Books
A running list of books that shaped how I think — more to come.
- High Growth Handbook The most practical guide I have found on how to run and scale a high-growth company. It covers the real problems founders face as the company grows, from hiring executives and building a leadership team to managing the board and redesigning the organization.
- Never Split the Difference A fascinating guide to negotiation from a former FBI hostage negotiator. It made me wonder how much work it takes to become one of the best dealmakers in the world, and how differently you must listen, think, and communicate to get there.
- Recruiting An excellent guide to hiring exceptional people. Hiring is one of the most important things any company does, and this book gives founders a direct and practical framework for finding, evaluating, and closing the best talent.
- The Art of War A practical guide to competition, positioning, and building a defensible advantage. Its lessons on timing, preparation, incentives, and understanding your opponent remain relevant far beyond war.
- What It Takes Steve Schwarzman built Blackstone into one of the largest investment firms in the world. This book captures a lifetime of lessons on ambition, decision-making, relationships, hiring, and building an enduring institution.
- Elon Musk Biographies teach you how exceptional people think. This one offers a close look at Elon Musk’s leadership, intensity, contradictions, and mental models, including both what makes his companies extraordinary and the personal cost of operating that way.
- Build A practical guide to building products, teams, and companies from one of the greatest technologists of his generation. It is full of direct lessons that could only come from someone who has spent decades actually building.
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things An honest account of what it feels like to lead a company when there are no obvious answers. Most business books explain what good management looks like when things are working. This book is about making painful decisions when they are not.
- Venture Deals I understood the fundamentals of venture capital at 16 through this book. Understanding the rules of any game gives you the ability to play it deliberately and create the outcome you want.
- Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers & Acquisitions A practical introduction to company valuation, leveraged buyouts, and mergers and acquisitions. For an entrepreneur who wants to understand finance properly, this may be the only technical guide you need.
- How to Make a Few Billion Dollars A guide to thinking and operating at an enormous scale. Brad Jacobs explains how he identifies opportunities, hires exceptional people, allocates capital, executes acquisitions, and builds companies worth billions. It turns extreme ambition into a practical discipline.