Books Billionaires Read

The books most recommended by billionaires, drawn from their real public recommendations.

26 experts · 40 most-recommended books · Updated on June 6, 2026

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The books billionaires read most

Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future
Blake Masters
Recommended by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman +2 more
AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future
Kai-Fu Lee, Chen Qiufan
Recommended by Mark Cuban, Ray Dalio, Satya Nadella +1 more
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
Ben Horowitz
Recommended by Larry Page, Satya Nadella, Michael Dell
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Nick Bostrom
Recommended by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Bill Gates
Snow Crash: A Novel
Neal Stephenson
Recommended by Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Reid Hoffman
The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility" (Incerto)
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Recommended by Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla
The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World
Melinda French Gates
Recommended by Bill Gates, Satya Nadella, Reid Hoffman
Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street
John Brooks
Recommended by Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Michael Dell
The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership
Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison, Craig Walsh
Recommended by Sam Altman, Jack Dorsey, Vinod Khosla
Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies
Reid Hoffman, Chris Yeh, Bill Gates
Recommended by Bill Gates, Sheryl Sandberg, Vinod Khosla
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (Good to Great, 2)
Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras
Recommended by Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
Matt Ridley
Recommended by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari
Recommended by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates
Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell
Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle
Recommended by Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson
Recommended by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates
Makers: The New Industrial Revolution
Chris Anderson
Recommended by Elon Musk, Jack Ma
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
Eric Ries
Recommended by Sheryl Sandberg, Vinod Khosla
The Player of Games
Iain Banks
Recommended by Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg
AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
Kai-Fu Lee
Recommended by Satya Nadella, Marc Benioff
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee
Recommended by Michael Dell, Vinod Khosla
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman!
Richard P Feynman, Ralph Leighton, Bill Gates
Recommended by Larry Page, Sergey Brin
The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
Robert Iger
Recommended by Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg
Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs
John Doerr, Larry Page
Recommended by Bill Gates, Larry Page
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
Recommended by Sam Altman, Satya Nadella
High Output Management
Andrew S. Grove
Recommended by Mark Zuckerberg, Vinod Khosla
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
Robert J. Gordon
Recommended by Bill Gates, Satya Nadella
Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises
Timothy F. Geithner
Recommended by Bill Gates, Warren Buffett
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Peter Thiel, Blake Masters
Recommended by Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
Atul Gawande
Recommended by Jack Dorsey, Vinod Khosla
The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
William N. Thorndike Jr.
Recommended by Warren Buffett, Michael Dell
The Gene: An Intimate History
Siddhartha Mukherjee
Recommended by Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman
Principles: Life and Work
Ray Dalio
Recommended by Jack Dorsey, Michael Bloomberg
Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
Phil Knight
Recommended by Bill Gates, Tim Cook
Leonardo da Vinci
Walter Isaacson
Recommended by Bill Gates, Satya Nadella
Einstein: His Life and Universe
Walter Isaacson
Recommended by Elon Musk, Sam Altman
When Breath Becomes Air
Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese
Recommended by Bill Gates, Tim Cook
On Immunity: An Inoculation
Eula Biss
Recommended by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Michelle Alexander
Recommended by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change)
Clayton M. Christensen
Recommended by Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Carol S. Dweck
Recommended by Bill Gates, Satya Nadella

The billionaires

CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Founder of xAI

24 book recommendations

Former CEO of Amazon

13 book recommendations

Co-Founder of PayPal, Founder & Chairman of Palantir, Partner at Founders Fund

12 book recommendations

Mark Zuckerberg

Co-Founder and CEO of Meta

25 book recommendations

34 book recommendations

Co-Founder of Microsoft and Chair of the Gates Foundation

70 book recommendations

Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

16 book recommendations

Entrepreneur, Investor, and Shark Tank Investor

12 book recommendations

8 book recommendations

Founder of Bridgewater Associates

8 book recommendations

Co-Founder of Google and Alphabet

8 book recommendations

Co-founder of Twitter and Square, CEO of Block

21 book recommendations

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