what do billionaires read? As they make their plans, build their businesses, and invest their money, what are the books they carry with them, give to their friends, and dive into when they have a spare moment? surely these books hold the answers to how we too can become billionaires, or at least successful by our own measure.
top 10 books that billionaires recommend
You are reading: Books recommended by billionaires
richard reis and anurag ramdasan are the founders of most recommended books, a simple site that curates the most recommended books from entrepreneurs, athletes, and prominent individuals in a variety of fields. reis crunched the numbers to find out which books billionaires recommended most often and figured out the top ten.
These are the top ten books recommended by billionaires, based on data compiled by most recommended books.
yuval noah harari sapiens
#1 & Recommended by 11 Billionaires in Most Recommended Books; Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Daniel Ek, Keith Rabois, Kishore Biyani, Ray Dalio, Reid Hoffman, Richard Branson, Vinod Khosla, Melinda Gates, and Changpeng Zhao. From Wikipedia, Harari “views the natural sciences as setting the limits of possibility for human activity and views the social sciences as shaping what happens within those limits.” sapiens has sold more than twelve million copies and on goodreads the book has a score of 4.4 out of 5 based on more than 45,000 reviews.
principles by ray dalio
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Just behind the top spot and recommended by 10 billionaires, including drew houston, dustin moskovitz, howard marks and jack dorsey, principles sold more than four million copies and was named amazon’s business book of 2017. billionaires are agree that it is good. In the book, hedge fund manager Dalio shares the principles he developed while running Bridgewater Associates, prompted by receiving a candid memo from his top lieutenants in 1993 about his interpersonal performance as a manager. dalio originally posted a shorter version of the principles online in 2011, where it received over three million downloads.
high performance management by andy grove
Ranked third and recommended by 9 billionaires, including Brian Armstrong, Brian Chesky, Larry Ellison, and Ron Conway, High Output Management has over 800 reviews on Goodreads and an average rating of 4.3. The book is a crash course for middle managers from the former CEO of Intel, with a foreword by Ben Horowitz. The book’s blurb describes it as a “legendary business book” and a “Silicon Valley staple.” Marc Andreessen said, “Andy exemplifies the best of Silicon Valley. Andy built the blueprint for what a high-quality Silicon Valley company could be.”
atlas shrugged for ayn rand
Recommended by 8 billionaires, this time including elon musk, ev williams, peter thiel and mark cuban, atlas shrugged is a 1957 novel depicting a dystopian united states in which private companies suffer under laws and regulations increasingly onerous. According to Wikipedia, Rand’s stated goal in writing the novel was “to show how desperately the world needs the main movers and how cruelly it treats them” and to portray “what happens to the world without them”. as of 2019, the novel had sold 9 million copies.
the difficult of difficult things by ben horowitz
Recommended by 7 billionaires, including keith rabois, larry page, peter thiel, and mark zuckerberg, the hard stuff is about the trials and tribulations ben horowitz faced during his career as founding CEO of andreessen horowitz in late 2000s. 1990s and early 2000s. Horowitz differentiates between what’s right and what’s easy and has been described as one of Silicon Valley’s most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, famous for being funny and outspoken. of over 3,000 reviews on goodreads, including one that said, “This is one of the best books I’ve ever read on entrepreneurship and being a CEO.” the average book rating is 4.23.
top 10 books that billionaires recommend
You are reading: Books recommended by billionaires
poor charlie’s almanac compiled by peter d. kaufmann
Recommended by Bill Gates, Daniel Ek, Drew Houston, Marc Andreessen, Patrick Collison, and of course Warren Buffet, Poor Charlie’s Almanac is a collection of speeches and talks by Charlie Munger, compiled by Peter D. Kaufman and first published in 2005. The book equips investors with the psychological skills needed to continue investing simply and easily. bill gates says charlie munger “really is the biggest thinker i’ve ever met” and dropbox’s draw houston said poor charlie’s almanac was one of the best books he’d ever read.
chris yeh and reid hoffman blitzscaling
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the book’s subtitle is the ultra-fast path to building hugely valuable companies, and as hoffman explains, “scaling blitzes is what you do when you need to grow very, very fast. it’s the science and art of quickly building a company to serve a large and generally global market, with the goal of becoming the first to move to scale.” With a foreword by bill gates and over 5,000 reviews on goodreads, this book is a popular recommendation from billionaires. with a score of 3.95 On Goodreads, he’s not a unanimous favorite, but billionaire fans include Brian Chesky, Eric Schmidt, Vinod Khosla, Changpeng Zhao, and Sheryl Sandberg.
only the paranoid survive by andrew grove
how to exploit the crisis points that challenge all companies, promises the subtitle of the eighth most recommended book by billionaires. Bill Gates, Charlie Munger, Marc Andreessen, Steve Jobs, Vinod Khosla and Jamie Dimon recommend Only the Paranoid Survive and follows the story of Intel under Grove’s leadership as CEO and Chairman. “Strategic tipping points” are explored in the book, which, Steve Jobs said, “you have to learn about, because sooner or later you’re going to experience one.” More than 8,000 goodreads reviews give the book an average of 3.96 stars. Famous management consultant Peter Drucker said, “This excellent book is dangerous…it will make people think.”
the innovator’s dilemma by clayton christensen
Written by a Harvard professor and business professional, this book expands on the concept of disruptive technologies, a term coined by Christensen in a 1995 article called Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave. the innovator’s dilemma received the global business book award as the best business book of the year in 1997, the year of its publication. the economist also named it one of the six most important books on business ever written. Known billionaire fans include Drew Houston, EV Williams, Jeff Bezos, Mark Benioff, Mark Cuban, and Steve Jobs and the book has an average of 4.03 stars out of over 48,000 ratings on Goodreads.
snowshock by neal stephenson
A science fiction novel published in 1992, Snow Crash is recommended by EV Williams, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Tobi Lütke, Cameron Winklevoss, and Mark Zuckerberg. Publisher Randomhouse describes the book as “a mind-blowing ride through a future America so strange, so outrageous… you’ll recognize it immediately.” Stephenson originally planned Snow Crash as a computer generated graphic novel and Goodreads gives it an average of 4.03 stars from over 10,000 reviews (and 258,000 ratings). The book is said to have sold over a million copies in North America alone.
after the top ten come these twelve, in order of popularity: shoe dog, zero to one, nature’s best angels, becoming steve jobs, measuring what matters, thinking fast and slow, “you sure are kidding, mr feynman!”, antifragile, the wellspring, the art of war, 7 powers, the lean startup. each of these books has been recommended by at least five billionaires.
become a billionaire by acting like one. act like one thinking like one. think like one reading the books they read and recommend.
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