---
title: "Start here | Reading paths"
description: "Three reading paths through the library: carrying a company under pressure, building with AI agents, and sharpening judgment."
image: "https://lenvanderhof.com/photos/len-portrait-1.jpg"
---

Reading paths

# Start here in three paths

Three reading paths through the library: carrying a company under pressure, building with AI agents, and sharpening judgment.

01

## Carrying a company under pressure

Start with the psychology, then the decision protocol, then the operating system.

Framework

RESILIENT

RESILIENT is nine trainable capacities for founder pressure: reappraisal, emotional granularity, somatic regulation, identity flexibility, learning orientation, interpersonal support, executive function, narrative integration, and titrated exposure. Resilience is infrastructure, not a personality trait.

Articles

- [A holiday is not a refill protocol](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/founder-capacity-is-infrastructure/)
- [Founder systems you can run when willpower is gone](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/founder-systems-when-willpower-is-gone/)

Books

1. [The Psychology of Founder Resilience](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/psychology-of-founder-resilience/)
2. [Decision-Making Under Chaos](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/decision-making-under-chaos/)
3. [The Scale-Up Operator](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/the-scale-up-operator/)

Start this path→02

## Building with AI agents

The repository, the retrieval layer agents actually call, the team, and the strategy layer above them.

Framework

STACK

STACK is a five-layer architecture for repositories where humans and agents share work: Structure, Toolchain, Agent configuration, Connection, Knowledge and quality. The agent OS is versioned like the app.

Articles

- [What is STACK? Five layers, not a vendor diagram](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/what-is-stack/)
- [STACK: version the agent OS like you version the app](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/stack-version-the-agent-os/)

Books

+3

1. [The Agentic Codebase](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/the-agentic-codebase/)
2. [The RAG Engineer](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/the-rag-engineer/)
3. [The Model Portfolio](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/the-model-portfolio/)
4. [The Agent Dream Team](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/the-agent-dream-team/)
5. [The Multi-Agent Organization](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/multi-agent-organization/)
6. [AI Agents for Startup Strategy](https://lenvanderhof.com/ai-agents-for-startup-strategy/)

Start this path→03

## Sharpening judgment

Grade evidence, calibrate confidence, and trace decisions past their first-order effects.

Framework

CALIBRATE

CALIBRATE is the practice of matching the strength of a judgment to the strength of the evidence, then updating when the facts move. Confidence is a report, not a personality trait. A loud claim with a thin source is a calibration failure, not conviction.

Articles

- [What calibration means: matching confidence to evidence](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/what-calibration-means/)
- [Second-order thinking audit: the first-order metric is green](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/second-order-thinking-audit/)

Books

+1

1. [The Verified Research Loop](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/the-verified-research-loop/)
2. [The Calibrated Mind](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/the-calibrated-mind/)
3. [The Evidence-Aware Life](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/the-evidence-aware-life/)
4. [The Second-Order Thinker](https://lenvanderhof.com/books/the-second-order-thinker/)

Start this path→

A path is an order, not a requirement. Titles without a buy button are in production; you can read the page and ask to be notified at launch.

Browse the series→Open the worksheets→

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