Across interviews, podcasts, and shareholder letters, business leaders repeatedly point to the same books as shaping how they think and operate. Rather than rely on personal opinion for a general “best business books of all time” list, I wanted to identify which books successful founders and CEOs actually recommend most.
So I manually reviewed and logged 742 recommendations from 100 well-known founders, CEOs, and investors.
Here are the books that appeared most frequently.
Ranking Methodology
I started compiling this list years ago, well before AI tools existed, by manually gathering book recommendations from interviews, podcasts, shareholder letters, and published reading lists.
Over time, I added every verifiable mention I found from well-known CEOs, entrepreneurs, executives, and founders including Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Kevin O'Leary, Mark Cuban, Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg, Seth Godin, Sam Altman, and many others.
All of these entries live in a public Google Sheet that now contains more than 100 books and 742 individual recommendations.
To create the rankings, I counted how many times each book was recommended and then sorted the list by total mentions. Some leaders offered a dozen favorites, while others mentioned only one or two.
As a result, this list reflects the titles that appear again and again across founders, CEOs, and experienced operators with very different backgrounds. The result is a data-driven snapshot of the business books that have had the greatest influence on modern leaders.
#1. Influence: Science and Practice
Author: Robert Cialdini
First published: 1984
Recommended by: Charlie Munger, David Heinemeier Hansson, Derek Sivers, Guy Kawasaki, John Doerr, Justin Kan, Max Levchin, and Paul Allen
Buy the book on Amazon here.
Robert Cialdini is a world-renowned expert on the psychology of persuasion.
He worked “undercover” for several years in organizations reliant on sales, such as car dealerships, non-profits and MLM companies.
During that time, he discovered six major principles of influence, which he explores in this book.
Those principles are:
- Reciprocity: Humans naturally feel obliged to return favors.
- Commitment/Consistency: People are driven to be seen as consistent in their beliefs and actions.
- Social Proof: We rely on the actions of others to determine what we should do.
- Authority: People rely on the opinions of experts — real or perceived — to make decisions.
- Liking: People we like are more persuasive to us.
- Scarcity: Items in short supply are more desirable.
Knowing and applying these principles can help you make more sales and close more deals — two things that are essential to growing a business.
Influence: Science and Practice is a newer and more rigorous version of Cialdini's earlier work, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Additionally, Cialdini proposed a seventh principle — Unity — in his 2016 book Persuasion.
#2. The Innovator's Dilemma
Author: Clayton Christensen
Subtitle: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
First published: 1997
Recommended by: Andrew Grove, Ben Horowitz, Guy Kawasaki, Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban, Steve Jobs, and Steve Blank
Buy the book on Amazon here.
The late Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen was an expert on business growth and innovation.
In The Innovator's Dilemma, Christensen explains how even the best companies can fail if they're not prepared for technological innovations. He distinguishes between two types of technology — disruptive and sustaining.
Christensen then points out that a startup can often overtake an established company because the former may develop the right processes and values to serve niche markets that the latter is slow to serve.
But Christensen has a solution for these big businesses: acquire or establish subsidiaries with the right processes and values, provide them resources, and let them do their thing.
#3. Good to Great
Author: Jim Collins
Subtitle: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don't
First published: 2001
Recommended by: Evan Williams, Fred DeLuca, Jeff Bezos, Max Levchin, Meg Whitman, Steve Blank, and Tracy DiNunzio
Buy the book on Amazon here.
How can an organization — good, average, or even bad — make the leap to greatness?
Business researcher and consultant Jim Collins studied several companies that did just that, and he compiled his findings in Good to Great.
Collins found three similarities across these businesses:
#1: They apply the hedgehog concept. How can a company combine its unique talents and passions to create an enduring, unique strategy that gives it a competitive advantage? This concept is based on an ancient Greek parable that says, in effect, “a fox knows many small things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing.”
In other words, foxes are cunning and versatile, but hedgehogs are masters at using their spines — a unique and un-copyable attribute — to defend themselves.
#2: They're wary about adopting new tech and avoid the temptation to be an early adopter just because it's cool — instead choosing only to adopt new tech if it can help them better apply the hedgehog concept.
#3: They have realistic optimism. They accept the facts, but are optimistic. For example, if a large marketing campaign fails, they accept the failure without despair, using the lessons from that failure to make the next campaign better.
#4. Atlas Shrugged
Author: Ayn Rand
First published: 1957
Recommended by: Aaron Patzer, Brad Feld, Fred Wilson, John Doerr, Peter Diamandis, Rex Tillerson
Buy the book on Amazon here.
Ayn Rand was a polarizing 20th-century writer and philosopher known for her pro-capitalism political/economic philosophy of Objectivism.
Atlas Shrugged, considered to be her magnum opus, is meant to illustrate this philosophy through fiction.
The book depicts a dystopian future United States where business is stagnant due to excessive regulation. However, a mysterious engineer named John Galt is persuading society's producers (a.k.a., its businesspeople) to ditch their businesses in protest.
Towards the end of the book, the businesspeople work with Galt to create a new capitalist society based on Objectivism's principles.
Rand's main point is that self-interest and reason are powerful forces — and that both are fundamental to business.
#5. Crossing the Chasm
Author: Geoffrey Moore
Subtitle: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
First published: 1991
Recommended by: Andrew Ng, Brad Feld, Guy Kawasaki, Josh James, Max Levchin, and Steve Blank
Buy the book on Amazon here.
Management consultant Geoffrey Moore wrote Crossing the Chasm to help startups market their products to the masses.
Moore begins by explaining the “chasm” as the gap between early adopters and the early majority — the first large chunk of the population beyond early adopters to start using a new piece of technology.
He then suggests several techniques for scaling the chasm:
- Pick a specific target market
- Make a strong claim to position yourself as a market leader
- Build an effective marketing strategy
- Choose the right marketing channels and pricing
If you want to be the next tech startup success story, this book is a must-read.
#6. The Lean Startup
Author: Eric Ries
Subtitle: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
First published: 2011
Recommended by: Andrew Ng, Brad Feld, Dustin Moskovitz, Evan Williams, Sheryl Sandberg, and Steve Blank
Buy the book on Amazon here.
In The Lean Startup, entrepreneur and venture advisor Eric Ries argues that, because startups face so much uncertainty, their main goal is to discover what their customers want and will pay for.
To accomplish this goal, Ries advocates a semi-scientific approach to running your startup that includes creating a minimum viable product (also known as an MVP) and collecting data by putting it out into the market.
Better yet, split-test two versions of your product to gain a clear picture of which one is better.
Lastly, ignore any metrics that aren't tied to profit. Sales matter more than likes on Twitter, for example.
Overall, it's excellent advice for any smaller business — not just startups.
#7. Zero to One
Authors: Peter Thiel and Blake Masters
Subtitle: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
First published: 2014
Recommended by: Andrew Ng, Brad Feld, Derek Sivers, Elon Musk, Max Levchin, and Sam Altman
Buy the book on Amazon here.
Real innovation isn't going from one to many (horizontal progress) — it's going from zero to one, or from nothing to something (vertical progress).
Peter Thiel (who co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk) and Blake Masters claim that we live in an age of technological stagnation because much of our current progress is horizontal.
They argue that startups must go against conventional wisdom to bring real innovation to society.
Within Zero to One, you'll learn about the different types of progress, why startups are the drivers of innovation, and why Thiel believes monopoly can be useful for innovation.
Note: Zero to One also ranked as one of our best books on making money.
#8. The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Author: Ben Horowitz
Subtitle: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
First published: 2014
Recommended by: Brad Feld, Justin Kan, Max Levchin, Michael Dell, Steve Blank
Buy the book on Amazon here.
Entrepreneurship sounds glamorous, but there are plenty of challenges that few people talk about.
But what makes it so difficult?
In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz explains that business is challenging because there are no easy formulas to follow.
He draws on his own experience as a startup founder to offer entrepreneurs advice on dealing with several common business problems that have unclear answers.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things is essential reading if you want to prepare for the painful side of running a company.
#9. How to Win Friends and Influence People
Author: Dale Carnegie
First published: 1936
Recommended by: Kevin O'Leary, Lee Iacocca, Sara Blakely, and Warren Buffett
Buy the book on Amazon here.
In How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie draws on his years as a public speaking instructor to offer practical advice that has helped many of today's top professionals and businesspeople reach the peak of their fields.
In the book, Carnegie suggests six ways to make people like you, 12 ways to persuade people to think like you, and nine ways to change people for the better without making them resentful of you.
#10. The Foundation Trilogy
Author: Isaac Asimov
First published: 1942
Recommended by: Andrew Ng, Brad Feld, Elon Musk, Sam Altman
Buy the trilogy on Amazon here.
The Foundation trilogy — written by acclaimed science fiction author Isaac Asimov — is a series of stories set in the distant future.
In short, the books are about a once-prosperous galactic human empire on the brink of decline. A mathematician assembles society's greatest engineers and scientists to ease the pain of said decline.
On Twitter, Elon Musk said that the Foundation Series inspired him to start SpaceX. He said that the book showed him how civilization operates in cycles — and Musk wants to prolong our upward cycle by spreading humanity among the stars.
If you read this book, you may just be inspired to launch a startup that does the same.
Here's a comprehensive list of Elon Musk's Book Recommendations.
Insights From the Recommendations
Reviewing all 742 recommendations, a few themes stood out to me.
• Some books clearly shaped how people see the world. Titles like Atlas Shrugged and the Foundation trilogy show up more often than I expected. They are not business manuals. They are worldview shapers. Many leaders seem to point to these books as early influences on how they think about incentives, progress, and the future.
• Influence appears across every type of builder. When I saw Charlie Munger, Paul Allen, Derek Sivers, and Guy Kawasaki all recommend the same book, I kept thinking of Munger's quote, “Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.” Influence resonates because it explains the psychology behind human decisions. In business, that matters everywhere.
• The Innovator's Dilemma shows up at major turning points. Many founders mention it when describing the one strategy decision that changed their trajectory. Christensen's framework seems to help people see disruption more clearly, especially when they are facing it in real time.
• The core startup playbooks remain consistent. Books like Crossing the Chasm, The Lean Startup, and Zero to One are the ones leaders recommend to anyone starting something new. They provide structure and reduce uncertainty, which explains why they appear so often.
• The soft-skills classic continues to matter. I have seen How to Win Friends and Influence People recommended countless times. And every time I revisit it, I am reminded why. One idea that stuck with me when I read it in my twenties was the simple habit of greeting people by their name. It sounds small, but it changes the way you interact with others.
• The biggest pattern is the breadth. Modern leaders do not read in one lane. They read psychology, strategy, innovation, fiction, and biographies. It reinforces Charlie Munger's idea of building a “latticework” of mental models. A broad base of knowledge helps you make better decisions in the few areas that matter most.
More Reading Lists
If you want to go deeper, here are a few other book lists I've created. Some use the same research-driven method behind this article, while others are curated around the most influential voices in business and investing.
More data-driven book rankings
Reading lists from influential leaders
My curated book guides
