20 years into my career as an entrepreneur, Angel Investor and CEO of a VC backed scale-up technology business, these are my top 10 book recommendations for anyone interested in business.
- Sapiens (Yuval Noah Harari) – business is fundamentally about people, of the hundreds of books I’ve read on what it means to be a human – why we’re here, what we’re doing and where we’re going, this is my favourite
- Lean In (Sherly Sandberg) – a brilliant and positive read on how we can all help win the war for better gender diversity
- Shoe Dog (Phil Knight) - the epic story of how the founder of Nike created a $150Bn business from scratch, a nice reminder that the path to the top is full of setbacks and challenges and it’s how you respond to them that is what really matters
- A Soldiers Way (Colin Powell) – an inspiring story of leadership, operational excellence, and perseverance
- Thrive (Ariana Huffington) – excellent lessons on how driven, high powered and ambitious business leaders can look after themselves so they can create more value for the societies they live in
- Blue Ocean Strategy (W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne) - the seminal read on how to create competitive advantage
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things (Ben Horowitz) - what it really takes to build a business, again another reminder that it’s not mean to be easy, I particularly enjoy the split between ‘wartime’ and ‘peacetime’ CEO
- Zero to One (Peter Thiel) - top tips from the founder of PayPal on how to get going when you have nothing
- Principles: Life and Work (Ray Dalio) - ideas on how to live and build a business from the most successful hedge manager who has ever lived
- Steve Jobs (Walter Isaccson) - one of the most inspiring entrepreneurial stories of all time told by one of the best writers of his generation
Hope you enjoy them and let me know with your thoughts on LinkedIn.