Which book has had the strongest effect on how you make products? And why?<p>There's no single book I can recomment for building a poduct specifically. It requres understanding of your audience, needs, how the world functions, human psychology, etc. There are plantly you can pick to learn more in each direction.<p>I can recommend a book Shoe dog describing a product-centric approach of Nike's founder and his belief in what he was selling. Build something you belive in and and would use yourself. If you will love it there's likely somebody else in the world you would find it irreplacable too.
I read Large-Scale C++ Software Design by John Lakos when it came out and even though I don't do much C++ anymore, it set me up with a mental model that has worked very well for almost 30 years now.