What is startup-cto-handbook?

zachgoldberg/startup-cto-handbook — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-06-24

★ 14,050Audience · pm founderComplexity · 1/5LicenseSetup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((startup-cto-handbook))
    Topics covered
      Engineering leadership
      Team management
      Technical decisions
      Hiring engineers
    Formats
      Free GitHub Markdown
      Print and Kindle
      Audiobook
    Community
      Submit corrections
      Pull requests welcome
    Audience
      New CTOs
      Engineering managers
      Startup founders

mindmap root((startup-cto-handbook)) Topics covered Engineering leadership Team management Technical decisions Hiring engineers Formats Free GitHub Markdown Print and Kindle Audiobook Community Submit corrections Pull requests welcome Audience New CTOs Engineering managers Startup founders

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Read the complete CTO handbook for free on GitHub to learn how to manage and grow an engineering team at a startup.

USE CASE 2

Submit a pull request to suggest corrections or additions that will appear in future printed editions.

USE CASE 3

Use the book's frameworks to structure your first engineering hiring process or performance review.

What is it built with?

Markdown

How does it compare?

	zachgoldberg/startup-cto-handbook	moond4rk/hackbrowserdata	sml2h3/ddddocr
Stars	14,050	14,052	14,053
Language	—	Go	Python
Setup difficulty	easy	easy	easy
Complexity	1/5	2/5	2/5
Audience	pm founder	developer	developer

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Free to copy, modify, and redistribute with attribution, but the material cannot be resold and modified versions must remain open under the same terms.

So what is it?

The Startup CTO's Handbook is a book written by Zach Goldberg for people leading engineering teams at startups. It covers leadership, management, and technical topics relevant to a Chief Technology Officer or similar engineering leader role. The full text of the book is available in this GitHub repository in Markdown format, kept up to date as new editions are released. The book is also available for purchase in print and Kindle on Amazon, and as an audiobook on Audible. The GitHub version reflects the latest content, while an earlier version of the original manuscript exists as a Google Doc, which the author notes is now outdated. The repository is open to community input. Readers can submit issues or pull requests to suggest additions, corrections, or changes for future editions. Contributors are encouraged to add their names to the acknowledgements file in the repository. The license allows copying, modifying, and redistributing the content freely, with two conditions: the material cannot be resold, and the author's name and attribution must remain attached. Any modified versions must also be kept open under the same or a similar license. The README for this repository is brief and does not describe the contents of the book itself in detail. The actual book content lives in a separate Markdown file within the repository.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

Based on The Startup CTO Handbook, how should I structure my first 90 days as an engineering lead at a 10-person startup?

Prompt 2

The Startup CTO Handbook covers engineering hiring, summarize its advice on what to look for in the first two engineers you bring on.

Prompt 3

What does The Startup CTO Handbook recommend for balancing technical debt against feature velocity in an early-stage product?

Prompt 4

I am transitioning from senior engineer to CTO at a 15-person company, what does The Startup CTO Handbook say about the mindset shift required?

Frequently asked questions