50 books that inspire Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other tech titans

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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We all know that the most successful entrepreneurs and CEOs have a great appetite for reading. But what books do they remember? Which ones do they recommend?

With help from software company Sage’s “By the Book” interactive infographic, CNBC Make It rounded up all-time favorites of today’s tech leaders, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

If you’re looking for an inspiring read this Memorial Day weekend, here are 50 great options.

Bill Gates
Co-founder of Microsoft

• “Business Adventures” by John Brooks
• “How Not to Be Wrong” by Jordan Ellenberg
• “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari
• “The Power to Compete” by Hiroshi Mikitani and Ryoichi Mikitani
• “String Theory” by David Foster Wallace
• “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight
• “Leonardo da Vinci” by Walter Isaacson
• “Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved” by Kate Bowler
• “Lincoln in the Bardo” by George Saunders
• “Origin Story: A Big History of Everything” by David Christian
• “Factfulness” by Hans Rosling

Mark Zuckerberg
Co-founder and CEO of Facebook

• “Portfolios of the Poor” by Daryl Collins
• “Creativity, Inc.” by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
• “The Idea Factory” by Jon Gertner
• “Dealing with China” by Henry M. Paulson

Jeff Bezos
Founder and CEO of Amazon

• “Built to Last” by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras
• “Creation” by Steve Grand
• “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Clayton Christensen
• “Sam Walton: Made in America” by Sam Walton
• “Lean Thinking” by James Womanck and Daniel Jones
• “Memos from the Chairman” by Alan Greenberg

Elon Musk
Co-founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, founder and CEO of SpaceX

• “Structures” by J.E. Gordon
• “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” by Walter Isaacson
• “Einstein: His Life and Universe” by Walter Isaacson
• “Superintelligence” by Nick Bostrom
• “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

Sheryl Sandberg
COO of Facebook

• “Why Nations Fail” by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
• “The Rational Optimist” by Matt Ridley
• “Now, Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton
• “The Muqaddimah” by Ibn Khaldun
• “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander

Melinda Gates
Co-founder of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

• “Change by Design” by Tim Brown
• “However Long the Night” by Aimee Molloy and Molly Melching
• “In the Company of the Poor” by Paul Farmer

Satya Nadella
CEO of Microsoft

• “Pressed for Time” by Judy Wajcman
• “The End of Absence” by Michael Harris
• “The Organized Mind” by Daniel J. Levitin

Jack Dorsey
Co-founder and CEO of Twitter, co-founder and CEO of Square

• “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman
• “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• “The Four Agreements” by Miguel Ruiz
• “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande
• “The Score Takes Care of Itself” by Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison and Craig Walsh

Tony Hsieh
CEO of Zappos

• “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell
• “Crush It!” by Gary Vaynerchuk
• “Peak” by Chip Conley
• “The $100 Startup” by Chris Guillebeau

Peter Thiel
Co-founder of PayPal, co-founder of Palantir

• “The American Challenge” by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber
• “The Great Illusion” by Norman Angell
• “The Right Stuff” by Tom Wolfe
• “Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World” by Rene Girard, Stephen Bann and Michael Metteer

Source: Make It, CNBC.com

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow