Best books for founders and investors

Your reading list

↻ Show different picks

The best matches for everything you told us, ranked.

1
This Changes Everything
Capitalism vs. The Climate
Naomi Klein · 2014
4.1628,175 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energy
About the book
Forget everything you think you know about global warming. It's not about carbon, it's about capitalism. The good news is that we can seize this crisis to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better. In her most provocative…
On Amazon Audible
2
More and More and More
An All-Consuming History of Energy – The International Bestseller on Climate Change and Fossil Fuels
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz · 2025
4.05520 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energy
About the book
The radical, paradigm-shifting international bestseller that destroys our delusions about energy consumption and will change the way we talk about climate change. We have long been taught that humanity’s relationship with energy is one of progress, with wood…
On Amazon Audible
3
The New Map
Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
Daniel Yergin · 2020
4.176,248 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
A Wall Street Journal besteller and a USA Today Best Book of 2020 Named Energy Writer of the Year for The New Map by the American Energy Society “ A master class on how the world works.”, NPR Pulitzer Prize-winning author and global energy expert,…
On Amazon Audible
4
Windfall
The Booming Business of Global Warming
McKenzie Funk · 2014
4.03673 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
A fascinating investigation into how people around the globe are cashing in on a warming world: McKenzie Funk has spent the last six years reporting around the world on how we are preparing for a warmer planet. Funk shows us that the best way to understand…
On Amazon Audible
5
The Ecology of Commerce
A Declaration of Sustainability
Paul Hawken · 1993
4.122,387 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
A visionary new program that businesses can follow to help restore the planet.
On Amazon Audible
6
A World of Three Zeros
The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions
Muhammad Yunus · 2017
3.681,723 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
A winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and bestselling author of Banker to the Poor offers his vision of an emerging new economic system that can save humankind and the planet Muhammad Yunus, who created microcredit, invented social business, and earned a Nobel…
On Amazon Audible
7
The Necessary Revolution
How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world.
Peter M. Senge · 2008
3.84522 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
Imagine a world in which the excess energy from one business would be used to heat another. Where buildings need less and less energy around the world, and where “regenerative” commercial buildings – ones that create more energy than they use – are being…
On Amazon Audible
8
The Day the World Stops Shopping
How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves
J.B. MacKinnon · 2021
4.135,441 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
Consuming less is our best strategy for saving the planet, but can we do it? In this thoughtful and surprisingly optimistic book, journalist J. B. MacKinnon investigates how we may achieve a world without shopping. We can’t stop shopping. And yet we must.…
On Amazon Audible

Books on climate and energy.

1
Taming the Sun
Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet
Varun Sivaram · 2018
4.06510 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyInnovation
About the book
How solar could spark a clean-energy transition through transformative innovation--creative financing, revolutionary technologies, and flexible energy systems. Solar energy, once a niche application for a limited market, has become the cheapest and…
On Amazon Audible
2
Race for Tomorrow
Survival, Innovation and Profit on the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis
Simon Mundy · 2022
4.22207 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyInnovationCompany building
About the book
In this extraordinary journey through twenty-six countries, Simon Mundy meets the people on the front lines of the climate crisis, showing how the struggle to respond is already reshaping the modern world – shattering communities, shaking up global business,…
On Amazon Audible
3
The Elements of Power
Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age
David S. Abraham · 2015
4.06264 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
Our future hinges on a set of rare metals that few of us have even heard of. In this eye-opening book, a natural resource strategist reveals the critical importance of these transformative elements to our technological lifestyle and the consequences of our…
On Amazon Audible
4
Energy
A Beginner's Guide
Vaclav Smil · 2006
3.991,520 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energy
About the book
As Einstein pointed out in his famous equation, E=MC2, all matter can be described as energy. It is everywhere; it is everything. In this engaging book, prolific author and academic Vaclav Smil provides an introduction to the far-reaching term and gives the…
On Amazon Audible
5
Scale
The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies
Geoffrey B. West · 2017
4.115,764 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany buildingInnovation
About the book
The former head of the Sante Fe Institute, visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term “complexity” can be misleading, however, because what makes West’s discoveries…
On Amazon Audible
6
Badass
Making Users Awesome
Kathy Sierra · 2015
4.171,194 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
Imagine you’re in a game with one objective: a bestselling product or service. The rules? No marketing budget, no PR stunts, and it must be sustainably successful. No short-term fads. This is not a game of chance. It is a game of skill and strategy. And…
On Amazon Audible
7
Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation
How Silicon Valley Will Make Oil, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, Electric Utilities and Conventional Cars Obsolete by 2030
Tony Seba · 2014
4.15368 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyMoats and competitionCompany building
About the book
The industrial age of energy and transportation will be over by 2030. Maybe before. Exponentially improving technologies such as solar, electric vehicles, and autonomous (self-driving) cars will disrupt and sweep away the energy and transportation industries…
On Amazon Audible
8
Quantum Supremacy
Michio Kaku · 2023
3.783,798 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
An exhilarating tour of humanity's next great technological achievement, quantum computing, which may eventually illuminate the deepest mysteries of science and solve some of humanity's biggest problems, like global warming, world hunger, and incurable disease,…
On Amazon Audible

Published in the last three years, newest first, for what you told us.

1
The Only Possible Solution
How to Shape the Future for Our Next Generations
Fons Burger · 2026
4.40999 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energy
About the book
What if climate change, biodiversity loss, food and water insecurity, inequality, declining health, political polarization, and the erosion of trust are not separate crises at all? What if they are all symptoms of the same underlying system failure? In…
On Amazon Audible
2
Dirtbag Billionaire
How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away
David Gelles · 2025
4.162,500 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
Named one of Financial Times’s Best Books of 2025 New York Times reporter and bestselling author David Gelles reveals how Patagonia became a global leader in doing well by doing good and how other companies are adopting its principles. This is the inside…
On Amazon Audible
3
The Future of the Responsible Company
What We've Learned from Patagonia's First 50 Years
Vincent Stanley · 2023
4.18374 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
Simple but powerful advice on how and why to rethink your business structure in a time when traditional capitalism is no longer working for people or the planet. Vincent Stanley, Patagonia's Director of Philosophy, with Yvon Chouinard, founder and former…
On Amazon Audible
4
Wasteland
The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future
Oliver Franklin-Wallis · 2023
4.442,908 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energy
About the book
An award-winning investigative journalist takes a deep dive into the global waste crisis, exposing the hidden world that enables our modern economy, and finds out the dirty truth behind a simple question: what really happens to what we throw away? In…
On Amazon Audible
5
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…
On Amazon Audible
6
Crude Capitalism
Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market
Adam Hanieh · 2024
4.50296 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energy
About the book
A groundbreaking history of oil and it's importance to US politics, finance, militarism and consumerism from an award-winning author and scholarThis expansive history traces the hidden connections between oil and capitalism from the late 1800s to the current…
On Amazon Audible

How companies like yours were actually built, from the people who built them.

1
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
Alex Epstein · 2014
4.062,500 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
A sure-to-be-controversial defense of the fossil fuel industry Conventional wisdom says fossil fuels are an unsustainable form of energy that is destroying our planet. But Alex Epstein shows that if we look at the big picture, the much-hated fossil fuel…
On Amazon Audible
2
Hot, Flat, and Crowded
Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How It Can Renew America
Thomas L. Friedman · 2008
3.7113,980 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
In this brilliant, essential book, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas L. Friedman speaks to America's urgent need for national renewal and explains how a green revolution can bring about both a sustainable environment and a sustainable America. Friedman…
On Amazon Audible
3
Veeck As In Wreck
The Autobiography of Bill Veeck
Bill Veeck · 1962
4.132,173 ratings · Goodreads
Founder stories
About the book
Bill Veeck was an inspired team builder, a consummate showman, and one of the greatest baseball men ever involved in the game. His classic autobiography, written with the talented sportswriter Ed Linn, is an uproarious book packed with information about the…
On Amazon Audible
4
The Quest
Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
Daniel Yergin · 2011
4.145,291 ratings · Goodreads
Climate and energyCompany building
About the book
Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year In this gripping account of the quest for the energy that our world needs, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Prize. A master…
On Amazon Audible
5
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…
On Amazon Audible
6
Disney High
The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel's Tween Empire
Ashley Spencer · 2024
3.949,197 ratings · Goodreads
Founder storiesCompany building
About the book
The first unauthorized look at the inner workings―and ultimate breakdown―of the Disney Channel machine For many kids growing up in the 2000s, there was no cultural touchstone more powerful than Disney Channel, the most-watched cable channel in prime time…
On Amazon Audible

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…
On Amazon Audible
2
Inspired
How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
Marty Cagan · 2008
4.2226,350 ratings · Goodreads
Company buildingFinding product-market fit
About the book
Learn to design, build, and scale products consumers can't get enough of How do today's most successful tech companies–Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla–design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of…
On Amazon Audible
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…
On Amazon Audible
4
To Sell is Human
The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
Daniel H. Pink · 2012
3.8726,914 ratings · Goodreads
Company buildingFirst sales
About the book
From the bestselling author of Drive and A Whole New Mind comes a surprising--and surprisingly useful--new book that explores the power of selling in our lives.According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales. Every day…
On Amazon Audible

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.

The books for what you are building.

Your reading list

Written by the people who write the cheques

Read what the people you are pitching read.