Reading has always been vitally important for me. Most founders don’t read enough — and as a result, they miss out on a lot of accumulated wisdom and make a lot of avoidable mistakes.
It’s helpful to have variety. As a CEO you need to know 1) what your company should do and 2) how to get the company to do it. These are very different things.
Here are some of my favorites:
What the company should do (strategy):
- Playing to Win by A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin
- Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt
- Innovator’s Dilemma by Clay Christensen and Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
How to run the company effectively:
- High Output Management by Andy Grove (my favorite book on management)
- The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
It also helps to get a sense of the adventure and chaos that come with starting a company:
- Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
- The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
Finally, I’ve found it helpful to look beyond tech and business. Many startup or business challenges are really universal human challenges:
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
- Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger
- The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-important-books-for-startup-founders-to-read/answer/Drew-Houston
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