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Reading list

Here’s a list of books and podcasts that I’ve been reading over the last few years.

Current reading:
Q2-Q3 2020

  • Permanent Record – Edward Snowden
  • Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems – Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo
  • The Ride of a Lifetime – Robert Iger (former CEO of Disney) – DONE
  • The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life – Mark Mason – DONE
  • Being Mortal – Atul Gawande
  • The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work – Shawn Achor – IN PROGRESS
  • Humankind – Rutger Bregman – DONE
  • Atomic Habits – James Clear – DONE
  • Everybody Lies: what the internet can tell us about who we really are – Seth Stephens-Davidowitz – DONE
  • Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber – Mike Isaac – DONE
  • Platform Revolution – Parker, Van Alstyne, Choudary – IN PROGRESS / UNFINISHED

Interesting podcasts

Books I’ve read in the past which are good

MANAGEMENT / BUILDING BUSINESSES

  • What you do is who you are – Ben Horowitz
  • The 5 Dysfunctions of a team (Leadership Fable) – Patrick Lencioni
  • The Alliance – Reid Hoffman
  • Leading – Alex Ferguson (with Michael Moritz)
  • Blitzscaling – Reid Hoffman
  • What to ask the person in the Mirror – Robert Kaplan
  • The Weekly Coaching Conversation – Brian Souza
  • Traction: A start-up guide to getting customers – Gabriel Weinberg, Justin Mares
  • The Checklist Manifesto – Atul Gawande
  • The Alliance: Managing talent in the networked age – Reid Hoffman
  • High Output Management – Andrew Grove
  • Build it: The Rebel Playbook for World-Class Employee Engagement – Glenn Elliott, Debra Corey
  • Scaling Up: How a few companies make it, and the rest don’t – Verne Harnish
  • The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100m – Mark Roberge
  • Predictable Revenue – Aaron Ross & Marylou Tyler
  • To Sell is Human – Daniel H. Pink
  • Principles – Ray Dalio (Part 2 & 3 mandatory, Part 1 optional)

GENERAL BUSINESS / BUSINESS BIOGRAPHY

  • What it takes – Stephen Schwarzman (founder of Blackstone)
  • Billion Dollar Whale – Tim Wright, Bradley Hope (Story of 1MDB)
  • Bad Blood – John Carreyrou (Story of Theranos)
  • Creativity Inc – Ed Catmull (Story of Pixar)
  • The Airbnb Story – Leigh Gallagher
  • The Hard Thing about Hard Things – Ben Horowitz
  • Shoe Dog – Phil Knight (Story of Nike)
  • Jack Ma’s Alibaba – Duncan Clark
  • Sam Walton – Made in America – Sam Walton (founder of Walmart)
  • How Google Works – Eric Schmidt
  • Zero to One – Peter Thiel
  • Hatching Twitter – Nick Bilton
  • Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonalds: Ray Croc
  • Titan – Ron Chernow (biography of Rockefeller)
  • Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future – Ashlee Vance
  • Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson
  • The Everything Store (Amazon) – Brad Stone
  • Losing My Virginity – Richard Branson (Story of Virgin)
  • Finding my Virginity – Richard Branson (Story of Virgin)
  • Delivering Happiness – Tony Hsieh (founder of Zappos)

ECONOMICS / PHILOSOPHY / POLITICS

  • Thinking Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
  • Homo Deus – Yuval Harari
  • Tribe: On homecoming & Belonging – Sebastian Junger
  • The Righteous Mind – Jonathan Haidt
  • Fooled by Randomness – The hidden role of chance in life and in the markets – Nassim Taleb

HISTORY

  • Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations – Ronen Bergman
  • Sapiens – Yuval Harari

SCIENCE

  • Why We Sleep – Matthew Walker 
  • How Not To Die – Dr. Michael Greger (more of a manual of what to eat within vegan diet)
  • Drugs – Without the Hot Air – David Nutt