Danielle Morrill's Review:
This is a no-brainer on the list. Most startup enthusiasts have probably already heard about this one, given how much people admire Peter Thiel, one of the infamous “PayPal Mafia” cofounders. But, if you haven’t actually picked up and read Zero to One yet, now is the time.
Thiel expounds on some of his core beliefs, like: understanding what important truth few others agree with you on; why product doesn’t always win; and the importance of being a long-term thinker as a founder. You can breeze through this read in a weekend, but you’ll be referencing it over and over again for a long time.
Ref: https:[email protected][email protected]preneurs-d50483a316e4#.67ihjzr9a
James Altucher's Review:
This book is listed in recommended reading list from 'The James Altucher Show'
But the first thing I do is read all of their books. Here are some of the guests and some of their books, in no particular order. I recommend all of the below books. If I didn’t like a book, I wouldn’t have them on the show.
PETER THIEL
Reid Hoffman's Review:
In his book Zero to One, my friend and former colleague Peter Thiel lays out an ingenious, provocative, and highly entertaining argument regarding the virtues of monopoly and the shortcomings of competition. He makes his case so deftly that I suspect it will soon attain the implacable majesty of conventional wisdom. That would be a shame.
Read the full review here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141126002147-1213-entrepreneurship-and-competition-in-peter-thiel-s-zero-to-one?trk=mp-reader-card
James Altucher's Review:
This book belong to a list top ten books to expand your brain by James Altucher
There’s a lot of business books out there. 99% of them are BS. Read this one.
So many concepts really changed my attitude about not only business but capitalism.
Thiel, the founder of PayPal, and first investor in Facebook, is brilliant in how he simply shares his theories on building a billion dollar business.
I love his story on my podcast what exactly happened in the room when a 24 year old Mark Zuckerberg was offered $250,000,000 and refused it in two minutes.
Ref: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2015/09/books-brain-expand/
Sam Altman's Review:
If you want to build a better future, you must believe in secrets. The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.
Max Levchin's Review:
What’s your favorite business book you’d recommend to young entrepreneurs and why?
Some good ones from the “pure business” category: Zero to One, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, The Innovator’s Dilemma, Good to Great, etc.
Ref: https:[email protected][email protected]musk-296d15521d3
Elon Musk's Review:
Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how.
Ref: http://www.amazon.in/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296
Derek Sivers's Review:
Brilliant, bold, and clear thoughts about how to make a big Silicon Valley size company. Other great insights like definite/indefinite optimism/pessimism.
Max Levchin's Review:
What’s your favorite business book you’d recommend to young entrepreneurs and why?
Some good ones from the “pure business” category: Zero to One, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, The Innovator’s Dilemma, Good to Great, etc.
Ref: https:[email protected][email protected]musk-296d15521d3
Jeff Bezos's Review:
An enormously influential business book whose principles Amazon acted on and that facilitated the creation of the Kindle and AWS. Some companies are reluctant to embrace disruptive technology because it might alienate customers and undermine their core business, but Christensen argues that ignoring potential disruption is even costlier.
Ref: https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/10/jeff-bezoss-reading-list/
Ben Horowitz's Review:
Interestingly this is the only business book that Steve Jobs liked. In his biography of Jobs, Walter Isaacson wrote that it “deeply influenced” Jobs. Fittingly the book shows why and how most companies miss out on new waves of innovation — they do exactly what they are taught to do in business school.
Ref: https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/03/ben-horowitz-5-books/
Marc Andreessen's Review:
Q) Hey @pmarca is all innovation disruptive? If yes, why the redundancy? If not,what the hell is undisruptive innovation?
A) It's called sustaining innovation. There is also a third kind, discontinuous innovation. Read the Christensen book :-).
Steve Blank's Review:
Innovator’s Dilemma and Innovator’s Solution helped me refine the notion of the Four types of Startup Markets. I read these books as the handbook for startups trying to disrupt an established company
Mark Cuban's Review:
This helped me make sense of why things worked and didn't work in the technology industry.
Malcolm Gladwell's Review:
I came very late to that book [The Innovator’s Dilemma]. I only read it six months ago. And I haven't stopped thinking of it ever since.
Ref: http://www.thingsweread.org/all-booklists/malcolm-gladwell
Danielle Morrill's Review:
You know that oh-so-popularRodgers’ bell curve about customer adoption rates? We’ve all seen it…but how do weactually use it to help us shape our business strategy? InCrossing the Chasm, you’ll learn about the actual characteristics of each kind of customer—from “innovator” to “laggard”—and better understand how to choose and acquire your target market.
The author, Geoffrey Moore, talks about the importance of maintaining momentum to get the next group along the curve to want to buy into your product/service, navigating the challenges of moving across the customer adoption “chasm,” and ultimately growing a business that scales. A classic read.
Ref: https:[email protected][email protected]preneurs-d50483a316e4#.67ihjzr9a
Joel Spolsky's Review:
The management training program we're starting up here at Fog Creek will take about three years and will be relatively intensive. Among other things, there will be a required reading list consisting of about 75 books (we're working on the theory here of one book every two weeks). We're trying to collect a combination of
This is my very first-draft list. By the time we get started a lot of these books will be replaced with better books, I hope; if you have any suggestions please feel free to email them to me.
Ref: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum.html
Marc Andreessen's Review:
In tech, the term vertical is to distinguish "focused on a particular industry" vs horizontal which is "cuts across all industries".Generally tech vertical products and sales efforts are quite different than horizontal products and sales efforts.
Steve Blank's Review:
Crossing the Chasm made me understand that there are repeatable patterns in early stage companies. It started my search for the repeatable set of patterns that preceded the chasm
Ron Conway's Review:
Bestselling guide that created a new game plan for marketing in high-tech industries.
Ref: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KLCdlp4SW7Z64W_DWGwwuTIfH1GXRAMtPxv4EB5gKu0/edit#gid=0
Seth Godin
's Review:
This book is valuable to every entrepreneur.
Ref: http://favobooks.com/enterpreneurs/95-marketing-books-best.html
Peter Thiel's Review:
The weirdest idea anyone ever had about the future is that we should expect it to look like the past — but that's what the reigning science of statistics assumes. Nassim Taleb has not been fooled; he is the single best guide to understanding uncertainty.
James Altucher's Review:
This book belong to a list top ten books to expand your brain by James Altucher
And throw in “The Black Swan” and “Fooled by Randomness”.
“Fragile” means if you hit something might break.
“Resilient” means if you hit something, it will stay the same.
On my podcast Nassim discusses “Antifragility” – building a system, even on that works for you on a personal level, where you if you harm your self in some way it becomes stronger.
That podcast changed my life
He discusses Antifragility throughout history, up to our current economic situation, and even in our personal situations
Ref: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2015/09/books-brain-expand/
Vinod Khosla's Review:
A black swan is an event, positive or negative, that is deemed improbable yet causes massive consequences. In this groundbreaking and prophetic book, Taleb shows in a playful way that Black Swan events explain almost everything about our world, and yet we—especially the experts—are blind to them.
Bill Gates's Review:
Knowing What We Don’t Know
Black swan events have huge impact, but can only be recognized after the fact. I was fascinated by the idea that if we accept what we don’t know, we could redefine “possible.”
Jeff Bezos's Review:
The scholar argues that people are wired to see patterns in chaos while remaining blind to unpredictable events, with massive consequences. Experimentation and empiricism trumps the easy and obvious narrative.
Ref: https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/10/jeff-bezoss-reading-list/
Naval Ravikant's Book Recommendations: A collection of books recommended by @Naval
Ref: https:[email protected]/collections/naval-s-book-recommendations
Marc Andreessen's Review:
Recommended,
Ref: https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/500912803071283201
@pmarca do you know of anything thats like an intro to the skillset side of running a business aimed at technical people? SICP for business?0
Our standard recommendation is high output management
Ref: https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/604840255045267456
Which are the best books about scaling a company from seed to Series B with systems out there?
Andy Grove "High Output Management" and @bhorowitz's book!
Danielle Morrill's Review:
This is a list of the books, essays, blog posts, articles, podcasts, etc. that have had an outsized impact on my thinking in life and business. I am trying to figure out a good way to organize this, right now it is just a tiny part of my collection but definitely a set of books that I find myself suggesting to people over and over again.
Management
Brian Chesky's Review:
Chesky and his co-founders’ first “sources” were their earliest advisers, tech entrepreneur Michael Seibel and Y Combinator’s Graham. Reading was also an early part of the regimen. For Chesky, a source may come in the form of a biography of a business hero such as Steve Jobs or Walt Disney. His primary book source on management technique is Andy Grove’s High Output Management. To learn the ins and outs of hospitality, he went to the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, a scholarly journal published by the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration.
Vinod Khosla's Review:
This is a user-friendly guide to the art and science of management from Andrew S. Grove, the president of America’s leading manufacturer of computer chips. Grove’s recommendations are equally appropriate for sales managers, accountants, consultants and teachers—anyone whose job entails getting a group of people to produce something of value.
Ben Horowitz's Review:
It has been an honor for me to learn from Andy Grove through the years and I am excited for everyone who is new to High Output Management to join me in this experience. I know that you will enjoy this marvelous book written by the best teacher that I have ever known.
Ron Conway's Review:
User-friendly guide to the art and science of management.
Ref: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KLCdlp4SW7Z64W_DWGwwuTIfH1GXRAMtPxv4EB5gKu0/edit#gid=0
Danielle Morrill's Review:
This is a list of the books, essays, blog posts, articles, podcasts, etc. that have had an outsized impact on my thinking in life and business. I am trying to figure out a good way to organize this, right now it is just a tiny part of my collection but definitely a set of books that I find myself suggesting to people over and over again.
Startups
Max Levchin's Review:
What’s your favorite business book you’d recommend to young entrepreneurs and why?
Some good ones from the “pure business” category: Zero to One, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, The Innovator’s Dilemma, Good to Great, etc.
Ref: https:[email protected][email protected]musk-296d15521d3
David Cancel's Review:
The struggle. The grind. This is the reality check that you will always need when you’re going through it.
Steve Blank's Review:
Ben Horowitz’s The Hard Thing About Hard Things is a series essays about what CEO face in the “Build” phase – the transition from searching for a business model into a company.
Marc Andreessen's Review:
But @bhorowitz's book still makes great gift for entrepreneurs & future entrepreneurs (ages 8-108) in your life :-).
Garry Tan's Review:
This book was a part of The stack of knowledge
Just got the shipment of books I sent here from home. It is amazing how one can convert a pile of dead trees into something (hopefully) useful.
Ron Conway's Review:
Collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days.
Ref: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KLCdlp4SW7Z64W_DWGwwuTIfH1GXRAMtPxv4EB5gKu0/edit#gid=0
Steve Blank's Review:
Jessica Livingston’s Founders At Work are the best case studies/vignettes without a PR rewrite of how founders really start companies
Andrew Warner's Review:
@decart thanks. Jessica book was one of the models for Mixergy’s interviews.
Ref:https://twitter.com/AndrewWarner/status/707937977574539264
Andrew Chen's Review:
Loved the first 1/3 and last 1/3 of this book. Taleb talks about the idea of antifragility, where things benefit from disorder. (Not just robustness, which resists disorder). He starts with the idea from a financial concept, but cleverly applies it to his own personal health and weightlifting routine. Could probably be shorter and less boastful though.
Derek Sivers's Review:
Bold perspectives, unusual ideas, and surprisingly wise advice around an interesting subject of the “opposite of fragile.” Looking through that lens at health, education, governments, business, and life philosophy. Very inspiring, and sparks a lot of further discussion.
Marc Andreessen's Review:
Yep. Why Nassim Taleb's book "Antifragility" resonates so much with VCs; that's what we do.
James Altucher's Review:
This book belong to a list top ten books to expand your brain by James Altucher
And throw in “The Black Swan” and “Fooled by Randomness”.
“Fragile” means if you hit something might break.
“Resilient” means if you hit something, it will stay the same.
On my podcast Nassim discusses “Antifragility” – building a system, even on that works for you on a personal level, where you if you harm your self in some way it becomes stronger.
That podcast changed my life
He discusses Antifragility throughout history, up to our current economic situation, and even in our personal situations
Ref: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2015/09/books-brain-expand/
Ryan Holiday
's Review:
A few years ago, I read The Education of a Coach, a book about Bill Belichick which influenced me immensely (coincidentally, the Patriots have also read my book and were influenced by it). Anyway, I have been chasing that high ever since. Bill Walsh’s book certainly met that high standard. Even if you’ve never watched a down of football, you’ll get something out of this book. Walsh took the 49ers from the worst team in football to the Super Bowl in less than 3 years. How? Not with a grand vision or pure ambition, but with what he called the Standard of Performance. That is: How to practice. How to dress. How to hold the ball. Where to be on a play down the very inch. Which skills mattered for each position. How much effort to give. By upholding these standards—whatever they happen to be for your chosen craft—success will take care of itself.
David Cancel's Review:
When the San Francisco 49ers hired Bill Walsh, they were 4–12 and the worst team in the NFL. Three years later, they won their first Super Bowl — and the turnaround happened because of the small things. All of the details matter, because the score will take care of itself.
Vinod Khosla's Review:
Bill Walsh is a towering figure in the history of the NFL. His advanced leadership transformed the San Francisco 49ers from the worst franchise in sports to a legendary dynasty. In the process, he changed the way football is played. Prior to his death, Walsh granted a series of exclusive interviews to bestselling author Steve Jamison. These became his ultimate lecture on leadership.
Ref: http://www.khoslaventures.com/resources/reading-list
Ref: https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Vinod-Khosla-Recommended-Reading
Ron Conway's Review:
Words of wisdown from Bill Walsh to inspire, inform, and enlighten leaders in all professions.
Ref: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KLCdlp4SW7Z64W_DWGwwuTIfH1GXRAMtPxv4EB5gKu0/edit#gid=0
Sam Altman's Review:
For the question "What are some of the best books to learn from that you recommend for a young startup founder?", I decided to transcribe these books.
James Altucher's Review:
Oh my god, another list of books I should read! I can’t help it, though.
These are the books I return to when I need help, guidance, solace in my life.
I’m going to cheat. I’m not going to look at my kindle to see what I’ve read. Forgive me if I get a title or an author’s name wrong.
If I can remember the books, then it means they had some impact on me. If I can’t remember them, then why would I recommend them?
For each one of these books: either they made me a better person, or I felt, even as I was reading them, that my IQ was getting better. Or, in the case of fiction, I felt like my writing was getting better by reading the book.
Or I simply escaped to another world. I like to travel to other worlds. To pretend to be a character in someone else’s story.
I think if you can find even one takeaway in a book that you remember afterwards, then it’s a great book.
Remember: It’s hard to remember more than 1% of a book.
Time is the ultimate judge of wisdom. How you bounce back from misery and despair in order to thrive. I hope I learned that from these books.
Seth Godin
's Review:
Godin said he wishes he had found Steven Pressfield's 2002 book "The War of Art" even sooner than he did because it had such a profound effect on him.
In it, Pressfield uses his career as a fiction writer to explore the ways he learned to overcome creative roadblocks and keep himself pushing forward when he felt he had nothing left to say.
Derek Sivers's Review:
Have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what “Resistance” is. This book is about that. Read it.
Daniel Pink's Review:
An essential read on overcoming resistance in the quest for mastery.
Ref: http://ideas.ted.com/7-must-read-books-on-work-and-productivity-from-dan-pink/
Steve Blank's Review:
Every founding team should stop for 48 hours and read Lean Startup. Stop and read this book now.
Ref: https://twitter.com/search?q=%40sgblank%20review%20book&src=typd
Eric Ries was the best student I ever had. He took the Customer Development process, combined it with Agile Engineering, and actually did the first implementation in a startup. His insights about the combined Customer Development/Agile process and its implications past startups into large corporations is a sea change in thinking. His book, The Lean Startup is a “must have” for your shelf.
Vinod Khosla's Review:
Here’s a list recommended by Vinod Khosla, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems, and founder of the firm Khosla Ventures, which focuses on venture investments in various technology sectors, most notably clean technology.
Ref: https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Vinod-Khosla-Recommended-Reading
Derek Sivers's Review:
EVERY entrepreneur should read this book! Its methodology is the one I recommend the most. The stuff I preach is like a cute casual intro to the real deal: the Lean Startup methodology. (As an aside: this book is the one that pushed my book out of the #1 slot on Amazon's Entrepreneur charts. Quite an honor.)
Jeff Atwood's Review:
This is the book that introduced the world to the concept of personas: rather than thinking of users as an abstract, difficult-to-describe, amorphous group of people, personas instruct us to talk about specific users who have names, personalities, needs, and goals. Would our users want a print preview feature? Who knows? But if Gerry Manheim, Account Executive, has to print out his weekly expense report as a part of his job, you better believe print preview needs to be in there. There's nothing magical here; as always, it boils down to knowing who your users are and what they really do – and the personas technique is a great way to get there.
There's also an interesting analysis here of how developers tend to think themselves qualified to make usability decisions on behalf of "regular" users, when in reality they're anything but. Developers are freakish, extreme users at best– "Homo Logicus" versus "Homo Sapiens." Unless you happen to be writing a compiler where developers are the end users.
One hidden lesson in this book is that sometimes it doesn't matter how good your design is: the scanner software and the web development software which Alan consulted on, and uses as examples in this book, both failed in the marketplace for reasons that had nothing to do with their usability– which was verifiably excellent.* Sometimes great products fail for reasons beyond your control, no matter how hard you try. Feel free to use this fact to counterbalance the sometimes bombastic tone of the book.
* I owned the exact model of "behind the keyboard" USB scanner pictured in the book, and I was quite impressed with the bundled scanning software. I eventually gave this scanner to my Dad. One time I was chatting on the phone with him and without any prompting at all, he mentioned to me how much he liked the scanning software. This was before the book had been published!
Ref: https://blog.codinghorror.com/recommended-reading-for-developers/
Joel Spolsky's Review:
The management training program we're starting up here at Fog Creek will take about three years and will be relatively intensive. Among other things, there will be a required reading list consisting of about 75 books (we're working on the theory here of one book every two weeks). We're trying to collect a combination of
This is my very first-draft list. By the time we get started a lot of these books will be replaced with better books, I hope; if you have any suggestions please feel free to email them to me.
Ref: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum.html
Steve Blank's Review:
The Inmates are Running the Asylum, is about product design. It had the same impact on me as Moore’s Crossing the Chasm – “why of course, that’s what’s wrong.” It’s important and articulate.
Steve Yegge's Review:
I read a neat book called Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely. The book is a fascinating glimpse into several bizarre and unfortunate bugs in our mental software. These bugs cause us to behave in weird but highly predictable ways in a bunch of everyday situations.
For instance, one chapter explains why bringing an uglier version of yourself to a party is guaranteed to get you more attention than other people who are arguably better-looking than you are. I personally do this all the time, except that I'm usually the ugly one. The same principle explains a ploy used by real-estate agents to get you to buy ugly houses.
Another chapter explains the bug that causes you to be a packrat, and shows why you desperately hold on to things you own, even if you know deep down that they would rate lower than pocket lint on eBay.
In any case, well, good book. I'm going to harsh on it a teeny bit here, but it's only one tiny part towards the end, one that actually has little to do with the rest of the research presented in the book. I still highly recommend it. It's only about a 4- or 5-hour read: beyond the reach of most social-network commenters, perhaps, but you can probably handle it just fine.
So: about that harshing. Dan Ariely, who seems like a pretty fascinating guy in his own right, independent of his nifty book, says something that's kinda naïve towards the end. It doesn't seem naïve at all when you first read it. But naïve it is.
Towards the end of the book — and I apologize here, since my copy is on loan to a friend at the moment, and you can't search inside the book on Amazon.com no-thanks to the book's publisher, so I can't double check the exact details — but towards the end, Dan works himself into a minor frenzy over what seems like a neat idea about credit cards.
Vinod Khosla's Review:
In this newly revised and expanded edition of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller, Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, we consistently overpay, underestimate and procrastinate. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They’re systematic and predictable—making us predictably irrational.
Max Levchin's Review:
Personally, I prefer less advice, more history. From my favorite business segment: Too Big To Fail, Ascent of Money, When Genius Failed, etc. Books on applied psychology (Influence, Predictably Irrational) are another way to round out primarily technological education.
Ref: https:[email protected][email protected]musk-296d15521d3
Derek Sivers's Review:
My favorite type of book: pointing out and understanding all of the counter-intuitive things people do.
Steve Yegge's Review:
OK, but what about Firefox? Why don't they, you know, innovate? Well, they're trying, I think, but for what I'm guessing are probably tangled historical reasons — which manifest as the developers often being gridlocked politically — Mozilla lacks what Fred Brooks Jr. calls "conceptual integrity" in his classic "The Mythical Man-Month". [Which, incidentally, remains today the most vitally relevant book on software engineering, over 30 years after it was written.] The Mozilla folks would have to do a lotof serious re-thinking in order to reduce XUL's "Hello, World" down to a few lines of code in a single language. And I'm not convinced that kind of thinking is happening in the Firefox camp right now. It's not that they're not thinking at all; don't get me wrong. They're just not thinking about radical, revolutionary user-level simplifications to the basic framework.
Joel Spolsky's Review:
Certainly one of the classics of software project management, this book first appeared a quarter of a century ago, when Fred Brooks tried to run one of the first very large scale software engineering projects (the OS/360 operating system at IBM) and became the first person to describe how radically different software is from other types of engineering. This book is most famous for discovering the principle that adding more programmers to an already-late project makes it later, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. Understanding this book is a prerequisite for thinking correctly about managing software teams.
Ref: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navlinks/fog0000000262.html
Jeff Bezos's Review:
An influential computer scientist makes the counter-intuitive argument that small groups of engineers are more effective than larger ones at handling complex software projects. The book lays out the theory behind Amazon’s two pizza teams.
Ref: https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/10/jeff-bezoss-reading-list/
Steve Blank's Review:
. If you write software you already know about Fred Brooks classic text the Mythical Man Month. If you manage a software company you need to read it so you don’t act like Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss.
James Altucher's Review:
This book belong to a list top ten books to expand your brain by James Altucher
And throw in “The Black Swan” and “Fooled by Randomness”.
“Fragile” means if you hit something might break.
“Resilient” means if you hit something, it will stay the same.
On my podcast Nassim discusses “Antifragility” – building a system, even on that works for you on a personal level, where you if you harm your self in some way it becomes stronger.
That podcast changed my life
He discusses Antifragility throughout history, up to our current economic situation, and even in our personal situations
Ref: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2015/09/books-brain-expand/
Malcolm Gladwell's Review:
"[Taleb is] Wall Street’s principal dissident. . . . [Fooled By Randomness] is to conventional Wall Street wisdom approximately what Martin Luther’s ninety-nine theses were to the Catholic Church.
Naval Ravikant's Book Recommendations: A collection of books recommended by @Naval
Ref: https:[email protected]/collections/naval-s-book-recommendations
Ryan Holiday
's Review:
Frankl is one of the most profound modern thinkers on meaning and purpose. His contribution was to change the question from the vague philosophy of “What is the meaning of life?” to man being asked and forced to answer with his actions. He looks at how we find purpose by dedicating ourselves to a cause, learning to love and finding a meaning to our suffering. His other two books on the topic, Will To Meaning and Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning have gems in them as well.
Sam Altman's Review:
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose.
James Altucher's Review:
This book belong to a list top ten books to expand your brain by James Altucher
I’m at a loss for words here. Just read it.
Don’t read it for the Holocaust. Or psychological theory.
Read it because when you’re about halfway through you will realize your life is no longer the same.
And next time you get a chance to whisper in the ear of someone about to kill himself, whisper words from this book.
Ref: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2015/09/books-brain-expand/
Charlie Munger's Review:
The book sheds light on the horrible experiences of Auschwitz and what they taught Viktor Frankl about life, love, and our search for meaning. When all seems hopeless, why is it that some people push forward while others subside.
Ref: https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/08/book-recommendations-from-billionaire-charlie-munger/
James Altucher's Review:
This book belong to a list top ten books to expand your brain by James Altucher
Gladwell is not the first person to come up with the 10,000 hour rule. Nor is he the first person to document what it takes to become the best in the world at something.
But his stories are so great as he explains these deep concepts.
How did the Beatles become the best? Why are professional hockey players born in January, February and March?
And so on.
Ref: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2015/09/books-brain-expand/
Bill Gates's Review:
How Do Some Become so Successful?
This is an interesting look at how some people become high-achievers. Disclaimer: I'm mentioned in the book.
Ref: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Outliers
Charlie Munger's Review:
Recommended in Wesco Annual Meetings.
Ref: http://www.mymentalmodels.info/charlie-munger-reading-list/
Fabio Sasso's Review:
It's been quite a while since the last time I recommended a book. It's not because I haven't read any new books lately, it's just because I felt that the books I read weren't exactly worth sharing here. That's not the case of the book I want to talk about today. It's The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Richby Timothy Ferriss. I think this book has really cool tips on how to increase your productivity and improve your lifestyle.
I've been hearing about this book for some time now but I was always a bit reticent about reading despite the fact I am a Tim Ferriss fan and follower. Once I started reading it I was still a bit hesitant but it didn't take too long to change my mind and start trying to apply some of the tips to my own life. I won't spoil it and I know that everyone of us is different but a lot of things in this book are true gold.
Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less
This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:
You might ask me, doesn't all of that sound too much of a BS? I feel that you can take everything with a grain of salt or you can embrace, get excited and try to exercise the ideas to improve your own life. It's a win win situation, and for me, if he did it, why can't we?
Ref: http://abduzeedo.com/4-hour-workweek-escape-9-5-live-anywhere
James Altucher's Review:
This book is listed in recommended reading list from 'The James Altucher Show'
But the first thing I do is read all of their books. Here are some of the guests and some of their books, in no particular order. I recommend all of the below books. If I didn’t like a book, I wouldn’t have them on the show.
TIM FERRISS
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/
Ref: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2014/08/the-james-altucher-show-reading-list-and-why/
Derek Sivers's Review:
Brilliant reversal of all of the “how to manage all your crap” books. This one tells you how to say “no” to the crap, set expectations on your terms, and be just as effective in a fraction of the time. This is perfect for musicians with other responsibilities (day jobs) that need more free time to actually make music!
James Altucher's Review:
This book is listed in recommended reading list from 'The James Altucher Show'
But the first thing I do is read all of their books. Here are some of the guests and some of their books, in no particular order. I recommend all of the below books. If I didn’t like a book, I wouldn’t have them on the show.
ROBERT GREENE
http://www.powerseductionandwar.com
Ryan Holiday
's Review:
There is no living writer (or person) who has been more influential to me thanRobert Greene. I met him when I was 19 years old and he’s shaped me as a person, as a writer, as a thinker. You MUST read his books. His work on power and strategy are critical for anyone trying to accomplish anything. In life, power is force we are constantly bumping up against. People have power of over us, we seek power ourselves that we might be free enough and influential enough to accomplish our goals—so we must understand where power comes from, how it works and how to get it. But pure power is meaningless. It must be joined to mastery and purpose. So read his book Masteryso that you can figure your life’s task and how to dedicate yourself to it.
James Altucher's Review:
This book belong to a list top ten books to expand your brain by James Altucher
This book is like a curated version of 1000 biographies all under the guise, “how to become a master at what you love”.
Ref: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2015/09/books-brain-expand/
James Altucher's Review:
Oh my god, another list of books I should read! I can’t help it, though.
These are the books I return to when I need help, guidance, solace in my life.
I’m going to cheat. I’m not going to look at my kindle to see what I’ve read. Forgive me if I get a title or an author’s name wrong.
If I can remember the books, then it means they had some impact on me. If I can’t remember them, then why would I recommend them?
For each one of these books: either they made me a better person, or I felt, even as I was reading them, that my IQ was getting better. Or, in the case of fiction, I felt like my writing was getting better by reading the book.
Or I simply escaped to another world. I like to travel to other worlds. To pretend to be a character in someone else’s story.
I think if you can find even one takeaway in a book that you remember afterwards, then it’s a great book.
Remember: It’s hard to remember more than 1% of a book.
Time is the ultimate judge of wisdom. How you bounce back from misery and despair in order to thrive. I hope I learned that from these books.
Andrew Warner's Review:
I highly recommend @sivers' new book. Full of well-written stories based on real experience, each with a clear message http://bit.ly/mzTxRn
Ref: https://twitter.com/AndrewWarner/status/86892165917184000
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