Here are 99 books that Elon Musk fans have personally recommended if you like
Elon Musk.
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Leadership is the key ingredient that moves the needle. Each of us has the rightâand dutyâto be a leader of our life and family, organization and society, and to inspire others for something bigger than ourselves, something that has not been done before. But why am I so passionate about leadership? Why is it the focus of my books, my teaching, my company? It all started in my youth: The defining moment came after my sisterâs death to a heroin overdose. I stood at my sisterâs grave and decided I would never be a victim of circumstancesâI would pursue self-determination. Leadership is the exact opposite of victimhood.Â
Any book by Michael Lewis is fun and educational, but this one I couldnât put down. In 2002, for the first time, the Nobel prize for economics did not go to an economist but to a psychologistâDaniel Kahnemanâwho had single-handedly (with his genius collaborator Amos Tversky) disrupted the economics profession and its core theoriesâmuch like Einstein had transformed our understanding of reality and Freud of ourselvesâand created an entirely new field called behavioral economics.
This is the story of a remarkable partnership of two eminent scientists who brought about this revolution. Tversky and Kahneman had such a close relationship that even their wives became jealous. This book might make you laugh and cry. And you might learn much about cutting-edge economics and our chronic biases.
'Michael Lewis could spin gold out of any topic he chose ... his best work ... vivid, original and hard to forget' Tim Harford, Financial Times
'Gripping ... There is war, heroism, genius, love, loss, discovery, enduring loyalty and friendship. It is epic stuff ... Michael Lewis is one of the best non-fiction writers of our time' Irish Times
From Michael Lewis, No.1 bestselling author of The Big Short and Flash Boys, this is the extraordinary story of the two men whose ideas changed the world.
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky met in war-torn 1960s Israel. Both were gifted youngâŚ
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to runâŚ
Leadership is the key ingredient that moves the needle. Each of us has the rightâand dutyâto be a leader of our life and family, organization and society, and to inspire others for something bigger than ourselves, something that has not been done before. But why am I so passionate about leadership? Why is it the focus of my books, my teaching, my company? It all started in my youth: The defining moment came after my sisterâs death to a heroin overdose. I stood at my sisterâs grave and decided I would never be a victim of circumstancesâI would pursue self-determination. Leadership is the exact opposite of victimhood.Â
Albert Einstein transformed our understanding of reality. In 1905 alone, the annus mirabilis, he published four different papers that were going to shake up the foundation of physics. But who was the man behind the special and general theories of relativity? The man who, albeit a genius, could not find a job as a professor in Switzerland because he was Jewish? The man who wrote a contract that forbade his wife from being in the kitchen when he was there? The man who married his cousin?
If you want to find out Einsteinâs life story and what made him who he was, read this delightful biography by Walter Isaacson (who also penned biographies of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk).
By the author of the acclaimed bestseller 'Benjamin Franklin', this is the first full biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have become available. How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson's biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. His fascinating story is a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom. Based on newly released personal letters of Einstein, this book explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk - a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get a teaching job or a doctorate - becameâŚ
Iâm passionate about decision intelligence because our world is more complex than ever, and democracy depends on people understanding that complexity. Direct cause-and-effect thinkingâadequate for our ancestorsâfalls short today. Thatâs why I invented decision intelligence: to help people navigate multi-step consequences in a way thatâs clear and actionable. Itâs like systems thinking but distilled into what matters for a specific decisionâwhat I call âcompact world models.â Thereâs nothing more thrilling than creating a new discipline with the potential to change how humanity thinks and acts in positive ways. I believe DI is key to a better future, and Iâm excited to share it with the world.
Michael Lewis is a master at exposing the mechanisms behind financial and technological disasters, and this book is no exception. His deep access to Sam Bankman-Fried makes this a rare inside look at how Silicon Valley hubris can spiral into catastrophe. If we want to build a better future, we have to understand how influential failures happenâand how movements with promise can go off the rails.
I was especially interested in this story because of SBFâs ties to Effective Altruism, a movement with real potential that will now always carry his shadow. As I build my own initiativesâlike OpenDI in decision intelligenceâthis book reinforced the importance of staying vigilant against the forces that can derail even the most well-intentioned ideas.
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world's youngest billionaire and crypto's Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking readers into the mind of Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offers an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system.âŚ
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother hadâŚ
I fell in love with technology from a young age. I taught myself how to code by making websites, then blazed through an undergraduate degree in computer science, then co-founded a tech startup. For years, I was in thrall to the idea of the Silicon Valley dream and could not accept any critiques of the tech industry. It was only when my startup failed that I became open to alternative worldviews. I wanted to understand why the dream had felt so hollow. I have a masterâs degree in sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science and have written for The Guardian, The Atlantic, andthe Boston Review.
Malcolm Harris is a brilliant thinker in the tradition of the radical writer, whose books are always deeply researched, fearlessly polemical, and highly relevant. His previous books talked about millennials, Occupy Wall Street, and growing inequality.
This new book is a magisterial and incredibly ambitious work of nonfiction that focuses on Palo Alto and then zooms out from there to explain the formation of the contemporary economy, including but not limited to the modern-day tech industry. Full of fascinating stories and shocking insights.
The true, unvarnished history of the town at the heart of Silicon Valley.
Palo Alto is nice. The weather is temperate, the people are educated, rich, healthy, enterprising. Remnants of a hippie counterculture have synthesized with high technology and big finance to produce the spiritually and materially ambitious heart of Silicon Valley, whose products are changing how we do everything from driving around to eating food. It is also a haunted toxic waste dump built on stolen Indian burial grounds, and an integral part of the capitalist world system.
In Palo Alto, the first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley,âŚ
I believed the Internet would be as colorful a cultural phenomenon as LSD. But before I was even able to convince people that something wonderful was on the horizon, big business swooped in and recontextualized the digital renaissance as a business revolution and the Silicon Valley mindset was born: Companies should grow exponentially forever! Any tech problem can be solved with more tech! Humans on Earth are just larvaeâmaggotsâwhile wealthy tech bros will get to Mars or upload their minds to the cloud. This list of books is meant to show how these guys think and why theyâre taking us in the wrong direction.Â
This book reveals that the whole electric vehicle industry is pretty much a scam.
I love it when someone hits me with counterintuitive logic. And I love it even more when they back this up with real reporting. For example, I was shocked to learn that Muskâs famous hyperloop tunnels were really just a way to stall light rail in California so that people would have to buy electric cars instead.
This book reveals how the Silicon Valley mindset doesnât actually foster innovation. If they wanted to innovate, they wouldnât just find new ways of propelling automobiles. I love that this book gives me strong, factual arguments for how crazy these guys are.
Silicon Valley wants us to believe that technology will revolutionize our cities and the ways we move around. Autonomous vehicles will make us safer, greener, and more efficient. On-demand services like Uber and Lyft will eliminate car ownership. Micromobility devices like electric scooters will be at every corner, and drones will deliver goods and services. Meanwhile visionaries like Elon Musk promise to eliminate congestion with tunnels, and Uber help with flying cars. The future of transport is frictionless, sustainable, and according to Paris Marx, a threat to our ideas of what a society should be.
I believed the Internet would be as colorful a cultural phenomenon as LSD. But before I was even able to convince people that something wonderful was on the horizon, big business swooped in and recontextualized the digital renaissance as a business revolution and the Silicon Valley mindset was born: Companies should grow exponentially forever! Any tech problem can be solved with more tech! Humans on Earth are just larvaeâmaggotsâwhile wealthy tech bros will get to Mars or upload their minds to the cloud. This list of books is meant to show how these guys think and why theyâre taking us in the wrong direction.Â
This heartfelt but bitingly satiric novel explores the ridiculousness informing how tech companies operate.
This novel hit me in a surprisingly deep way. It follows a young woman trying to maintain her connection to humanityâand stay employedâin an increasingly technologized world. The joke is that sheâs the driver of an autonomous taxi. Yeah, itâs about a tech company with a fleet of autonomous vehicles and human drivers hidden inside.
It felt so true to me, the perfect symbol for the uselessness of so much tech, the desire of tech bros to replace humans with machines, and the toll on those of us who want to live lives of meaning and connection.
For years, Teresa has meandered from one job to the next, settling into long stretches of time, unable to move ahead in any field or career, the dreaded move from one gig to another starting to feel unbearable. When a recruiter connects her with a contract position at AllOver, it appears to check all her prerequisites for a "good" job. It's a fintech corporation with progressive hiring policies and a social justice-minded mission statement. Their new service for premium members: a functional fleet of driverless cars. The future of transportation. As her new-hire orientation reveals, the distance between AllOver's claimsâŚ
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man sheâŚ
Leadership is the key ingredient that moves the needle. Each of us has the rightâand dutyâto be a leader of our life and family, organization and society, and to inspire others for something bigger than ourselves, something that has not been done before. But why am I so passionate about leadership? Why is it the focus of my books, my teaching, my company? It all started in my youth: The defining moment came after my sisterâs death to a heroin overdose. I stood at my sisterâs grave and decided I would never be a victim of circumstancesâI would pursue self-determination. Leadership is the exact opposite of victimhood.Â
This is another book (or better, a trilogy) that made me laugh and cry. If you donât believe me, just read Winston Churchillâs stirring love letters to his wifeâhe called her âCat,â she called him âPugââin the first volume. They are a deeply moving and eloquent testimony to a devotion that continued unabated throughout Churchillâs life.
No wonder he was the only head of state awarded the Nobel Prize, not for peace, but for literature. And William Manchester writes so powerfully that he rivals Churchillâs prose. If you want to know what made Churchill tick and how he became one of the transcendent leaders of our time, read this book.Â
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⢠âAn altogether absorbing popular biography . . . The heroic Churchill is in these pages, but so is the little boy writing forlorn letters to the father who all but ignored him.ââPeople
When Winston Churchill was born in Blenheim Palace in 1874, Imperial Britain stood at the splendid pinnacle of her power. Yet within a few years the Empire would hover on the brink of catastrophe. Against this backdrop, a remarkable man began to build his legacy. From master biographer William Manchester, The Last Lion: Visions of Glory reveals the first fifty-eight years of theâŚ
Leadership is the key ingredient that moves the needle. Each of us has the rightâand dutyâto be a leader of our life and family, organization and society, and to inspire others for something bigger than ourselves, something that has not been done before. But why am I so passionate about leadership? Why is it the focus of my books, my teaching, my company? It all started in my youth: The defining moment came after my sisterâs death to a heroin overdose. I stood at my sisterâs grave and decided I would never be a victim of circumstancesâI would pursue self-determination. Leadership is the exact opposite of victimhood.Â
Mohandas Gandhiâwhom Churchill called âthat little naked man,â who had little more than his loincloth and his staff, who loved to sit at his spinning wheelâwould catalyze the independence of India from the British Empire and ultimately help bring down that empireâwithout a phone or the internet or social networks.
This book reads like a thriller. I got into Gandhiâs head and learned how he became a man who would lay down his life for his principles of non-violence and the dignity of human beings; how he cunningly used symbolic actions like the salt march to expose the injustice of the British Commonwealth; and how he rose to be Churchillâs chief rival on the world stage and become a transcendent leader of our time.
First published in 1975, this 2009 edition is a new edition of the book described as irreplaceable by le monde, paris. It is a poignant reminder of the defining moments of the end of the british raj, the independence of 400 million people, their division into india and the newly created pakistan. Time magazine raised a poetic salutation to this brilliantly written book, hailing it as the song of india . . . Illuminated like scenes in a pageant . The significance of the new edition lies in engaging the minds of two generations born into a free country, toâŚ
I am a self-taught guy, having started in my first job at IBM Oslo, when I was 18 years old, as punched card machine operator, and plug-board âprogrammer'. I did night studies in sociology/philosophy for 10 years at University of Oslo. I read about 30 books a year, and Iâm 82 in 2023. I have spent most of my career as an independent international consultant to corporations and governments, while building up my ideas of useful methods to solve problems. In retirement, I love to spread my ideas, and learn more. I also write about 5 new books a year, when at my Oslofjord Summer cabin. They're all digital and free or free samples.
My father was an inventor. That is what is says on his tombstone. Over 100 patents.
His products today in building supply shops and in real buildings. And some crazy inventions that did not make him famous, but he had fun with.
So I guess I have a born sympathy for the lone inventor, who against many odds, manages to do interesting useful work and industrialise it successfully. This is not about Dyson, but written by him. Hopefully he will inspire the next generation of inventors.
Dyson has become a byword for great design, brilliant invention and global success. Now, James Dyson, the entrepreneur who made it all happen, tells his remarkable and inspirational story in Invention: A Life of Learning through Failure.
'By continually challenging ourselves, investing in the future and experimenting, we can continue to make the future. We must never stop. Never, for one second become comfortable.' James Dyson
In this spirited autobiography, James Dyson interweaves his own life story with a wider exploration of the importance of invention. On the way, the reader encounters challenging and inspirational characters, radical inventions, adventurous engineering,âŚ
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the worldâs most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the bookâŚ
Trained as a physicist and employed for twenty years as an engineer, my great interest in the application of science then led me to write. I authored technical papers on the physics underpinning venerable machines such as pendulum clocks and waterwheels; these were read by the chief editor at Johns Hopkins University Press, who invited me to turn them into a popular science bookâthe first of fourteen. Often, technological advances were made empiricallyâthe development of sailing ships, bridges, or pocket watchesâby working people with no formal knowledge of science, yet their designs survive as triumphs of human thought, as well as useful machines.
I love this book for its affection for its characters and the colorful details of the world in which they lived.
It is a coruscating read about five curious men (curious in both senses) in eighteenth-century England at the dawn of the first industrial revolutionâa revolution that they helped to create.Â
Led by Erasmus Darwin, the Lunar Society of Birmingham was formed from a group of amateur experimenters, tradesmen and artisans who met and made friends in the Midlands in the 1760s. Most came from humble families, all lived far from the centre of things, but they were young and their optimism was boundless: together they would change the world. Among them were the ambitious toy-maker Matthew Boulton and his partner James Watt, of steam-engine fame; the potter Josiah Wedgwood; the larger-than-life Erasmus Darwin, physician, poet, inventor and theorist of evolution (a forerunner of his grandson Charles Darwin). Later came JosephâŚ
