Reading List
The books for what you are building.
Tell us your business model, industry and stage, or how you invest, and get the books worth your time, picked from 30,000 on building and backing companies. Chosen by ratings and what they are about.
Atomic HabitsJames Clear · 4.31★
FreakonomicsSteven D. Levitt · 4.01★
The Tipping PointMalcolm Gladwell · 4.01★
Rich Dad Poor DadRobert T. Kiyosaki · 4.08★
BlinkMalcolm Gladwell · 3.96★
Thinking, Fast and SlowDaniel Kahneman · 4.16★
The Art of WarSun Tzu · 3.94★Change your answersFounder · AI and data · Seed
Your reading list
The best matches for everything you told us, ranked.
- 1
Genius Makers
The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World
Cade Metz · 2021
4.263,395 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
"This colorful page-turner puts artificial intelligence into a human perspective. Through the lives of Geoff Hinton and other major players, Metz explains this transformative technology and makes the quest thrilling." Walter Isaacson, author of The Code…
- 2
The Connection Algorithm
Take Risks, Defy the Status Quo, and Live Your Passions
Jesse Tevelow · 2015
3.73450 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
A #1 Bestseller in Entrepreneurship A #1 Bestseller in Management A #1 Bestseller in Personal Success A #1 Bestseller in Knowledge Capital "Young Jesse Tevelow is on to something. His new book, The Connection Algorithm, is chock full of phenomenal strategies…
- 3
A World Without Work
Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond
Daniel Susskind · 2020
3.821,975 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice From an Oxford economist, a visionary account of how technology will transform the world of work, and what we should do about it From mechanical looms to the combustion engine to the first computers, new…
- 4
Human + machine
Paul R. Daugherty · 2018
28 Open Library reading lists
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how we work right now. Are you ready? In the past, robots were typically large pieces of machinery, sectioned off from human workers to perform precise, mechanical tasks on an assembly line. But now, bots and other…
- 5
The Thinking Machine
Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip
Stephen Witt · 2025
4.295,636 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
“Stephen Witt’s deep reporting shines through every page of The Thinking Machine. The result is a page-turning biography of perhaps the most consequential CEO and company in the world.”, David Epstein, New York Times bestselling author of Range Nvidia is…
- 6
The Future Is Faster Than You Think
How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives
Peter H. Diamandis · 2020
4.135,412 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
From the New York Times bestselling authors of Abundance and Bold comes a practical playbook for technological convergence in our modern era.In their book Abundance, bestselling authors and futurists Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler tackled grand global…
- 7
The Infinity Machine
Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence
Sebastian Mallaby · 2026
4.423,320 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
From one of our leading chroniclers of the intersection of innovation and capitalism, a landmark reckoning, based on unprecedented access, with one of the world’s most brilliant and driven tech visionaries and his game-changing company.Even by the standard…
- 8
Exponential
How Accelerating Technology Is Leaving Us Behind and What to Do About It
Azeem Azhar · 2021
3.981,363 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
*2021 Financial Times Best Book of the Year* A bold exploration and call-to-arms over the widening gap between AI, automation, and big data, and our ability to deal with its effects We are living in the first exponential age. High-tech innovations are…
Books on ai and data.
- 1
- 2
The Optimist
Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future
Keach Hagey · 2025
3.791,312 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
From an acclaimed Wall Street Journal reporter comes the first biography of the enigmatic leader of the AI revolution, charting his ascent within the tech world as well as his ambitions for this powerful new technology. On November 30, 2022, OpenAI…
- 3
Blood in the Machine
The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech
Brian Merchant · 2023
4.192,069 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
Longlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year The "rich and gripping" true story of the first time machines came for human jobs, and how the Luddite uprising explains the power, threat, and toll of big tech and AI today (Naomi Klein) The most…
- 4
The Scaling Era
An Oral History of AI, 2019–2025
Dwarkesh Patel · 2025
3.87570 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
An inside view of the AI revolution, from the people and companies making it happen.How did we build large language models? How do they think, if they think? What will the world look like if we have billions of AIs that are as smart as humans, or even…
- 5
The Industries of the Future
Alec J. Ross · 2016
3.968,471 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
This book answers the question: 'What's next?' The Internet had a world-changing impact on businesses and the global community over the twenty years from 1994 to 2014. In the next ten years, change will happen even faster. As Hillary Clinton's Senior…
- 6
The Art of Statistics
How to Learn from Data
David Spiegelhalter · 2019
4.155,969 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
In this "important and comprehensive" guide to statistical thinking ( New Yorker ), discover how data literacy is changing the world and gives you a better understanding of life’s biggest problems. Statistics are everywhere, as integral to science as…
- 7
Future Ethics
Cennydd Bowles · 2018
4.29273 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
‘Eloquent, insightful and utterly a must read for anyone who is inventing the future or cares about living in it.’, Christina Wodtke, Stanford University ‘Cennydd’s long-lens view of ethics is exactly what designers, product managers and builders of today’s…
- 8
Machine, Platform, Crowd
Harnessing Our Digital Future
Andrew McAfee · 2017
4.042,898 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
“A clear and crisply written account of machine intelligence, big data and the sharing economy. But McAfee and Brynjolfsson also wisely acknowledge the limitations of their futurology and avoid over-simplification.” ― Financial Times In The Second Machine Age…
Published in the last three years, newest first, for what you told us.
- 1
Supremacy
AI, ChatGPT, and the Race That Will Change the World
Parmy Olson · 2024
4.046,375 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
In November of 2022, a webpage was posted online with a simple text box. It was an AI chatbot called ChatGPT, and was unlike any app people had used before. It was more human than a customer service agent, more convenient than a Google search. Behind the…
- 2
Reshuffle
Who wins when AI restacks the knowledge economy
Sangeet Paul Choudary · 2025
4.32316 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
What happens when the “know-how” that once defined expertise migrates from humans to AI tools? How do organizations reorganize when machines take over not just tasks but entire workflows? And most importantly, how does this reshaping of knowledge work change…
- 3
The Technological Republic
Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
Alexander C. Karp · 2025
3.533,868 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A cri de coeur that takes aim at the tech industry for abandoning its history of helping America and its allies.”, The Wall Street Journal From the Palantir co-founder, one of tech’s boldest thinkers and The…
- 4
Simple Marketing For Smart People
The One Question You Need to Win Customers without Gimmicks, Hype, or Hard Selling
Billy Broas · 2024
4.35305 ratings · Goodreads
Marketing and growthFirst salesCompany building
About the book
Why do so many smart people struggle with marketing? The answer is smart people love complexity, and complexity brews problems. Does your marketing feel like it has way too many moving parts? If so, Simple Marketing for Smart People is the solution you’ve…
- 5
The Pricing Roadmap
How to Design B2B SaaS Pricing Models That Your Customers Will Love
Ulrik Lehrskov-Schmidt · 2023
4.43207 ratings · Goodreads
Finding product-market fitCompany building
About the book
"The definitive resource on SaaS pricing, I absolutely can not recommend this book enough." Viktor Heide, COO of Contractbook.com, Forbes "30 under 30" A foolproof method to achieve skyrocketing sales, growth, and profits for your software as a service…
- 6
Lean Marketing
More Leads. More Profit. Less Marketing.
Allan Dib · 2024
4.31452 ratings · Goodreads
Marketing and growthCompany building
About the book
Bigger Results with Less Marketing You keep being told to do more marketing―more complex, more aggressive, and more expensive marketing. Chasing the latest bright, shiny object is exhausting. Increased efforts keep leading to disappointment. The overwhelm…
How companies like yours were actually built, from the people who built them.
- 1
Sam Walton, Made in America
My Story
Sam Walton · 1992
4.1628,881 ratings · Goodreads
Founder storiesCompany building
About the book
As Sam Walton himself said, this is "...a story about entrepreneurship, and risk, and hard work, and knowing where you want to go and being willing to do what it takes to get there. And it's a story about believing in your idea even when maybe some other…
- 2
Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson · 2011
4.161,391,990 ratings · Goodreads
Founder storiesCompany building
About the book
Walter Isaacson's worldwide bestselling biography of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years--as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and…
- 3
Power and Progress
Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
Daron Acemoğlu · 2023
3.942,496 ratings · Goodreads
AI and dataCompany building
About the book
The bestselling co-author of Why Nations Fail and the bestselling co-author of 13 Bankers deliver a bold reinterpretation of economics and history that will fundamentally change how you see the world A thousand years of history and contemporary evidence…
- 4
Shoe Dog
A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
Phil Knight · 2016
4.45389,310 ratings · Goodreads
Founder storiesCompany building
About the book
In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable…
- 5
Heartland
A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
Sarah Smarsh · 2018
3.7616,921 ratings · Goodreads
Founder stories
About the book
During Sarah Smarsh’s turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country’s changing economic policies solidified her family’s place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the…
- 6
The Big Rich
The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes
Bryan Burrough · 2009
4.093,394 ratings · Goodreads
Founder storiesCompany building
About the book
In The Big Rich, bestselling author and Vanity Fair special correspondent Bryan Burrough chronicles the rise and fall of one of the great economic and political powerhouses of the twentieth century, Texas oil. By weaving together the epic sagas of the…
What founders at seed keep coming back to, if you have not read them yet.
- 1
Crossing the Chasm
Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
Geoffrey A. Moore · 2002
4.0332,109 ratings · Goodreads
Marketing and growthCompany buildingFirst sales
About the book
Here is the bestselling guide that created a new game plan for marketing in high-tech industries. Crossing the Chasm has become the bible for bringing cutting-edge products to progressively larger markets. This edition provides new insights into the realities…
- 2
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
Violate Them at Your Own Risk
Al Ries · 1993
4.0522,738 ratings · Goodreads
Marketing and growthCompany building
About the book
There are laws of nature, so why shouldn't there be laws of marketing? As Al Ries and Jack Trout, the world-renowned marketing consultants and bestselling authors of Positioning, note, you can build an impressive airplane, but it will never leave the ground if…
- 3
Building A Story Brand
Donald Miller · 2017
4.2726,500 ratings · Goodreads
Marketing and growthCompany building
About the book
New York Times bestselling author Donald Miller uses the seven universal elements of powerful stories to teach readers how to dramatically improve how they connect with customers and grow their businesses. Donald Miller’s StoryBrand process is a proven…
- 4
Bad Blood
Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
John Carreyrou · 2018
4.40285,283 ratings · Goodreads
Company building
About the book
The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end in the face of pressure and threats from the CEO and her lawyers. In…
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Which books we recommend never depends on it: they are chosen from their ratings and what they are about.
From the record
Written by the people who write the cheques
Books by investors and founders we hold records for. The author links to what they have done, not just what they wrote.
The Lean Startupby Eric Ries, Eric Ries2011 · 4.11★L
Lean Inby Sheryl Sandberg, Meta2013 · 3.94★T
The Hard Thing About Hard Thingsby Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz2014 · 4.19★D
Delivering Happinessby Tony Hsieh, Tony Hsieh2000 · 4.04★#
#Girlbossby Sophia Amoruso2014 · 3.64★T
The One Thingby Gary Keller, Pocketchange Investments2012 · 4.12★P
Principlesby Ray Dalio2017 · 4.09★Read what the people you are pitching read.
Every investor and founder on our records links to their books and the podcasts they are on.