Brian Armstrong Recommended Books

"Excellent cover art and lots of good reasons not to lie!" - Elon Musk

"A great book." - Tim Ferriss

"One of my favorite one hour reads about intellectual honesty. I wish more people were this honest!" - Vinod Khosla

"A great book." - A.J. Jacobs

"It helped me to master a basic understanding of chemistry, hormones, and the amygdala, which has given me patience with myself and others." - Whitney Cummings

On the "books read" section of Ev Williams' GoodReads profile.

"I love his thinking, especially [this book]." - Derek Sivers

Ryan Holiday recommended this book on his blog.

Keith Rabois recommended this book on a Medium blog post.

"A book collection of some of his best [essays]." - Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Larry Page mentioned this book in an Entrepreneur.com article.

"The book I’ve recommended most." - Peter Attia

"Learn about the inner mindset and external state of someone who was absolutely brilliant." - Naval Ravikant

"One of my favorite books." - Tim Ferriss

On the "books read" section of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook profile.

Larry Page mentioned this book in an Entrepreneur.com article.

On the "books read" section of Ev Williams' GoodReads profile.

On the "books read" section of Ev Williams' GoodReads profile.

"The single best book on usability I've ever read." - Jeff Atwood

"About usability and making software and user interfaces that are friendly to people." - Nick Ganju

"The simplest book I recommend everyone to read when they want to do design." - Garry Tan

Part of "Jeff's Reading List."

Recommended on Dave Ramsey's website.

"The great management book." - Jason Calacanis

One of Max Levchin's answers to "what's your favourite business book you'd advise to young entrepreneurs?"

On the "books read" section of Ev Williams' GoodReads profile.

"As a business person, I love [this book]." - Frank Blake

Neil Strauss recommended this book in a blog post.

"This is the book that introduced the world to the concept of personas." - Jeff Atwood

"This is from one of my favorite books." - Marty Cagan

"Details the extraordinary success of CEOs who took a radically different approach to corporate management." - Charlie Munger

"An outstanding book about CEOs who excelled at capital allocation." - Warren Buffett

"It is, and should at the top of the reading list for CEOs and investors." - Michael Mauboussin

"Contains great lessons for investors because it highlights the importance of capital allocation." - Patrick O'Shaughnessy

"A business-y thing." - Sam Hinkie

"A good read for any business leader but especially those willing to chart their own course."- Michael Dell

"Best book I've read since Sapiens (far less mainstream, though)." - Naval Ravikant

"One of the books that tremendously influenced me when I started PayPal." - Peter Thiel

One of Ryan Shea's 4 answers to "what is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift?"

"It was published in the late 1990’s, but is enjoying a very well-deserved resurgence." - Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sahil Lavingia recommended this book on Notion.

"If you want to find startup ideas here’s the book." - Balaji Srinivasan

Bob Iger told Variety this book was on his Reading List.

"A fabulous book." - Ed Zschau

"The slow, iterative process to breakthrough invention." - Austen Allred

Lloyd Blankfein recommended this book on the "Exchanges at Goldman Sachs" podcast.

"Contains timeless themes relevant to any and all forms of human endeavour." - Ali Abdaal

"A counterpoint to communism and useful as such, but should be tempered with kindness." - Elon Musk

Steve Wozniak said he thinks Steve Jobs mentioned this book and it really was a guide in his life.

"When I first read [Ayn Rand's books] in the late 80s, it felt pretty crazy. And in the last decades, it's in many ways felt much more correct." - Peter Thiel

One of Shah Rukh Khan's favorite novels.

"Loved [this book]. Read often." - Joe De Sena

"Something I’ve read multiple times to get me in the mindset of not letting anything stand in my way" - Peter Diamandis

"In this deeply-researched book, you'll find the most honest portrait of the real Steve Jobs." - Marc Andreessen

"Square would not exist without the work and persistence of Steve Jobs. I am forever grateful. Amazing read." - Jack Dorsey

"Has me thinking of my old friend. A true visionary." - Bill Gates

"[One of the] biographies of people who have 'built skyscrapers' (my term)." - Peter Attia

Keith Rabois recommended this book on a Medium blog post.

"After working with Steve for over 25 years, I feel this book captures with great insight the growth and complexity of a truly extraordinary person." - Ed Catmull

"Played a big role in shaping my management style." - Mark Zuckerberg

"The best book on management ever written." - Marc Andreessen

"Unapologetically almost a how to manual, but kind of deconstructs the world of business into first principles." - Tobi Lütke

"[Larry Ellison] considers [this book] his bible when it comes to management concepts." - Subbu Viswanathan

"Andy Grove, who built himself from nothing to run Intel, stopped what he was doing to teach us his magic. And not through some ghostwriter either — Andy wrote this book himself. What an incredible gift." - Ben Horowitz

Keith Rabois recommended this book on a Medium blog post.

On the "books read" section of Ev Williams' GoodReads profile.

"Our marketing bible." - Andrew Wilkinson

"Informs a lot of our public outreach in terms of making our services more essential for our users." - Changpeng Zhao

Sahil Lavingia recommended this book on Notion.

"[The author] brought the simplicity of successful communication into the foreground. No matter what issue you’re facing, his strategies for communicating with others will set you up to win every time." - Tony Robbins

"The lessons it teaches have transformed the way I engage with difficult situations and thus reduced the suffering I experience in big and small ways." - Dustin Moskovitz

"I had to read [this book] twice before I fully understood it." - Charlie Munger

"Turned evolutionary biology on its head and was written like a great detective story." - Matt Ridley

On the "books read" section of Ev Williams' GoodReads profile.

"Explains more about life (including human behavior and myself) than anything else I’ve read. " - Nick Szabo

"Had a profound influence on me pretty early on." - Phil Libin

"An explanation of evolution since the beginning of life that explains things from the perspective of individual genes." - MMM

"A wonderful book about a naval [Admiral] that was running one of the worst performing U.S. nuclear submarines and turned it around to be the best performing U.S. submarine." - DHH

"Based on real life events, Marquet presents his ideas in a superbly practical way — perfect for implementing." - Simon Sinek

"Had a profound effect on me." - Jason Fried

"A gift to all of my Apple II programming buddies from high school and Dungeons & Dragons comrades." - Steve Jurvetson

"So much fun." - Astro Teller

"Spectacular." - Bill Gurley

"Ok writing but a page turner." - Austen Allred

"One of my favorites now." - Jenn Im

"A tremendous amount of fun." - George R. R. Martin

"Was a profound book for me." - Tristan Harris

"I have reread this before every product launch that I have done." - Tim Ferriss

"A classic." - Chase Jarvis

"Sharpened my thinking significantly around [this idea] of having a relationship between companies and employees that’s more honest." - Phil Libin

"I read The God Delusion in preparation for [the Dawkins interview]. I'm a huge fan of [his] work." - Joe Rogan

"Was the basis for the foundation of Singularity University." - Peter Diamandis

"It opened me up to the idea of science fiction becoming science fact." - Steve Aoki

One of the books in a "list of favorite books" Jason Silva tweeted about.

Stewart Brand recommended this book on his "Selected Books for the Manual for Civilization" blog post.

"Has shown [...] that there is this persistent exponential pace of technology." - Marc Goodman

"Shows that the processing power of computers and technology has increased exponentially through history and is likely to continue doing so." - Mark Manson

"If you want the chance to turn your startup into the next Google or Twitter, then read this trenchant guide from someone who played key roles in the growth of these companies." - Reid Hoffman

"A great book." - Keith Rabois

"Jam-packs every useful lesson about building and scaling companies into a single, digestible book." - Aaron Levie

"Truly amazing for founders, especially once you start to scale. Wish I'd had it early days at The Muse." - Kathryn Minshew

"[The author] has no-nonsense, highly applicable advice to any operator transitioning a company from the proverbial garage to the next stage and beyond." - Max Levchin

"Excited to get our growth rate back to the 16x days of yore." - Ryan Petersen

"Really helped me in business." - Joe De Sena

Daymond John recommended this book in a Business Insider interview.

"A key to understanding why Silicon Valley culture is changing the world." - Vinod Khosla

Keith Rabois recommended this book on a Medium blog post.

"After reading this book, you will understand why we tolerate failures at Binance, and more importantly, what types of failures we tolerate or not." - Changpeng Zhao

"Not to be missed by anyone who wants to understand how ideas change the world." - Daniel Kahneman

On the "books read" section of Ev Williams' GoodReads profile.

"Fastest." - Chris Do

"Highly recommend reading." - Thomas Frank

"A great one -- had no idea Nike had such a long history." - Alexis Ohanian

"[One of the] best books I read in 2017." - Anthony Pompliano

"Loved [this book]." - Austen Allred

"A refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like." - Bill Gates

"All entrepreneurs should read." - Bill Gurley

"Great inspirational [book]." - Jason Calacanis

"Recommend you consider buying a copy if you’re looking for a peak into the future." - Anthony Pompliano

"[The author] has the highest rate of output per minute of good new ideas of anybody I’ve ever met, and [this book] may be his best." - Marc Andreessen

"The future convergence of networks and governments, from one of the most brilliant thinkers alive." - Naval Ravikant

"We've started new currencies. Now [this book] shows us how to start new cities and new countries." - Vitalik Buterin

"This may well be the most important book of the year if not the decade." - Arianna Huffington

"Leaves us with an improved perspective for thinking about very vexing issues such as the state of America versus China." - Jamie Dimon

"Shows us how history can provide a template to help guide how we might think about what comes next." - Mark Cuban

"The fascinating thing about [this book] is there's philosophy, there's wisdom, but there's plots." - Lex Fridman

"It is my #1, #2, and #3 book recommendations of 2021." - David Friedberg

"Goes into a lot of details about how money works (or doesn't)." - Changpeng Zhao