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Ben Horowitz's Top Book Recommendations

Co-founder/Andreessen Horowitz

Want to know what books Ben Horowitz recommends? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Ben Horowitz's favorite book recommendations of all time. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail book cover1

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail

Clayton M. Christensen

4.3
The bestselling classic on disruptive innovation, renowned author Clayton M. Christensen.

His work is cited by the world’s best-known thought leaders, from Steve Jobs to Malcolm Gladwell. In this classic bestseller—now updated with a fresh new package—innovation expert Clayton Christensen shows how even the most outstanding companies can do everything right—yet still lose market leadership. Read th
Only the Paranoid Survive book cover2

Only the Paranoid Survive

Andrew S. Grove

4.2
Under Andy Grove's leadership, Intel has become the world's largestchipmaker, the fifth-most-admired company in America, and theseventh-most-profitable company among the Fortune 500. You don't achieverankings like these unless you have mastered a rare understanding of the art ofbusiness and an unusual way with its practice.Few CEOs can claim this level of consistent record-breaking success. Grovea
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses book cover3

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

Eric Ries

4.3
Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned profes
High Output Management book cover4

High Output Management

Andrew S. Grove

4.5
The essential skill of creating and maintaining new businesses—the art of the entrepreneur—can be summed up in a single word: managing. In High Output Management, Andrew S. Grove, former chairman and CEO (and employee number three) of Intel, shares his perspective on how to build and run a company. Born of Grove’s experiences at one of America’s leading technology companies, this legendary managem
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future book cover5

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

Peter Thiel

4.3
If you want to build a better future, you must believe in secrets.

The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.

Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation,
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo revolution book cover6

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo revolution

C. L. R. (Cyril Lionel James

4.5
In 1789 the West Indian colony of San Domingo supplied two-thirds of the overseas trade of France. The entire structure of what was arguably the most profitable colony in the world rested on the labour of half a million slaves. In 1791 the waves of unrest inspired by the French Revolution reached across the Atlantic dividing the loyalties of the white population of the island. The brutally treated
7

Focus: The Future Of Your Company Depends On It

Al Ries

4.2
What's the secret to a company's continued growth and prosperity? Internationally known marketing expert Al Ries has the answer: focus. His commonsense approach to business management is founded on the premise that long-lasting success depends on focusing on core products and eschewing the temptation to diversify into unrelated enterprises.

Using real-world examples, Ries shows that in industry aft
My Years with General Motors book cover8

My Years with General Motors

Alfred Sloan

4.1
My Years with General Motors became an instant bestseller when it was first published in 1963. It has since been used as a manual for managers, offering personal glimpses into the practice of the "discipline of management" by the man who perfected it. This is the story no other businessman could tell--a distillation of half a century of intimate leadership experience with a giant industry and an i
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World book cover9

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Jack Weatherford

4.3
The name Genghis Khan often conjures the image of a relentless, bloodthirsty barbarian on horseback leading a ruthless band of nomadic warriors in the looting of the civilized world. But the surprising truth is that Genghis Khan was a visionary leader whose conquests joined backward Europe with the flourishing cultures of Asia to trigger a global awakening, an unprecedented explosion of technologi
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life book cover10

Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

4.1
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan, a bold new work that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility

In his most provocative and practical book yet, one of the foremost thinkers of our time redefines what it means to understand the world, succeed in a profession, contribute to a fair and just so
11

Swimming Across: A Memoir

Andrew S. Grove

4.2
Andrew Grove has earned fame and fortune as chairman and cofounder of Intel. But, we learn from this remarkable memoir, he began life under very different circumstances, narrowly escaping the Holocaust and the closing of the Iron Curtain.

Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1936, Grove -- then called Andras Grof -- grew up in a modestly prosperous, secular Jewish family. Through foresight and sheer good

Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison book cover12

Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison

Shaka Senghor

4.4
New York Times "Bestseller In 1991, Shaka Senghor was sent to prison for second-degree murder. Today, he is a lecturer at universities, a leading voice on criminal justice reform, andaninspiration to thousands.
In life, it's not how you start that matters. It's how you finish.
Shaka Senghor was raised in a middle class neighborhood on Detroit s east side during the height of the 1980s crack epidem
My American Journey book cover13

My American Journey

Colin Powell

4.4
Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history—Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm—but a history that until now has been known only on the surface.

Here, for the first time, Colin Powell himself tel
Who Is Michael Ovitz? book cover14

Who Is Michael Ovitz?

Michael Ovitz

4.3
"When the history of Hollywood is written, few people will have played a larger role than Michael Ovitz.... It is impossible to read such a chronicle and not see Mr. Ovitz as the Steve Jobs of agenting, possessing a version of Jobs's fanatical drive and a similar desire to remake an industry." --The Wall Street Journal

Who is Michael Ovitz? He's a striver who talked his way into the famous mailroom
Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror book cover15

Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror

Victor Sebestyen

4.4
Victor Sebestyen’s riveting biography of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin—the first major biography in English in nearly two decades—is not only a political examination of one of the most important historical figures of the twentieth century but also a fascinating portrait of Lenin the man.

Brought up in comfort and with a passion for hunting and fishing, chess, and the English classics, Lenin was radicalized
Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem book cover16

Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem

Daniel R. Day

4.6
The story of a legendary designer who pioneered high-end streetwear, from a storefront in Harlem to the red carpet in Hollywood, dressing everyone from Salt-N-Pepa and Eric B. & Rakim to Beyoncé and Jay-Z along the way.

With his now-legendary store on 125th Street in Harlem, Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the early 1980s, remixing classic luxury-brand logos into his own flamboyant desi