coach and start leading.
What does Reddit think of High Output Management?
The small count masks sharp endorsements. On r/Entrepreneur (↑34), a commenter dismisses most management books as fluff then singles out Grove's book as the most influential they've ever read, adding they wish they'd found it years earlier. On r/startups (↑29), the endorsement is more specific: the commenter frames it as the thing that triggered the transition from player-coach to actual executive, paraphrasing it as 'working on the business rather than in it' — which is the same line r/Entrepreneur uses for The E-Myth Revisited, applied here to operational management rather than systems design. Nobody criticizes it. The mentions are old and concentrated, which limits what you can conclude, but the people who name it sound like they mean it.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Management as an output-driven discipline
- · The player-coach to executive transition
- · One-on-ones, meeting structures, and leverage in organizations
- · Operational thinking for founders and first-time managers
Common praise
- + The ↑34 commenter on r/Entrepreneur calls it the most influential management book they've read, with the explicit regret of not finding it sooner.
- + The ↑29 commenter on r/startups credits it as the trigger for their transition from hands-on operator to executive — a specific outcome, not a generic endorsement.
Common criticism
- − Seven mentions in seven years is a thin base — the book is clearly admired by the few who name it, but it doesn't generate the sustained Reddit discussion that its reputation in management circles would predict.
- − All tracked mentions cluster in 2019, with only single mentions in 2021 and 2022, suggesting a burst of discovery that didn't compound into ongoing recommendation threads.
- − The dataset has no one reporting back on applying Grove's frameworks — the praise is prospective ('I wish I read this sooner') rather than retrospective ('I used the one-on-one structure and here's what changed').
Who it's for
You've crossed the line from doing the work to managing people who do the work, and you're still pretending those are the same job. The ↑29 commenter on r/startups describes the exact profile: a founder who needed to stop being a player-coach and found Grove's framing clarifying. If you manage a team of one or two and feel fine about that, this isn't your book yet. Come back when the org chart starts mattering more than your own output.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for High Output Management?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“**Never Split the Difference – Chris Voss** The most important book on this list. It outlines and reinforces the fact that business, negotiation and any human interaction is inherently very emotional. It’s centered around negotiation but this book has so many solid management and leadership princip…
“It is about 4X-10X more expensive and time consuming to build hardware products when compared to a software products. Hardware cannot be changed with an update if there is a problem after release. Hardware creates supply chain lines in your business. (Which puts you on a time schedule whether you…
“High Output Management, from former Intel CEO, Andy Grove. I cannot recommend this book enough. Hell, I loved it so much [I wrote an outline about it.](
“Most of these are fluff. High Output Management by Andrew Grove has been the most influential book I’ve ever read. I wish I read it years ago.
“Agreed. I’d summarize this as “working on the business, rather than in it”. The transition from player-coach to a true leading executive is a big step. Reading High Output Management by Andrew Grove was a major triggering event for my development as a founder in that situation.
“Here are the ones I aggregated from a couple of places - haven't read all though. Many of these have had really good feedback/upvotes/comments, and therefore I believe make a really good list. ​ **Tranche 1 - without a summary (However, well recommended):** 1. The Black Swan 2. Thinking…
Convinced? Pick up High Output Management
Readers also mention
Books that share discussion threads with High Output Management — counted from the comments, not curated.
The Goal
Eliyahu M. Goldratt
Eli Goldratt's 1984 novel about a plant manager with 90 days to save his factory before corporate shuts it down.
Company of One
Paul Jarvis
Paul Jarvis's argument that staying small on purpose beats chasing growth, cited on r/startups as the book that reframes what a business is allowed to be.
Good to Great
Jim Collins
Jim Collins studied 1,435 companies to find 11 that leapt from average to elite — the book r/Entrepreneur still recommends even after the methodology got shredded.
Principles
Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio turns his hedge fund's internal operating manual into a 500-page life philosophy—and Reddit isn't sure whether to treat it as scripture or autobiography.
Never Split the Difference
Chris Voss
A former FBI hostage negotiator teaches the same tactical empathy he used to talk down kidnappers — applied to salary talks, vendor deals, and difficult bosses.
The Lean Startup
Eric Ries
Eric Ries tells founders to ship a broken version on purpose, collect data, and repeat until the market stops ignoring them.
Guides featuring High Output Management
Ranked best-of lists and editorial guides where this book's tracked mentions place it.
High Output Management — frequently asked
Is High Output Management worth reading if I've already read The E-Myth Revisited?+
Yes — they solve adjacent problems. The E-Myth Revisited is about building systems so the business doesn't need you. High Output Management is about how you manage the people running those systems. The ↑29 commenter on r/startups frames them similarly ('working on the business, not in it'), but Grove's book operates at the organizational layer: meetings, one-on-ones, how a manager multiplies output through others. They don't overlap much.
What does Reddit think of High Output Management?+
Admiring but sparse. Everyone who names it calls it unusually good. The ↑34 post on r/Entrepreneur explicitly dismisses most management books as fluff before carving out Grove as the exception. No one argues against it; there just aren't many people talking about it relative to its reputation outside Reddit.
Is High Output Management relevant for a startup founder, or is it more for corporate managers?+
Startup founders, based on where the Reddit mentions appear. Both r/startups citations frame it as a founder tool, not a corporate one. The ↑29 commenter describes using it to make the specific transition from founder-as-individual-contributor to founder-as-executive. Grove wrote it while running Intel, but the problem it addresses — scaling your own management ability as the organization grows — is the same regardless of company size.
Why does High Output Management get so few Reddit mentions compared to its reputation?+
Hard to say from the data.