David B. Black

My first job, at 16, was pressing sweaters in a knitting mill during the summer for minimum wage. It was a motivating experience. Later in high school, I started programming computers. Before graduating with honors from Harvard College, I wrote code for oil refinery optimization and the ARPA-net. I then wrote code for compilers, composition systems, operating systems, DBMS internals and applications, large scale financial transaction processing, document processing, workflow and more. I started working in the technology side of venture capital in the early 1990's. After helping to generate large returns for the fund, I became a GP at Oak Investment Partners in 2000, where I worked to improve the outcomes of our computer-based investments, from infrastructure and tools to the consumer internet. I concentrated on health care and financial technology investments with the Oak HC/FT sector fund until 2023. As I matched my own experience with that of the companies we invested in, I started to notice patterns. I first discussed the things I noticed and then put them into long e-mails. The e-mails became private-circulation papers. I made many additions and corrections based on feedback and new experience. I started posting about the ideas at my www.blackliszt.com blog. I'm finally releasing the material as the Building Better Software Better series of books. Building Better Software Better describes how winning software people actually do what they do. It is often contrary to widespread practice, what is believed by many professionals, and what is taught in computer science and business school. In all too many organizations, failure to build the right software, quickly and well, is a major impediment to business success. Using even some of the methods described in these books and my blog can make software into a major driver of business success.