The Books that Shaped my Career: Part I

In the pursuit of seeking answers and learning more about the universe, startups, entrepreneurship, and success I have spent lots of time during my youth reading books.

Books have a special place in my heart and sentiment, they’re a great way to login into my imagination and encapsulate knowledge. Why make certain mistakes that have already been made before? Why not do things the smart way? Especially in the business world, which is a continuous set of experiments, books are a great way to learn from other’s experiences and biographies. I do owe a lot of whatever accomplishments I’ll have in my career to books, but at this moment I felt that if I had this list back when I was young I would have saved a lot of time not reading books that were either copies or refactoring of the main bible books.

These books inspired me, shaped my personality and entrepreneurship drive, taught me to think differently, and gave me an idea of how success happens in the real world.

I read these books mostly during my high school and undergrad time, and as I grew I reduced my time reading, and am pouring my energy into building things instead.

Order of books doesn’t matter.

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future | By Blake Masters, Peter Thiel
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future | By Ashlee Vance
Think and Grow Rich | By Napoleon Hill
Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company | By Andrew S. Grove
Who Moved my Cheese | By Spencer Johnson
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People | By Stephen Convey
How to Win Friends and Influence People | By Dale Carnegie
Lean Startup | By Eric Ries
The Intelligent Investor | By Benjamin Graham
Rich Dad Poor Dad | By Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter
The Psychology of Money | By Morgan Housel
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t | By Jim Collins
The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google | By Scott Galloway
Steve Jobs | By Walter Isaacson
The Art of War | By Sun Tzu
The Facebook Effect | By David Kirkpatrick
The Innovators Dilemma | By Clayton Christensen
The 100$ Startup | By Chris Guillebeau
Secrets of Silicon Valley | By Deborah Perry Piscione
Atomic Habits | By James Clear
The Little Book Of Common Sense Investing | By John C. Bogle
Outliers, The Story of Success | By Malcolm Gladwell
The Road Less Travelled | By M. Scott Peck
Talk like TED | By Carmine Gallo
Measure What Matters | By John E. Doer
The Toyota Way 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer | By Jeffrey Liker
The One Minute Manager | By Ken Blanchard, Spencer Johson
Range, Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World | By David Epstein
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari | By Robin Sharma
Extreme Ownership: How US Navy Seals Lead and Win | By Jocko Willink, Leif Babin
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus | By John Gray
The Five Love Languages | By Gary Chapman
The 5am Club | By Robin Sharma
The Leader with No Title | By Robin Sharma
Awaken the Giant Within | By Tony Robbins
Thinking, Fast and Slow | By Daniel Kahneman
The Power of Habits | By Charles Duhigg
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck | By Mark Manson
Start with Why, How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action | By Simon Sinek
The 48 Laws of Power | By Robert Greene
The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time | By Jeff Sutherland
Unfu*k Yourself: Get out of Your Head and into Your Life | By Gary John Bishop
The Infinite Game | By Simon Sinek
Leaders Eat Last, Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t | By Simon Sinek
Start with Why | By Simon Sinek
What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions | By Randall Munroe
The Selfish Gene | By Richard Dawkins
Is God a Mathematician? | By Mario Livio
AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order | By Kai-Fu Lee
How Emotions Are Made, the Secret Life of the Brain | By Lisa Feldman Barret
Rebooting AI, Building AI We Can Trust | By Gary F. Marcus, Ernest Davis
Benjamin Franklin, An American Life | By Benjamin Franklin
Einstein, His Life, and Universe | By Walter Isaacson
Our Final Invention Artificial Intelligence | By James Barrat
The Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy | By Douglas Adams

Also, I’ve spent a lot of time reading and even studying the following two blogs:

I’m thinking of one day adding the stack of technical books that I enjoyed from physics to computer science, but I will leave that for another day. Hoping to keep adding to this list with time.

NB: for a more thorough collection of books on startups, sci-fi, history, and books that sit on the intersection of must-read and entertaining check out my Goodreads account.