100 Best Silicon Valley Books of All Time

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

A bunch of my friends recommended this one to me. Carreyrou gives you the definitive insider’s look at the rise and fall of Theranos. The story is even crazier than I expected, and I found myself unable to put it down once I started. This book has everything: elaborate scams, corporate intrigue, magazine cover stories, ruined family relationships, and the demise of a company once valued at nearly $10 billion. [source]

Andrew Chen

General Partner/Andreessen Horowitz

Finished “bad blood” on the Theranos scandal. Wow. Just wow. It’s a must read for everyone in tech and startups. Just 1-click buy it :) Amazing how far charisma and social proof got them. Here’s the NYT review of the book https://t.co/PyMGxfoG2R [source]

Brad Feld

Co-Founder/Foundry Group

Every entrepreneur and VC should read this book. John Carreyrou has done something important here. Maybe this book will finally put a nail in the phrase “fake it till you make it”, but I doubt it. The amount of lying, disingenuousness, blatant and unjustified self-promotion, and downright deceit that exists in entrepreneurship right now is at a local maximum. This always happens when entrepreneurship gets trendy. Carreyrou just wrote a long warning for entrepreneurs and VCs. [source]

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how.” - Elon Mus [source]

Mark Zuckerberg

Founder/Facebook

This book delivers completely new and refreshing ideas on how to create value in the world. [source]

Ben Horowitz

Co-founder/Andreessen Horowitz

Zero To One is a great book. I learned a lot reading it. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

On Bill Gates's reading list in 2012. [source]

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

Quite interesting. [source]

Brian Chesky

Co-Founder & CEO/AirBnb

For Chesky, a source may come in the form of a biography of a business hero such as Steve Jobs or Walt Disney. His primary book source on management technique is Andy Grove’s High Output Management. [source]

Sheryl Sandberg

COO/Facebook

Provides a great inside look at how the tech industry approaches building products and businesses. [source]

Ben Horowitz

Co-founder/Andreessen Horowitz

Great. [source]

Dustin Moskovitz

Co-founder/Facebook and Asana

At Asana, we've been lucky to benefit from the author's advice firsthand; this book will enable him to help many more entrepreneurs answer the tough questions about their business. [source]

Doug McMillon

CEO/Walmart

I read and give this book because you need to understand what you’re up against. [source]

Aaron Watson

Amazon is going to rule the world unless governments decide to break them up. It just makes sense to understand the most powerful company on the planet. Also, there is a (small) chance that Amazon sets up HQ2 in my hometown (Pittsburgh). [source]

Alan Pierce

This was an amazing glimpse into one of the most disruptive companies in history as well as the past and future trajectory of e-commerce and retail. It is also a testament to unwavering self-belief. The thing that impressed me the most is that Jeff Bezos intentionally built an entire department dedicated to making his primary business obsolete which allowed him to take the lead in the next development, e-books. His foresight is extraordinary and he is an inspirational big thinker. [source]

Chris Fralic

Great book by @BradStone I was a little late to, but well worth it and I learned a lot - Brad had truly unique access to the CEOs of Uber and AirBnB in the early days. https://t.co/89C4vIhuxx [source]

Craig Pearce

If you read to maintain motivation and be entertained, I recommend a few books that in addition to telling great stories, also contain lessons and learnings. You won’t gain many step-by-step type lessons from these books but you will come away realizing that not all startups, regardless of what stage they are in, are as well polished as they make you think. You will realize that they make mistakes and struggle through the same things you struggle through when first starting out. I find this helps motivate me. [source]

Ee Ling Lim

It's really hard to pinpoint, but for someone who is thinking about venturing into entrepreneurship but looking for something light, I personally like The Upstarts by Brad Stone. It tells the back-stories of Uber, Airbnb - what they went through to get the business off the ground, challenges and missteps, and what it means to be building something that really challenges the status quo. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

Elon Musk is a man after my own heart: a risk taker undaunted by setbacks and ever driven to ensure a bright future for humanity. Ashlee Vance's stellar biography captures Musk's remarkable life story and irrepressible spirit. [source]

Casey Neistat

Founder/368 Creative Space

I'm fascinated by Elon Musk, I own a Tesla, I read Ashlee Vance's biography on Elon Musk. I think he's a very interesting charachter. [source]

Andrea Loubier

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future as this was still in the first couple of years of me starting my own company, Mailbird and it was inspiring and visionary. It helps you go from a small voice in a big corporate company, to thinking big and voicing your wild opinions and creating plan to work towards it. [source]

Larry Page

Co-Founder/Google

Ben's book is a great read - with uncomfortable truths about entrepreneurship and how to lead to a company. It's also an inspiring story of a business rebirth through sheer willpower. [source]

Mark Zuckerberg

Founder/Facebook

Ben's experience and expertise make him one of the most important leaders not just in Silicon Valley but also in the global knowledge economy. For anyone interested in building, growing or leading a great company, this book is an incredibly valuable resource - and a funny and insightful read. [source]

Drew Houston

CEO/Dropbox

One of the great things that the author wrote in this book is the hardest part of being a CEO is managing your psychology. [source]

Antonio Eram

This book was recommended by Antonio when asked for titles he would recommend to young people interested in his career path. [source]

Charles Arthur

This is a great book. I’d put this alongside “The Nudist on the Night Shift” and Charles Ferguson’s “High Stakes No Prisoners” as essential to understanding Silicon Valley and the startup life. https://t.co/XADeVJquDl [source]

Mike Dudas

Chaos Monkeys was a fun one that I read recently. About kind of M&A, and growing a business in Silicon Valley over the last five years. [source]

Aaron Levie

Co-founder/Box

Incredible book that every startup founder (and investor and everyone else) should read! Great work @emilychangtv https://t.co/ykQ6XRooFa [source]

Roy Bahat

Head of Venture Capital fund Bloomberg Beta

Our colleague explains how we got here—so we can fix it. [source]

Jeff Bezos

Founder/Amazon

Brad Stone's new book, The Everything Store, describes how Bezos developed this strategy after reading another book called The Innovator's Dilemma by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen. [source]

Steve Jobs

Founder/Apple

It's important that we make this transformation, because of what Clayton Christensen calls "the innovator's dilemma," where people who invent something are usually the last ones to see past it, and we certainly don't want to be left behind. [source]

Drew Houston

CEO/Dropbox

About how businesses get disrupted, and a lot of those themes are why startups can succeed and thrive even when there are big competitors who you would think would just wipe ’em out. [source]

Brian Burkhart

This book is essentially a biography of all the people who’ve led to the technology of today—it’s fascinating. The most important point of the book is everything is one long, connected chain. There isn’t just one person or one industry that makes anything happen—it all goes way back. For example, the communication theory I have espoused and taught throughout my career is from Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato. Yeah, I’ve got my own spin on it—instead of ethos, pathos and logos, we say “know, feel, and do.” But it’s still based on their philosophies. Reading this book, I realized it’s not just someone like Steve Jobs who’s responsible for the era we live in. Rather, it’s Steve Jobs plus a whole lot of people from the last 200-plus years. [source]

Chris Fussell

The history of how great ideas evolve. [source]

Chris Oliver

I'm currently reading Innovators by Walter Isaacson. I love reading books like this because you learn about the lives of people who have created amazing things. It teaches you that their lives were often much harder than you realize and the struggles you're going through are very similar to what they had to go through before they were successful. It's really inspirational. [source]

Mark Zuckerberg

Founder/Facebook

This book is written by the founder of Pixar and is about his experience building a culture that fosters creativity. His theory is that people are fundamentally creative, but many forces stand in the way of people being able to do their best work. I love reading first-hand accounts about how people build great companies like Pixar and nurture innovation and creativity. This should be inspiring to anyone looking to do the same, and hopefully there will be lessons we can apply to connecting the world! [source]

Timothy Ferriss

Author & Entrepreneur

No matter your circumstances, storytelling and creativity are two 'meta-skills' that can take your business and life to the next level. Ed is a master. [source]

Ezra Klein

An amazing, amazing book. [source]

Drew Houston

CEO/Dropbox

It’s about how do technology products make their way from early adopters t the mainstream. [source]

Ron Conway

Bestselling guide that created a new game plan for marketing in high-tech industries. [source]

Seth Godin

Author, Marketer, Entrepreneur

This is a key component in my Purple Cow thinking, but with a twist. I'm not as worried about the chasm as I am about the desire of marketers to go for the big middle. [source]

Mark Zuckerberg

Founder/Facebook

For the past five years, I've sat at a desk next to Sheryl and I've learned something from her almost every day. She has a remarkable intelligence that can cut through complex processes and find solutions to the hardest problems. Lean In combines Sheryl's ability to synthesize information with her understanding of how to get the best out of people. The book is smart and honest and funny. Her words will help all readers - especially men - to become better and more effective leaders. [source]

Oprah Winfrey

CEO/O Network

Honest and brave... The new manifesto for women in the workplace. [source]

Richard Branson

Founder/Virgin Group

If you loved Sheryl Sandberg's incredible TED talk on why we have too few women leaders, or simply believe as I do that we need equality in the boardroom, then this book is for you. As Facebook's COO, Sheryl Sandberg has first-hand experience of why having more women in leadership roles is good for business as well as society. Lean In is essential reading for anyone interested in righting the injustice of this inequality. [source]

Matt Mullenweg

Founder & CEO/Automattic

Hooked gives you the blueprint for the next generation of products. Read Hooked or the company that replaces you will. [source]

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

The book everyone in Silicon Valley is talking about. [source]

Chandini Jain

One of the five books Chandini would you recommend to young people interested in her career path. [source]

Casey Neistat

Founder/368 Creative Space

Its was reading his Nick's book Hatching Twitter that literally motivated me, inspired me, gave me the confidence to start my own technology company. [source]

Craig Pearce

If you read to maintain motivation and be entertained, I recommend a few books that in addition to telling great stories, also contain lessons and learnings. You won’t gain many step-by-step type lessons from these books but you will come away realizing that not all startups, regardless of what stage they are in, are as well polished as they make you think. You will realize that they make mistakes and struggle through the same things you struggle through when first starting out. I find this helps motivate me. [source]

Jilliene Helman

Hatching Twitter is a great book. [source]

Andreas Zhou

After reading How Google Works I just became fascinated with Google culture and I hope to understand a bit more about what unique things they're doing right that we aren't. [source]

Cynthia Johnson

What happens is that we look at things Google, or Facebook, and we see these big corporate enterprises. We don’t see the fact that there are people inside running them, and there have been hurdles. [source]

Gary Bury

How Google Works is a good insight to a large corporate in the tech world. [source]

John Carreyrou

Author, Journalist

The tale of Uber, the queen of the so-called ‘unicorns,’ is a parable about power―and the lengths to which some startup founders will go to amass it and hold onto it. Aside from being a delicious read, Mike Isaac’s account is also teeming with new revelations that will shock and outrage you. [source]

Aaron W. Gordon

Read @MikeIsaac's book on Uber in one sitting, so props to him on that. It is truly a stunning work on just how much wealth can be generated and squandered by a gang of—to use his favorite word— douchebags solely based on the failures of American public transportation policy. [source]

Cz Binance

@gautamchhugani Great book, recommended to all of our team. [source]

Dustin Moskovitz

Co-founder/Facebook and Asana

Dustin Moskovitz recommended this book during a Stanford lecture. [source]

Angela Pham

The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick made me a fan of Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg years ago. I didn’t hesitate to take my current role at Facebook because I feel so strongly about their integrity and leadership, no matter the negative sentiments and media narratives the company has endured recently. [source]

Craig Pearce

If you read to maintain motivation and be entertained, I recommend a few books that in addition to telling great stories, also contain lessons and learnings. You won’t gain many step-by-step type lessons from these books but you will come away realizing that not all startups, regardless of what stage they are in, are as well polished as they make you think. You will realize that they make mistakes and struggle through the same things you struggle through when first starting out. I find this helps motivate me. [source]

Irina Marinescu

The book starts like a punch in the gut, but the story and the reality dose of this book are something that we all need from time to time in the Tech Startup Age. It helped me look beyond the excitement of working on new projects as a goal in itself and keep at least one foot on the ground. Plus the writing is extraordinary! [source]

Kara Swisher

@DannySkarka Lots had been written about that but always a great topic. I recommend Dan Lyon’s book [source]

Can Duruk

Interesting thread about @annawiener’s book. I’d like us, as the tech industry, to move past framing every single criticism or commentary on our work as “anti tech screed”. Seems like books like this are key, but it requires an open and inquisitive mind more than anything. https://t.co/OCCgGyScwQ [source]

Kara Swisher

@AmyAlex63 @GuardianUS Agreed but it is a great book and very sly [source]

Phillip Picardi

I would tell you to buy @annawiener’s book right now on Amazon, but that feels against her message in the book! So pick it up at a local bookstore if you can. I happened to listen to it on Audible (I know, I know) BUT: She is funny and has great comedic timing on top of it all! [source]

Scott Johnson

Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine. This was the first book that really took a deep dive into the process of creating a high tech product from scratch. Tracy really humanized the engineering process and made me realize that was the type of industry where I wanted to be. [source]

Stephen Baker

A marvelously detailed book, and I found it very inspiring. An interesting way of looking at how computing has utterly changed in the last 30 years. [source]

Arianna Huffington

Founder/The Huffington Post

Kai-Fu Lee's experience as an AI pioneer, top investor, and cancer survivor has led to this brilliant book about global technology. AI Superpowers gives us a guide to a future that celebrates all the benefits that AI will bring, while cultivating what is unique about our humanity. It’s one of those books you read and think, ‘Why are people reading any other book right now when this is so clearly the one they need to be reading? [source]

Satya Nadella

CEO/Microsoft

Kai-Fu Lee's smart analysis on human-AI coexistence is clear-eyed and a must-read. We must look deep within ourselves for the values and wisdom to guide AI's development. [source]

Yuval Noah Harari

Historian

A superb and very timely survey of the impact of AI on the geopolitical system, the job market and human society. [source]

Angela Pham

I’m in the middle of The Four, which takes an awestruck-but-critical look at the four largest tech companies. [source]

Cat Williams-Treloar

Scott Galloway "The four" - because that's where the Marketing world is. I like the book for its honesty. [source]

Craig Pearce

I am currently reading The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. I was introduced to the author, Scott Galloway during his appearance on the aforementioned Recode Decode podcast, specifically episode released on September 14. His opinion and thoughts on the big 4 (Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google) lead me to research him. I put a hold on his book from my local library and waited a few weeks. A great thing about this book is its recency, for example, it includes Amazon’s recent acquisition of WholeFoods. So far, it has covered, in entertaining detail, Amazon and Apple. The author writes with great knowledge, mixed with the right amount of wit. The author argues that Apple is sex, Google is God, Facebook is love and Amazon is our gut. By aligning with these roles in our lives, they have become wildly successful. I hope to hear an expansion of his positions he discussed on the podcast, and hope to apply some of strategies into my own startup. [source]

Alan Pierce

I’m currently reading “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Life" and am excited on gaining more insight into how google is changing the world and hopefully to get some valuable understanding I can use to maximize business decisions and read future trends while assessing investment opportunities for my company, ABM Investments. [source]

Bill Slawski

In The Plex is a great introduction to Google, and the many who work there. I knew many by the patents they file, so it was good to learn more about them as people. Some good insights to some algorithms in the book, too. https://t.co/TVz7GsD8nX [source]

Sheryl Sandberg

COO/Facebook

Bill shared his wisdom generously, expecting nothing back but the joy he got from teaching others. I was privileged to have him as my coach for several years. Many times since then, when asked for advice by others, I think of Bill and try to live up to the example he set. [source]

Tim Cook

CEO/Apple

Bill's passion for innovation and teamwork was a gift to Apple and the world. Trillion Dollar Coach has captured his tireless spirit so future generations can learn from one of our industry's greatest leaders. [source]

Sundar Pichai

CEO/Google

Whenever I saw Bill, he gave me great perspective about what really matters. At the end of the day, it's the people in your life. Bill had such strong principles around community and how to bring people together. We used those principles - detailed in Trillion Dollar Coach - to form the foundation of Google's leadership training, so all of our leaders can continue to learn from Bill. [source]

Eric Schmidt

CEO/Google

As someone who’s helped a small company become a huge, valuable company, I know firsthand the power of the startup ecosystem and entrepreneurship. This book is the definitive book on navigating VC as part of that. [source]

Sam Altman

Partner & President/Y Combinator

I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to create something important and to achieve outlier success. Kupor’s book takes founders who want to do both through everything from how VCs raise money and evaluate deals, to how to think about term sheets and set up boards. It’s a valuable resource for any founder who wants to work with VCs. [source]

Elad Gil

@MahapatraChirag Hope you enjoy it! @skupor's book is great. [source]

Evan Williams

Co-creator/Blogger

I want everybody I know to read "How to Make Wealth" and "Mind the Gap" (chapters 6 and 7), which brilliantly articulate the most commonly, and frustratingly, misunderstood core economic principles of everyday life. [source]

Bob Frankston

A wonderful book and required reading. Paul helps others understand why I chose the name 'Software Arts' for the company Dan Bricklin and I started. Those who don't understand the language of software cannot consider themselves literate. [source]

Chris Anderson

A delightful ping-pong around the brain of a really smart guy. The chapter that answers the key question of our age-- why are nerds unpopular?-- is worth the price of admission alone. [source]

Charles T. Munger

Vice Chairman/Berkshire Hathaway

In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn't read all the time -- none, zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren reads -- and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out. [source]

Steve Jobs

Founder/Apple

This book is about one super-important concept. You must learn about Strategic Inflection Points, because sooner or later you are going to live through one. [source]

Ben Horowitz

Co-founder/Andreessen Horowitz

Andy Grove's Only the Paranoid Survive is a great book on strategy. [source]

Casey Neistat

Founder/368 Creative Space

Awesome story about how ig came to be and its impact broadly on human interaction. [source]

Kurt Wagner

omg so candid: someone caught me reading @sarahfrier’s book at the office this morning! For real though: This book is tremendous & expertly reported (no surprise there). It’s so much more than a business book - the best read yet on IG’s influence on culture and society https://t.co/O1Hmplii7B [source]

Taylor Lorenz On Vacation

🚨 🚨 🚨 MUST READ NEW BOOK ALERT. 🚨 🚨 🚨 You can now preorder @sarahfrier’s incredible book on the inside story of Instagram. There’s no book I’m excited to read more this year https://t.co/DBO46e79jo [source]

Alexis Ohanian

Co-founder/Reddit

Made my co-founder and I think, 'Well, if these guys could do it, why can’t we?' [source]

Chris Oliver

Masters of Doom. Many of us started our careers in programming because we wanted to make games. This book covers the story of John Romero and John Carmack as they created ID software making Doom, Quake, and many other games we grew up playing as kids. It's truly inspiring for any software developer. [source]

Duncan Jones

@dannyodwyer I cant wait to see this. The book is fascinating, and I remember watching with bulging fan-boy eyes during those halcyon days! [source]

James Stanley

"The Cuckoo's Egg" by Clifford Stoll is another great book. I believe it's the first documented account of a computer being misused by a remote attacker. It talks about how Clifford attached physical teleprinters to the incoming phone lines so that he could see what the attacker was actually doing on the computer, and how he traced the attacker across several countries. [source]

Rick Klau

@AtulAcharya @stevesi Same. Read it in college, realized I was more excited about the tech than what I was studying -- and Cliff did such a great job helping you understand what was going on. Such a great book. [source]

Andrew Chen

General Partner/Andreessen Horowitz

Now starting the section now these information empires eventually got dismantled, by the internet, cable, and the government antitrust efforts on the 1950s! Awesome book so far [source]

Seth Godin

Author, Marketer, Entrepreneur

This one really stuck with me--a top level analysis of how changes in media change the culture and change the structure of industry. [source]

Nicholas Carr

If The Information is a sprawling, sweeping story of how information has changed over time, one thing it doesn’t get into is the commercial nature of information as a good that is bought and sold. That’s the story Tim Wu tells in The Master Switch. His basic argument is that whenever a new communication medium arises, a similar pattern occurs. The technology starts off as a hobbyist’s passion, democratic and open. Then over time, as it becomes more popular, it starts to be dominated by corporate interests and becomes much more formalised, before eventually being displaced by a new technology. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

With every new technology, there are challenges. How do we help people whose jobs are replaced by AI agents and robots? Will users trust their AI agent with all their information? If an agent could advise you on your work style, would you want it to? That is what makes books like Hit Refresh so valuable. Satya has charted a course for making the most of the opportunities created by technology while also facing up to the hard questions. And he offers his own fascinating personal story, more literary quotations than you might expect, and even a few lessons from his beloved game of cricket. [source]

Aviers Lim

I would recommend biographies of Elon Musk and Satya Nadella. [source]

David Allen

Author

Kevin said: We’re at a time right now, an apex in our culture, that is more significant than the Industrial Revolution, in terms of how much it’s going to change the world. I love his first chapter. He said, ‘You’re never going to get really good at anything, because everything keeps being updated. [source]

Marc Andreessen

Co-Founder/Andreessen Horowitz

Automatic must read. [source]

Chris Anderson

This boook offers profound insight into what happens (soon!) when intelligence flows as easily into objects as electricity. [source]

Bilal Zuberi

Great article by @alexismadrigal. “As O’Mara points out in her book The Code, Lockheed Missiles and Space (later a unit of Lockheed Martin) was the largest Silicon Valley employer from the 1950s into the 1980s.” https://t.co/cH5n3tZCl2 [source]

Richard Florida

@RobAtkinsonITIF @MargRev They do. Interesting thing is nearly all those things when they worked most effectively undergirded local ecosystems like Silicon Valley. O'Mara's new book The Code is masterful on this. National policy can do even more on this front. [source]

Ezra Klein

That's from @the_jennitaur's book "How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy," which hit me particularly hard, and made this conversation such a delight. https://t.co/y7SgRMhRsZ [source]

Bo Ren

@ClaytonHartford @the_jennitaur Best book I read in 2019! A must-read. [source]

Bryan Formhals

Such a great book. Gave me a lot of confidence to pursue some new ideas. https://t.co/SA9PP7mIAc [source]

Barack Obama

Former USA President

Fact or fiction, the president knows that reading keeps the mind sharp. He also delved into these non-fiction reads. [source]

Mark Zuckerberg

Founder/Facebook

When I read Sapiens:, I found the chapter on the evolution of the role of religion in human life most interesting and something I wanted to go deeper on. William James was a philosopher in the 1800s who shaped much of modern psychology. [source]

Brad Feld

Co-Founder/Foundry Group

I’ve been friends with Riz Virk since the mid-1990s when we were involved in a few early Internet companies. We haven’t had a lot of contact over the years, but I’ve enjoyed reading his writing and when he told me about this book, I gobbled it down. I’m going to write a longer post about it in conjunction with another book I read, but if you are intrigued (like I am) by the simulation hypothesis (e.g. our current existence is merely a computer simulation), grab it. [source]

Ev Williams

Co-Founder/Twitter, CEO/Medium

I've seen so many people thrust into management in high-growth companies with so little guidance. From now on, I will hand them this book. Its practical wisdom is immediately useful for the newly minted manager — and us old ones. [source]

Gretchen Rubin

Author

Julie Zhuo had to learn to be a manager fast, as her role kept expanding in the hyper-growth environment of a successful Silicon Valley start-up. In The Making of a Manager, she shares what she learned—often, the hard way. She combines cutting-edge analysis of how organizations work with engaging and accessible examples of how theory plays out in real life, with stories of what she did right and wrong. [source]

Sam Altman

Partner & President/Y Combinator

At startups, individuals asked to manage are rarely set-up for success. Julie Zhuo gives new managers the tools they need to help their people and company win. [source]

Dharmesh Shah

Really enjoying the book "That Will Never Work" from one of the founders of Netflix. Really insightful and interesting read on the life of an idea. By @mbrandolph Recommended: https://t.co/KB4xoquzBd https://t.co/mPBIMARFNo [source]

The CEO Library Community (through anonymous form)

One of the best 3 books I've read in 2019 [source]

Kim Dotcom

The Winklevoss brothers mailed me this awesome must-read book #bitcoinbillionaires with a really nice personal note. Thank you @winklevoss and @tylerwinklevoss. Facebook was stolen from you but what you’ve created since then is even more impressive. Crypto is the future. https://t.co/iAkfU1Dm65 [source]

Bill Lee

Thank you @tylerwinklevoss @winklevoss for sending me the must read @benmezrich book with the nice signed note. You guys are ushering in the crypto revolution and have captured lightning in a bottle again. #respect #BitcoinBillionaires https://t.co/QNaJLkQPJa [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

A clear, compelling guide to some of the most pressing debates in technology today. [source]

Reid Hoffman

CEO/LinkedIn

In the new book "Tools and Weapons," Microsoft president @BradSmi and @CarolAnnBrowne bring some of tech's current key issues to life through interesting stories from inside Microsoft and from history. An important and enjoyable read: https://t.co/KW4Dj12dgw [source]

Walter Isaacson

Author

This is a colorful and insightful insiders’ view of how technology is both empowering us and threatening us. From privacy to cyberattacks, this timely book is a useful guide for how to navigate the digital future. [source]

Reid Hoffman

CEO/LinkedIn

Continuous innovation is the key to long-term impact and success. Eric shows how organizations of all kinds—not just startups—can be built to learn and adapt. In the pivot-or-perish networked world of twenty-first-century business, this is mission critical reading. [source]

Aaron Levie

Co-founder/Box

The Startup Way teaches companies of all sizes how to effectively incubate and maintain an entrepreneurial culture through growth by allowing employees to find their inner entrepreneur. A must read, especially, by all leaders burdened by legacy organizational baggage and processes. [source]

Arianna Huffington

Founder/The Huffington Post

In The Startup Way, Eric Ries uses his years of work with companies like GE and Toyota to show us what the company of the future will look like. If you want to know how companies can become more agile, more innovative, and more resilient in the face of today’s relentless pace of change, this is the book for you. [source]

Reid Hoffman

CEO/LinkedIn

Julian Guthrie, in her new book ALPHA GIRLS, tells the stories of how four extraordinary women navigated the tech industry and, in doing so, shaped the world we live in today. A must-read: https://t.co/DbXASXKPYy [source]

Amber Atherton

Talking to some other @ycombinator female founders about @JulianGuthrie's brilliant new book and we all admitted to making similar behaviour changes to compete in a male dominated environment. Suits over dresses. Short hair over long. https://t.co/KD3SezqWOR [source]

Kerri Walsh Jennings

🌎, Check out this inspiring & empowering book, #alphagirls It’s about kick 🍑#womenintech & how they’re positively disrupting the status quo. Those who challenge the status quo allow for so much ... expansion, inspiration, improvement & an expanded awareness of greater potential https://t.co/2RCa54Z9MA [source]

Eric Ries

Founder/Long-Term Stock Exchange

A prominent whistleblower chronicles her experience fighting discrimination against women and people of color in tech. [source]

Audrey Russo

Question: What books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path? Answer: Anything by Peter Senge. The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz Once you are Lucky, Twice you are good – Sara Lacey Revolutionary Wealth – Alvin Toffler Black Swan – Taleb Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, by Ellen Pao. Creative Class – Richard Florida Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis American Government 101: From the Continental Congress to the Iowa Caucus, Everything You Need to Know About US Politics – Kathleen Spears The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Any book by Herman Hesse The Art of War by Sun Tzu. [source]

Bill Gross

Founder/Idealab

I've been waiting "im"patiently for @Benioff 's new book to come out. It just came out on Kindle 10 minutes ago. It's terrific. Such a powerful, simple, but important lesson and message, "Values create Value!" I'll be sharing more highlights as I read further.. https://t.co/KAgrFs31fC [source]

Jim Cramer

I love this book and have already used it as the basis for several @MadMoneyOnCNBC segments and a talk to young entrepreneurs !!! https://t.co/fLYtdYAMxC [source]

Natalie Petouhoff

Trailblazer: @salesforce Founder and co-CEO Marc Benioff’s Inspiring New Book Shows How Business is the Greatest Platform for Change @Benioff https://t.co/lcIQbvG1Qo https://t.co/TKCiIpK6ZB [source]

Timothy Ferriss

Author & Entrepreneur

Steven and Jamie have done a wonderful job of balancing the promises, perils, and how-to prescriptions of engineering peak states such as 'flow.' [source]

Adam Johnston

Stealing Fire discusses the many alternate states of consciousness and how to leverage them to achieve creativity, vision, and FLOW. While this isn’t 100% a business book, it has had the biggest impact on me professionally by helping me find and stay in flow. The book’s greatest lesson, however, is in realizing why FLOW is so important - it leads to the best quality of work. Maximum output for minimal input. [source]

Sheryl Sandberg

COO/Facebook

Everyone, women and men alike, needs to think big to succeed. This is a practical book that shows you how to take control and build a career that will enable you to have real impact. [source]

Jack Dorsey

Co-Founder/Twitter

The Startup of You" describes how to take the Silicon Valley approach to building a life: start with an idea, and work over your entire career to turn it something remarkable. In the world today, I think that the startup approach to life is necessary. This book distills the key techniques needed to succeed. [source]

Jeff Weiner

CEO/Linkedin

The same extraordinary vision and timing that enabled Reid to found LinkedIn is once again on display with his book "the start-up of YOU." His central thesis, that every individual can benefit from acting as the entrepreneur of their own life and career, has never been more important than it is in today's increasingly globalized, competitive, and networked world. [source]

Marc Andreessen

Co-Founder/Andreessen Horowitz

The Sovereign Individual—written 20 years ago, this is the most thought provoking book on the unfolding nature of the 21st Century that I’ve yet read. It’s packed with ideas on every page, many that are now fast becoming conventional wisdom, and many that are still heretical. Two related books to read are The Twilight of Sovereignty and Cryptonomicon. [source]

Marvin Liao

Partner/500 Startups

The Joy of Not Working (Zelinkski), Flash Foresight (Burrus), The Art of Worldly Wisdom (Gracian), Sapiens (Yuval), The End of Jobs (Pearson), Deep Work (Newport), Sovereign Individual (Davidson), The Fourth Economy (Davison) & The Monk & the Riddle (Komisar). Every single one of these books completely changed how I looked at everything in the world & literally pushed my life in a new direction. They were Paradigm Shifting as they say. (hate that word but it really was a Paradigm Shift for me). [source]

James Stanley

Favourite non-business book is "The Sovereign Individual" by James Dale Davision and William Rees-Mogg. Written in 1996, there's a page in it that predicts the rise of what they call "cybermoney" (but what we now know as "cryptocurrency") in affording individuals freedom over their money without being subject to coercion or surveillance by banks, governments, etc. Apart from that, there are lots of very astute observations and predictions throughout the book. Its either utopian or dystopian depending on your politics :) [source]

Cristina Riesen

First, a word on career paths. In time, I realised that career paths are like one-way streets. Magic happens in unexplored territories. Plus life is how you choose to live every moment, every day. So today, rather than building a career, I prefer to make lateral moves in life, working with great people and being part of ambitious projects impacting the world. There are a few books that got me here: … Tom and David Kelley "Creative Confidence". [source]

Kimberly Gloria Choi

I read about this during my first job in a startup (luxola) now Sephora SEA as a designer. This is before I started my small business - www.marchbabycollective.com. I have always wanted to do something on my own besides my full time job, it’s always a great way to express yourself with other designing task, you know, just to keep your creative juices flowing. The Stanford D. School and IDEO U have always interested me, and here I came across this book that was written by David Kelley. [source]

Robert Katai

Another book that has helped me in a specific moment was “Creative Confidence”. I don’t remember which part helped me, but I can remember that I had some mornings in which I woke up at 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning just to start my day reading something creative. [source]

Bryan Johnson

Bryan Johnson recommended this book on Twitter. [source]

Erik Rostad

Here is something that recently helped me. It comes from the book A Mind at Play by Jimmy Soni & Rob Goodman. I'll quote the passage directly and then describe how it helped me: "What does information really measure? It measures the uncertainty we overcome. It measure our chances of learning something we haven't yet learned. Or, more specifically: when one thing carries information about another–just as a meter reading tells us about a physical quantity, or a book tells us about a life–the amount of information it carries reflects the reduction in uncertainty about the object." When I read this, I actually felt as if a lightbulb was going off. One question I get a lot with this reading project is "how do you remember everything you read?" I have never liked that question because I think it is the wrong question. Here, the authors sort of flip that on its head. If you don't read, or you aren't learning about a topic, the possibilities of what that could be are endless. By reading, you are "reducing the uncertainty about the object," so in theory, it should take less space in your mind. I had begun noticing that the more I read, the more clarity of thought I was having. I did not expect this at all. I had assumed that the more I read, the more confused or inundated I would become. But the opposite happened. One of the main reasons I give for this is that if you begin seeing ideas over and over, in different types of books, that makes that idea stronger. If I'm reading about the importance of time in novels, biographies, business books, and other non-fiction, that is an important topic and one I should focus on. The quote above helped me figure out the other piece of the information overload puzzle. That the more you read, the more you are narrowing down the possibilities of what could be. If I have yet to read a book about a particular historical figure, then the possibilities are endless in terms of information that could be true in my head about that person. But, if I have read a book or two about the person, it narrows down the possibilities. [source]

Jack Welch

CEO/General Electric

Bill McDermott has had a hugely successful career—from Xerox to SAP. In this very human book, he describes the secrets that led to this success. [source]

Bono

Lead singer/U2

Bill McDermott sees ambition and compassion as comrades in the workplace rather than competitors. That’s rare. He claims it's just common sense… but I claim it's the Irish in him. [source]

Howard Schultz

CEO/Starbucks

Bill McDermott's story shows how to grow a business as well as a career with authenticity and respect. A heartfelt read, there is much to learn from Bill's journey. [source]

Yuval Noah Harari

Historian

A very insightful book that surveys the history of modern information technology and its political implications, from the age of print and radio to the era of Google and Facebook. It gives the context of the current battle to control human attention. [source]

Marvin Liao

Partner/500 Startups

I tend to jump from book to book and may switch if I am interested in some new topic. This is a pleasure for me (which I also do benefit work wise from too). It’s quite a random list because I have eclectic interests (or just scatterbrained most likely) on tech business, AI, general global economy, geopolitics, rising Biotech economy & history. I'm basically 15% to 50% into all these books. [source]

Rafat Ali

Have to say @superwuster is best business writer there is. Just finished Master Switch , now reading “Attention Merchants”, the best history-in-context-with-rigor-and-intellectual-analysis writer/explainer there is. If I ever write a book, want to write it like Tim Wu. [source]