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Books

Elon Musk Recommends 12 Books that Changed his Life

Elon Musk, the billionaire behind Tesla and SpaceX, is often praised for his brilliance and bold vision. After meeting him, people often say, “He’s the smartest guy I’ve ever met.” Charlie Munger called Musk “a …

Read moreElon Musk Recommends 12 Books that Changed his Life

Peter Thiel Recommends 7 Reads

Eccentric billionaire Peter Thiel’s book Zero To One should be required reading for Farnam Street readers. Like The Hard Thing About Hard Things, it’s nice to see another business leader come out and write about life in the …

Read morePeter Thiel Recommends 7 Reads

What Book has the Most Page-for-Page Wisdom?

Here is what happened when I asked twenty-seven thousand people “What is page for page the book with the most wisdom you’ve ever read?” My thinking was, and still is, that you need to filter what you read. Reading, I mean …

Read moreWhat Book has the Most Page-for-Page Wisdom?

Summary: Peter Thiel’s Zero To One

Peter Thiel, the entrepreneur and investor who co-founded PayPal and Palantir, made the first outside investment in Facebook, and was an early investor in companies like SpaceX and LinkedIn, also wrote a book titled Zero to One: Notes on …

Read moreSummary: Peter Thiel’s Zero To One

The Education of a Value Investor: A Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment

I read Guy Spier’s book, The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment, in a single sitting. The section of the book I was most interested in reading was on his charity lunch with …

Read moreThe Education of a Value Investor: A Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment

12 Books Every Investor Should Read

If you’re looking for something to read that will improve your ability as an investor, I’d recommend any of the books below. All 12 of them are deeply informative and will leave an impact on you. 1. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin …

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John Locke’s Method of Organizing Common Place Books

“You know that I voluntarily communicated this method to you, as I have done to many others, to whom I believed it would not be unacceptable.”  In 1685 English physician and philosopher John Locke published “Méthode …

Read moreJohn Locke’s Method of Organizing Common Place Books

The Six Books Bill Gates Thinks You Should Read This Summer

Bill Gates is out with his annual summer reading list and, while shorter than last year’s, it’s nonetheless full of interesting reads. I ended up ordering two of them, one of which is considered to be “the best business …

Read moreThe Six Books Bill Gates Thinks You Should Read This Summer

Charlie Munger: Book Recommendations That will Make you Smarter

In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time—none. Zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads—and how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think …

Read moreCharlie Munger: Book Recommendations That will Make you Smarter

5 Life Changing Books

Reading is important. It is a way to fill in the gaps left by formal education and a meaningful way to better ourselves. Reading is the raw material of the mind. What you put in shapes what you see and what you think. Reading what everyone …

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Max Bazerman Offers Books for Leaders

Max Bazerman, the author of the best book on general decision making that I’ve ever read, Judgment in Managerial Decision Making, came out with 7 book recommendations1. I hadn’t heard of two of these, which I picked up. 1. …

Read moreMax Bazerman Offers Books for Leaders

5 Short Reads to Expand Your Mind

I’ve read almost 30 books so far this year. Here are five that expanded my mind. Tempo: Timing, Tactics and Strategy in Narrative-Driven Decision-Making A lot of books talk about the what and how in decision-making. This book also …

Read more5 Short Reads to Expand Your Mind

My Life In Middlemarch

Rebecca Mead has written a book like no other I’ve come across. My Life In Middlemarch is an irresistibly creative story about how her favorite book, George Eliot’s Middlemarch, changed her and perhaps more importantly, changed …

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Quiet: Why Introverts Have a Creative Advantage

In Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain looks at how our lives are shaped by personality. The book explores how where we land on the introvert-extrovert spectrum influences our choices, friends, …

Read moreQuiet: Why Introverts Have a Creative Advantage

The Best Books of 2013: Your 10 Overall Favorites

From philosophy and friendship to idea creation and building daily routines. While I never had any doubt that Farnam Streeters are the smartest people on the internet, the data once again tells that story too. 1. Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin …

Read moreThe Best Books of 2013: Your 10 Overall Favorites

The best non-fiction books of 2013

Economist Tyler Cowen, who was named one of the top 100 influential thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine, offers some interesting picks: Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschmann. A History of Future Cities. Going Clear: …

Read moreThe best non-fiction books of 2013

Seven Books Everyone Should Read

Little differences over a long lifetime create big disparities. Making decisions slightly better than your cohort translates into a big difference over a long life. This is the nature of compounding. Here are seven books that I think …

Read moreSeven Books Everyone Should Read

Books that Changed My Life

Here is a short list of books that literally changed the way I see the world. 1. Man’s Search For MeaningA gift from a friend. As hard as you think your life is, it pales in comparison to Auschwitz. I took two big things away from …

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The Great Books

We all want to read more. If reading older books is exponentially more beneficial for acquiring knowledge than reading newer things, then reading the great books is a good place to start. These books build the foundation of knowledge. One …

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10 Things I Learned Reading Brad Stone’s The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

I really enjoyed Brad Stone’s The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. Anyone who wants to better understand the dynamics of disruption or just gain a better understanding of the website we’ve come to love must …

Read more10 Things I Learned Reading Brad Stone’s The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Jeff Bezos’s Reading List

The back of Brad Stone’s excellent new book, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, contains a list of a dozen books “widely read by executives and employees that are integral to understanding” Amazon. We …

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Jeff Bezos Had His Top Execs Read These Three Books

In an interview that aired on CNBC1, Jeff Bezos shared some of the details about books that he’s shared with Amazon’s top executives. These books, it turns out, are frameworks for shaping the future of the company. Here they …

Read moreJeff Bezos Had His Top Execs Read These Three Books

What happens when you ask over 15k people to name the best book they’ve read this year?

What happens when you ask 15,800+ smart people what the best book they’ve read this year is? That’s exactly what I recently did on Twitter. Here is what people said. Fiction Hunger — A true classic of modern literature that has …

Read moreWhat happens when you ask over 15k people to name the best book they’ve read this year?

Eight Books Bill Gates Is Reading This Summer

Much like last year, the 2013 edition of Bill Gates summer reading list is full of interesting non-fiction. 1. The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? Gates writes: “It’s crazy that I haven’t read this …

Read moreEight Books Bill Gates Is Reading This Summer
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