Autobiographies/Memoirs
Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business - A classic no one speaks of and one of my favorite biographies dedicated to a business icon.
Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike - Quickly become an all-time great read.
The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company - Second best autobiography to Shoe Dog.
Am I Being Too Subtle? - A memoir from the brash mind and voice of Sam Zell. Nuff said.
Who is Michael Ovitz - Memoir from a top Hollywood agent with many business learnings.
Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built - A stock I will own for the next decade.
American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company - A turnaround legend.
Burn Book: A Tech Love Story - Can’t say I enjoyed this but if you want stories of tech personalities it might be worth your listen.
Business
Win At All Costs: Inside Nike Running and Its Culture of Deception - Incredible story of the lengths a company will go to “earn domination.”
Billion Dollar Fantasy: The High-Stakes Game Between FanDuel and DraftKings That Upended Sports in America - Very similar to high stake, high capital, low profitability turf wars playing out elsewhere.
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention - Title says it all. Reed and Team don’t care what you think. It worked for them.
Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber - Inside stories of founding, taking down founder and appointing new CEO. 2019’s Bad Blood.
Never Lost Again: The Google Mapping Revolution That Sparked New Industries and Augmented Our Reality - Incredible story of how Keyhole became an acquisition of Google that became Google Earth, Google Local and Google Maps. Geography based search context.
Wild Ride: Inside Uber's Quest for World Domination - This Kalanick post mortem is pass worthy.
Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble - Excessive culture that doesn't warrant a read.
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture - Classic story of partner divide fueled by passion and broken by greed and power.
Hit Makers: How to Succeed in an Age of Distraction - Creating a viral hit.
The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business - How scale, science, contractors and risk mitigation led to Tyson foods becoming one of the largest food processors in the world.
Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter - A number of versions of the story, this one in my opinion has the juiciest stores.
Skygods: The Fall of Pan Am - One of my favorites. A story of travel, business and mergers.
Crime
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon - Not my favorite Michael Lewis book and felt as though the 60 Minutes interview was enough to read the book.
Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork - From inception to Softbank capital infusion, the exuberance and over confidence are something to marvel at.
Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, And The World - The excess, greed and guilt in this unbelievable tale makes Bernie Madoff look like an amateur.
Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street - Insider tips and edges will always exist in the markets.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup - Tale of smoke and mirrors with FOMO investors. Incredible tale.
The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and a Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History - Complex scam in a digestible read.
Red Card: How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World’s Biggest Sports Scandal - Fascinating tale about the corruption of FIFA and Cup bribes in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road - PayPal started using illegal goods trade, so did Bitcoin.
Crypto
Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud - Entertaining with some short stories on some of the crypto heroes and villains.
Bitcoin Billionaires: A True Store of Genius, Betrayal, and Redemption - Entertaining but limited value in understanding BTC.
Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond - Fantastic overview of buying and holding assets as cyrpto utility kicks in.
eCommerce
Billion Dollar Brand Club: The Rebel Startups Disrupting Industry Empires - Good primer for DTC revolution in goods and services.
Improvement
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art - I haven’t stopped breathing thru my nose since finishing this book.
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams - Changed my habits literally overnight. One that I will come back every few years to remind me of the importance of sleep.
Creative Selection: Inside the Apple Design Process - The inside story of the design of Safari (as Microsoft Internet Explorer dominates) and the iPhone.
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It - The book on negotiating.
Marketing/Advertising
Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business and Life - Thinking about the unconventional leading to success starting with the example of Red Bull. An instant success for a beverage that tastes like garbage.
Market/Finance
Flash Crash: A Trading Savant, a Global Manhunt, and the Most Mysterious Market Crash in History - A timely story given the craziness around the Gamestop rise and fall.
The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution - Where it all began that led to copycats and the harvesting of big data in efficient markets.
The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success - Unknown CEOs focused on creating true shareholder value.
The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend - If anything, this book now makes me view Ray Dalio with a completely difference lens.
Social/Search
No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram - Enthralling story of how Facebook and big tech acquires by running independently until founders are worn down and eventually the company is absorbed into the acquiring entity.
Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral - Can you resist a story about Buzzfeed exploding via listicles and then falling apart with poor journalism?
Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe - A lead investor’s mea culpa on Facebook.
The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Capitalism - How Facebook and Google are monopolies of this century and ultimately stifle innovation.
Personal Finance
Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes - Morgan provides quick takes on everything we need to be reminded of. A solid refresher you should pull out frequently.
The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness - The authoritative book on timeless, rational advice.