Cloudability Book Club: Favorite Reads from David Winter, Head of Client Services

We’ll be releasing the 3rd edition of our popular guide to cloud this year at re:Invent! Packed with eight years of learnings and customer-proven best practices, Cloud Control: A Primer in Cloud Financial Management and Your Cloud’s True Cost will help you navigate every part of your cloud journey, from migration to optimization and beyond. We hope that equipped with this guide, you’ll be able to do your job better every day. In our Cloudability Book Club series, team members will share the books that help them do their jobs better each day. In our last post, Cloudability CTO, Erik Onnen, shared his favorite books on cloud and tech.

David Winter, Head of Client Services, Cloudability, is sharing the cloud, business and life/leadership strategy reads that inform his day-to-day practice.

The Art of War for Executives: Ancient Knowledge for Today’s Business Professional

This book reinterprets Sun Tzu’s ancient principles of war for the modern executive. It offers strategies for success and advice for navigating interpersonal challenges in the workplace.

Why David Likes It:

“I like to win. I enjoy reading books that help me analyze day-to-day situations and apply a structure to how I make decisions or engage with people.”

Ahead in the Cloud: Best Practices for Navigating the Future of Enterprise IT

In this book, Stephen Orban, AWS’ General Manager, helps enterprises learn new skills and  evolve their processes and cultures as part of a move to the cloud

Why David Likes It:

“Stephen was able to capture and consolidate some really great work from his own experience, and the experiences of the Amazon team around him, and present it in a very consumable and relatable way for public cloud customers.”

The Accidental Analyst: Show Your Data Who’s Boss

This guide helps people who may not have planned for a career as a data analyst, but have ended up in a position where they must analyze data to find answers to their questions and be successful.

Why David Likes It:

“I love data. More than that, I love analyzing data to find trends and to discover new ideas. I’ve been known to get lost in tools like Splunk and Tableau for days at a time. This book helped me understand advanced ways to analyze data. Taught me new tricks!”

Principles: Life and Work

American billionaire investor, philanthropist  and entrepreneur, Ray Dalio, shares his guiding principles and life and work in this book that The New York Times called “both instructive and surprisingly moving.”

Why David Likes It:

“I have found a ton of value in living by a set of governing rules and laws that I apply to how I make decisions and treat people. Living and working by Jeff Coleman’s Rules and Laws, Amazon’s Leadership Principles,  and now Ray Dalio’s Principles help me to be my best.”

Who Moved My Cheese?

This popular motivational book details potential changes in work and life, and four typical reactions to those changes

Why David Likes It:

“Stress exists everywhere in our lives. Facing “change” on a daily basis is something that we all deal with and sometimes have limited control over. I thought this book put the impact of change on personal stress into great perspective and helped me change how I let “change” affect me.”

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All of these reads speak of bringing multi-team strategy to cloud cost management — which is exactly what happens in FinOps. Find out more about how David’s team can help you apply the FinOps cloud operating model to your business with Cloudability’s FinOps Services.