22 CEOs Favorite Books – Books that Influence

Initial Thoughts on Books that Influence CEOs

Are you looking for recommendations for which books to read next? Do you want to emulate successful people? Are you interested in CEOs favorite books? Twenty-two CEOs reveal the books that have influenced them. The list is eclectic and there is something for everyone.

What I would recommend is that you choose books from genres that you like, but to also venture into the world of the unknown and read genres that you are unfamiliar with. Science fiction is a genre that I have never cared for, but a few years ago, I started off with Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, and now I am much more comfortable reading books from the genre. I do not enjoy all of them, but I always learn something new.

FoundationFoundation and EmpirePrelude to Foundation Foundation and EarthFoundation’s Edge (Foundation Novels)Forward the FoundationThe Complete Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series Books 1-7 

I also didn’t care for historical fiction, and now I am enjoying the genre. The point I am trying to make, is that it is important to step into your zone of discomfort and try something new. You may not like what you find out, but then again you might. I am not a history buff, and history was never my favorite subject in school, but historical fiction brings life to certain topics, and helps to give context to a time very different from our own. With any genre, there is a range of books, and you will likely find some that you will like.

Related Post: Using Historical Fiction to Connect Past and Present

For instance, I learned about His Fair Assassin Trilogy from a young adult and I enjoyed the series because of the strong female characters. If I didn’t open myself to a different experience, I would never have read the series. Which new genre are you prepared to start reading?

Grave Mercy: His Fair Assassin, Book IDark Triumph: His Fair Assassins, Book IIMortal Heart (His Fair Assassin Trilogy)His Fair Assassin Trilogy (3 Book Series)

Related Posts

Book Review: Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
A Look At Foundation’s Edge, Foundation and Earth and Forward the Foundation By Isaac Asimov
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Book Review
The Republic, one of the Great Dialogues of Plato

CEOs Favorite Books: Books that Influence CEOs 

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos

• Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (Harper Business Essentials), Jim Collins and Jerry Porras
• A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet), Madeleine L’Engle
• The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

Steve Jobs, Apple

• King Lear, William Shakespeare
• The Republic (Penguin Classics), Plato
• Moby- Dick (Signet Classics), Herman Melville
• The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business, Clayton Christensen
• Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda

Tim Cook, Apple

• Competing Against Time: How Time-Based Competition is Reshaping Global Markets, George Stalk

Larry Ellison, Oracle

• Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography., Vincent Cronin

Bill Gates, Microsoft Founder

• The Catcher in the Rye, J D Salinger
• The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Steven Pinker

Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway

• In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington, Robert Rubin and Jacob Weisberg
• The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
• Bull: A History of the Boom and Bust, 1982-2004, Maggie Mahar

Josh James, Domo

• Jack: Straight from the Gut, Jack Welch
• From Worst to First: Behind the Scenes of Continental’s Remarkable Comeback, Scott Huler and Gordon M. Bethune
• Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers, Geoffrey A. Moore
• Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson
• The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, Brad Stone

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh

• Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization, Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright
• Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow, Chip Conley
• The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, Jonathan Haidt

Muhtar Kent, Coca Cola

• The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, Niall Ferguson

Jim Quigley, Deloitte & Touche

• Make It In America, Updated Edition: The Case for Re-Inventing the Economy, Andrew Liveris

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

• Ender’s Game (The Ender Quintet), Orson Scott Card
• The Aeneid (Penguin Classics), Virgil

Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin

• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell

Randall Stephenson, AT&T

• The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Ken Powell, General Mills

• Freedom: A Novel (Oprah’s Book Club), Jonathan Franzen
• The Corrections: A Novel, Jonathan Franzen

Larry Page, Google

• “What Do You Care What Other People Think?”: Further Adventures of a Curious Character, Richard Feynman
• Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character), Richard Feynman
• The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman (Helix Books), Richard Feynman
• QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (Princeton Science Library), Richard Feynman
• Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book), Neal Stephenson

Meg Whitman, Hewlett Packard

• The New American Story, Bill Bradley
• A Christmas Carol (Dover Thrift Editions), Charles Dickens
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t, James Collins
• The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, Thomas Friedman
• Hot, Flat and Crowded, Thomas L. Friedman
• Politics Lost: From RFK to W: How Politicians Have Become Less Courageous and More Interested in Keeping Power than in Doing What’s Right for America, Joe Klein

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan

• The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, Thomas Friedman
• Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America (Simon & Schuster Lincoln Library), Gary Wills
• A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
• Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond
• Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos, M Mitchell Waldrop

Elon Musk, Spacex/Tesla

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

James Gorman, Morgan Stanley

• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: A George Smiley Novel, John le Carre

Richard Branson, Virgin

• Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943, Antony Beevor
• Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, Jung Chang
• Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela

Jack Dorsey, Square/Twitter

• The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Atul Gawande

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo

• The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition, Donald Norman

22 CEOs Favorite Books: Key Takeaway

The most successful CEOs are readers, but the books that they read are diverse, therefore, the major lesson here is to read broadly and deeply.

What to do Next – 3 Ways to Apply this Information

1. Each month, read one book from the list. At the end of the year, you would have read 12 books that have influenced some of the most successful CEOs.
2. Make notes of information from each of the 12 the books that you can apply to your work.
3. Apply the new information, and teach to share with your colleagues.

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