25. The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness
Money ― investing, personal finance, and business decisions ― is typically taught as a math-based field, where data and formulas tell us exactly what to do.
But in the real world, people don't make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together.
Check the book on amazon »24. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
In "Deep Work", author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite.
Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules" for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.
Check the book on amazon »23. Atomic Habits
No matter your goals, "Atomic Habits" offers a proven framework for improving — every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.
Check the book on amazon »22. Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
It is the rise from falling that Brown takes as her subject in "Rising Strong". As a grounded theory researcher, Brown has listened as a range of people — from leaders in Fortune 500 companies and the military to artists, couples in long-term relationships, teachers, and parents — shared their stories of being brave, falling, and getting back up.
She asked herself, 'What do these people with strong and loving relationships, leaders nurturing creativity, artists pushing innovation, and clergy walking with people through faith and mystery have in common?' The answer was clear: They recognize the power of emotion and they're not afraid to lean into discomfort.
Check the book on amazon »21. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities.
People with a fixed mindset — those who believe that abilities are fixed — are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset — those who believe that abilities can be developed. Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment.
Check the book on amazon »20. Winners Take All
The "New York Times" bestselling, groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite's efforts to "change the world" preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve. An essential read for understanding some of the egregious abuses of power that dominate today's news.
Check the book on amazon »19. Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution
Building on their firsthand experiences, Hammer and Champy show how some of the world's premier corporations use the principles of reengineering to save hundreds of millions of dollars a year, to achieve unprecedented levels of customer satisfaction, and to speed up and make more flexible all aspects of their operations.
The key to reengineering is abandoning the most basic notions on which the modern organization is founded.
Check the book on amazon »18. Den of Thieves
"Den of Thieves" tells the full story of the insider-trading scandal that nearly destroyed Wall Street, the men who pulled it off, and the chase that finally brought them to justice.
Check the book on amazon »17. The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, Fourth Edition
[This book's] popularity and longevity attest to the widespread appetite for this unique compilation of Buffett's thoughts that is at once comprehensive, non-repetitive, and digestible.
Check the book on amazon »16. Uncanny Valley
Part coming-of-age-story, part portrait of an already-bygone era, Anna Wiener's memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying, reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power.
With wit, candor, and heart, Anna deftly charts the tech industry's shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment.
Check the book on amazon »15. Good Economics for Hard Times
Immigration and inequality, globalization and technological disruption, slowing growth, and accelerating climate change — these are sources of great anxiety across the world, from New Delhi and Dakar to Paris and Washington, DC.
The resources to address these challenges are there — what we lack are ideas that will help us jump the wall of disagreement and distrust that divides us.
Here, the winners of the Nobel Prize show how economics, when done right, can help us solve the thorniest social and political problems of our day.
Check the book on amazon »14. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
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, even if we're too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley.
Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.
Check the book on amazon »13. Becoming
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her — from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address.
With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it —in her own words and on her own terms.
Check the book on amazon »12. Steve Jobs
Based on more than 40 interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years — as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues — Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.
At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.
Check the book on amazon »11. Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder
In this deeply personal book, Arianna Huffington talks candidly about her own challenges with managing time and prioritizing the demands of a career and raising two daughters.
Drawing on the latest groundbreaking research and scientific findings in the fields of psychology, sports, sleep, and physiology that show the profound and transformative effects of meditation, mindfulness , unplugging, and giving, Arianna shows us the way to a revolution in our culture, our thinking, our workplace, and our lives.
Check the book on amazon »10. In search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies
Based on a study of forty-three of America's best-run companies from a diverse array of business sectors, "In Search of Excellence" describes eight basic principles of management —
action-stimulating, people-oriented, profit-maximizing practices — that made these organizations successful.
Check the book on amazon »9. The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
The Enron scandal brought down one of the most admired companies of the 1990s. Countless books and articles were written about it, but only "The Smartest Guys in the Room" holds up a decade later as the definitive narrative.
Check the book on amazon »8. Barbarians at the Gate
A #1 "New York Times" bestseller and arguably the best business narrative ever written, "Barbarians at the Gate" is the classic account of the fall of RJR Nabisco.
An enduring masterpiece of investigative journalism by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, it includes a new afterword by the authors that brings this remarkable story of greed and double-dealings up to date twenty years after the famed deal.
Check the book on amazon »7. The Wealth of Nations
["The Wealth of Nations"] describes what builds nations' wealth and is today a fundamental work in classical economics and touches upon such broad topics as the division of labor, productivity, and free markets.
Check the book on amazon »6. When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
Roger Lowenstein captures the gripping roller-coaster ride of Long-Term Capital Management. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players,
Lowenstein explains not just how the fund made and lost its money but also how the personalities of Long-Term's partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the culture of Wall Street itself contributed to both their rise and their fall.
Check the book on amazon »5. Guerrilla Marketing
When "Guerrilla Marketing" was first published in 1983, Jay Levinson revolutionized marketing strategies for the small-business owner with his take-no-prisoners approach to finding clients.
Based on hundreds of solid ideas that really work, Levinson's philosophy has given birth to a new way of learning about market share and how to gain it.
Check the book on amazon »4. Reset
In 2015, Ellen K. Pao sued a powerhouse Silicon Valley venture capital firm, calling out workplace discrimination and retaliation against women and other underrepresented groups.
Her suit rocked the tech world—and exposed its toxic culture and its homogeneity. Her message overcame negative PR attacks that took aim at her professional conduct and her personal life, and she won widespread public support —
TIME hailed her as "the face of change." Though Pao lost her suit, she revolutionized the conversation at tech offices, in the media, and around the world. In "Reset", she tells her full story for the first time.
Check the book on amazon »3. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras took 18 truly exceptional and long-lasting companies and studied each in direct comparison to one of its top competitors.
Check the book on amazon »2. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
When asked simple questions about global trends — what percentage of the world's population lives in poverty; why the world's population is increasing; how many girls finish school — we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.
"Factfulness" offers a radical new explanation of why this happens, outlining the ten instincts that distort our perspective ― from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse).
Check the book on amazon »1. Business Adventures
What do the $350 million Ford Motor Company disaster known as the Edsel, the fast and incredible rise of Xerox, and the unbelievable scandals at General Electric and Texas Gulf Sulphur have in common?
Each is an example of how an iconic company was defined by a particular moment of fame or notoriety; these notable and fascinating accounts are as relevant today to understanding the intricacies of corporate life as they were when the events happened.
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