rcmnd

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle MaintenanceBook

by Robert M. Pirsig, 1974

Who uses, recommends or left Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.

1 person

Co-founder of Foundry Group and Techstars; has blogged at Feld Thoughts since 2004 and co-written nine non-fiction books on startups and venture capital.
loved

I’ve read it at least a half dozen times since. I’ve listened to it on Audible twice.

A post prompted by Ted Gioia’s piece on the book’s history; he had every employee at his first company read it.

2026-03-25·feld.com ↗

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:

Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.