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Even the most successful people in business need a little help sometimes — and to get it, they often turn to books. Bill Gates and Charles Koch are so into books that both have entire book recommendation sections on their personal websites. Mark Zuckerberg created his own book club, and Elon Musk frequently takes to Twitter to discuss what he’s reading. Here are the business books that America’s billionaires recommend.
1. Business Adventures — favorite business book of both Warren Buffett and Bill Gates
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Buffett shared this book with Microsoft co-founder Gates in 1991, and the book quickly became Gates’s go-to business book. “Today, more than two decades after Warren lent it to me — and more than four decades after it was first published — Business Adventures remains the best business book I’ve ever read,” Gates writes on GatesNotes.com. “Brooks’s deeper insights about business are just as relevant today as they were back then.”
Buy on Amazon here.
Buy on Barnes & Noble here.
Buy on Bookshop here.
2. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies — Jeff Bezos’s favorite business book
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told Fast Company this was his “favorite business book” — and reviewers love it too (it scores 4.6 stars out of 5 on Amazon). The authors describe their work this way: “This is not a book about charismatic visionary leaders. It is not about visionary product concepts or visionary products or visionary market insights. Nor is it about just having a corporate vision. This is a book about something far more important, enduring, and substantial. This is a book about visionary companies.”
Buy on Amazon here.
Buy on Barnes & Noble here.
Buy on Thriftbooks here.
3. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future — recommended by Elon Musk
This best-selling book by Peter Thiel explores the future of progress in America, how we should think about innovation and the right questions to ask when you’re exploring new territory in business. “Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how,” SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote of the book. Meanwhile, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the book “delivers completely new and refreshing ideas on how to create value in the world.” Buy on Amazon here.
Buy on Barnes & Noble here.
Buy on Bookshop here.
4. Now, Discover Your Strengths — recommended by Sheryl Sandberg
This book explores how people can develop their unique talents and strengths, and Sandberg told the New York Times it “has been instrumental in how we think about developing talent at Facebook.” She continues: “Marcus [Buckingham, the book’s coauthor] and his colleagues surveyed employees for 25 years to figure out what factors predict extraordinary performance. They found that the most important predictor of the success of a company or division was how many people answered yes to the question: ‘Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?’” That question, she says, drives how Facebook now conducts employee performance reviews and so much more.
Buy on Amazon here.
Buy on Thriftbooks here.
Buy on Biggerbooks here.
5. The End of Power— recommended by Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg sings the praises of this book — named by the Financial Times as the best book of the year in 2013 — which explores the changing dynamics of power. “Power is shifting — from large, stable armies to loose bands of insurgents, from corporate leviathans to nimble start-ups, and from presidential palaces to public squares. But power is also changing, becoming harder to use and easier to lose,” the book’s description reads. When Zuckerberg put The End of Power on his virtual reading Facebook group, it sold out in less than two days around the world, Entrepreneur writes.
Buy on Amazon here.
Buy on Betterworldbooks here.
Buy at Thriftbooks here.
6. Knowledge and Decisions — recommended by Charles Koch
Koch puts this book —which won the 1980 Law and Economics Center prize — on his list of 30 book recommendations on his website. The book explores “how knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout modern society,” with Koch warning “that society suffers from an ever-widening gap between firsthand knowledge and decision making,” the book blurb reads. Some readers rave about it, with one noting that it “has changed the way I analyze social and political trends” and another who calls it “a profound, seminal work.”
Buy on Amazon here.
Buy on Abebooks here.
Buy on Betterworldbooks here.
