Have You Ever Wondered About A Successful Entrepreneur! How Do They Become So Successful? Here Are 25 Books, They Say Have Taught Them A Lot About Business, Leadership, And The World

Have you ever wondered what separates a successful entrepreneur from an unsuccessful one? Many people have asked the same question over again and again. Do you know, what might be the reason behind their success? Many influential business figures, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, say they learned some of their most important lessons from books. You learn by doing, but you can learn a lot by reading! Here are some that the tech giants recommended adding to your reading list this year. Discover how you can apply the lessons into your life to become smarter about business and leadership!

“The Remains of the Day”

The Remains of the Day is a 1989 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British author Kazuo Ishiguro. This novel tells of an English butler in wartime England who begins to question his lifelong loyalty to his employer while on a vacation.

“Before reading this book, I didn’t think a perfect novel was possible”- Jeff Bezos.

“Sam Walton: Made in America”

Inspiring Autobiography! It’s a story about Sam Walton an entrepreneur, and risk, and hard work, and knowing where you want to go and begin willing to do what it takes to get there. And it’s a story about believing in your idea even when maybe some other folks don’t, and about sticking to your guns.

“Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies”

This book outlines the results of a six-year research project exploring what leads to enduringly great companies. And this book was written by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras. Bezos has said it’s his favorite business book.

“The Innovator’s Dilemma”

The Innovator’s Dilemma - When new technologies cause great firms to fail, the best-known work of the Harvard professor and businessman Clayton Christensen. In this book, he examines various company’s successes and failures in disruptive innovation.

“Creation: Life and How to Make It”

Steve Grand discusses artificial life through the lens of his 1996 computer game creatures in his book. Steve Grand is uniquely placed to explain how humans can play God!

“The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement”

Written in a fast-paced thriller style. The Goal is a gripping novel that is transforming management thinking throughout the Western world. Eliyahu M. Goldratt gives a great explanation of the theory of constraints and operations management in this novel.

“Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation”

This book shows how to create an industrial world in which workers share the challenges and satisfactions of the business. It is a world in which assemblers communicate with suppliers and dealers in a way that improves life for all of them.

“The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable”

Actually, Nassim Nicholas Taleb popularized the term “Black swan” with this book. Through a number of examples, he aims to show his readers how rare and unpredictable events have a deep and lasting impact on a person’s life.

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

If you want to build a better future, you must believe in secrets. In this book, Peter Thiel shares lessons that he learned from founding companies like PayPal and Palantir.

“Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how”- Elon Musk

“The Lord of the Rings”

This book was written by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Musk has said he read a lot of fantasy and science fiction novels as a kid and once quoted a line from Tolkien's famous trilogy on Twitter.

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

It is a comedy science-fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Elon Musk read this book when he was a teenager and has even said the spacecraft in it his favorite spacecraft from science fiction.

“Benjamin Franklin: An American Life”

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life is a non-fiction book authored by an American historian and journalist Walter Isaacson. Elon Musk’s reading list always includes biographies, also this Walter Isaacson book on Benjamin Franklin.

“Einstein: His Life and Universe”

This non-fiction book was authored by an American historian and journalist Walter Isaacson. Musk enjoyed Isaacson’s biography on Albert Einstein too!

“What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions”

Randall Munroe, creator of the webcomic.xkcd wrote this non-fiction book in 2014. In which he gave informative answers to life’s wildest hypothetical question which was sent to him by readers of his webcomic. xkcd.

“Making the Modern World: Materials & dematerialization”

Vaclav Smil’s “Making the Modern World: Materials & dematerialization” examines the materials and processes that made our modern world.

“The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age”

Archie Brown’s ‘The Myth of the Strong Leader’ examines political leadership throughout the 20th century.

“Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street”

This book is a collection of 12 essays, which were written by John Brooks. Gates has said this is “the best business book I have ever read”. All the 12 articles were previously published in The New Yorker.

“The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History”

Elizabeth Kolbert analyzes the depth of Earth’s mass extinction in this book. For that, she received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction for the book in 2015.

“Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World”

It was written by David Epstein and published in 2019. Gate has said Epstein’s ideas here “even help explain some of Microsoft’s success because we hired people who had real breadth within their field and across domains”.

“Origin Story: A Big History of Everything”

“I have long been a fan of David Christian. In Origin Story, he elegantly weaves evidence and insights from many scientific and historical disciplines into a single, accessible historical narrative” – Bill Gates.

“Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think”

This non-fiction book was written by Hans Rosling with his son Ola Rosling and daughter-in-law Anna Rosling Ronnlund. Gates has called it “one of the most educational books I’ve ever read”.

“A Full Life: Reflections at 90”

This book is an autobiography by former American President Jimmy Carter after his 90th birthday. Gates also like former President’s “A Full Life”.

“Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966 – 2012”

Tap Dancing to Work- Loomis has created an engaging picture of a great influencer of our time.

“Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era”

James Barrat discusses the potential benefits and possible risks of human-level or super-human artificial intelligence in this book.

“Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies”

This book is one of those which is recommended by Musk for AI, which considers questions about a future world where machines may become smarter than people.