Alfred Sloan’s My Years with General Motors is a great read, but not for the traditional reasons. Read it from the point of view of an entrepreneur (Durant) who’s built a great company by gut and instinct, got it to $200M and is replaced by the board. Then watches as a world-class bureaucrat grows into one of the largest and best run companies in the world. Make sure you read it in conjunction with Sloan Rules and A Ghost’s Memoir. If you’re an entrepreneur the one founder you probably never heard of but should is William Durant. Read Madsen’s biography.