100 books to help you grow

The power of the paperback, a database of the top 100, and a personal curation

Happy Friday guys! 👋

Instead of our usual 5-Bit this morning, I’m writing with Doc (aka my buddy Bill Kerr)—founder of Athyna and author of one of my favorite newsletters—Open Source CEO.

People love a team-up.

— Ashley (The Boys)

Success in pretty much anything is going to be influenced by lots of factors—background, education, wealth, opportunities, luck, etc—but there’s one tool that plays a key role in being a universal equalizer: Reading a good ‘ol book.

Flipping the pages offers a gateway to knowledge, wisdom, and insights that can shape the trajectory of any business (or personal) journey, regardless of where it begins.

I say this because it’s done exactly that for both me and Bill.

Books have always been a cornerstone for both our personal and professional development. We’ve both started companies, we both write newsletters, and we both agree that stealing the hard-won insights from others has been a huge growth lever.

They serve as mentors, providing crystalized advice and lessons from some of the greatest minds across industries. For entrepreneurs, reading is not just a hobby; it’s a strategic advantage.

So, we’re sharing a curated (and trackable) database for you of the top 100 books in business. Use it to find your next read, or follow along with your own reading journey.

Subscribe here to Open Source CEO to enjoy the download.

Below is a rundown of a few collections, as well as at the end, each of our personal favorites.

The Top 10

1. Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari

2. Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl

3. Principles, Ray Dalio

4. Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

5. Zero to One, Peter Thiel

6. The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss

7. Influence, Robert B. Cialdini, PhD

8. The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz

9. Shoe Dog, Phil Knight

10. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

Bill Gates

• Shoe Dog, Phil Knight

• The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande

• Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari

Every morning and every evening I block out an hour and a half for reading, and it's made me substantially better at my job. 

Oprah Winfrey

• Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

• The Road, Cormac McCarthy

• Becoming, Michelle Obama

Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.

Sam Altman

• The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch

• Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

• Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

Melanie Perkins

• The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin Sharma

• Designing the Obvious, Robert Hoekman

Steve Jobs

• The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen

• Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda

• The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn

One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.

Brian Chesky

• High Output Management, Andrew S. Grove

• The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger

• Blitzscaling, Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh

Sheryl Sandberg

• Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling

• The Lean Startup, Eric Ries

• Play Nice But Win, Michael Dell

I probably shouldn’t admit this since I work in the tech industry, but I still prefer reading paper books.

And a few from me and Bill

My recommendations

Non-fiction:

• Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling, Matthew Dicks

• I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Ramit Sethi

• Letters From A Stoic, Seneca

• Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

• A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

• The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Bill Bryson

• Good Strategy / Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt

• Never Split The Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It, Chriss Voss

• In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, Michael Pollan

• Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, Steven Pinker

• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman

• The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake, Steven Novella

• The Charism Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism, Olivia Fox Cabane

• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, Kim Marbourgne

• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, James Nestor

• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, Matthew Walker

• Hidden Genius: The Secret Ways of Thinking That Power the World’s Most Successful People, Polina Marinova Pompliano

• Principles: Life & Work, Ray Dalio

• The End Of The World Is Just The Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization, Peter Zeihan

And life is too short just to read non-fiction. So, I’m always reading at least a few just for fun books throughout the year. I’d suggest the same—don’t be boring.

Here are 5 that I loved:

• The Silo Trilogy (Wool, Shift, Dust), Hugh Howey

• This Perfect Day, Ira Levin

• The Stand, Steven King

• 1984, George Orwell

• Wayward Pines Trilogy (Pines, Wayward, The Last Town), Blake Crouch

Bill’s recommendations

Non-fiction

• Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson

• The Psychology of Money, Morgan Housel

• Guns, Germs & Steel, Jared Diamond

• Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari

• Principles, Ray Dalio

• At Home: A Short History of Private Life, Bill Bryson

• Shoe Dog, Phil Knight

• The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger

I also believe massively in the power of fiction. It’s great for me to be able to switch off but you can also learn a lot from the best fiction.

Fiction

• Ready Player One, Ernest Cline

• Project Hail Mary & The Martian, Andy Weir

• The Dune Series, Frank Herbert

• A Song of Ice & Fire, George R.R. Martin

• The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

• The Road, Cormac McCarthy

• 1984 & Animal Farm, George Orwell

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I’ll leave you with this. Books are more than just sources of information or a way to shape your thinking. They’re a way to pull the thread and follow your curiosity down all sorts of unexpected (and delightful) paths.

At Home is fricken awesome. The simplest book but so interesting. He spends 30 pages describing the evolution of the fork, haha.

—Bill

My reading level has fluctuated over the years, but the best advice is to find some level of disciplined approach to reading and applying the lessons learned.

Honestly, reading is a flywheel. Once you get going it’s a very hard-to-break habit—and as the wheel keeps spinning, all the nuggets ingested compound until all sorts of wonderful dots connect.

Find your next read here.

Alrighty, that’s everything for today. If you haven’t yet, go swing Bill a follow over at the Open Source CEO newsletter—he shares stories from building Athyna, interviews with legendary builders, and just all around is one of the more helpful writers out there.

Until next time.
—Jaryd