Best Future of Work Books: 28 Picks Recommended by CEOs

In Taylor Pearson’s view, technology and globalization have moved the levers of money, meaning and freedom; he explains the stall in wages and the job troubles of MBA and law graduates, and proposes entrepreneurship and apprenticeship instead. Kevin Lamping read it as a guide to where the economy may go.

Scott Berkun, a Microsoft veteran, joined Automattic as a manager and reports from inside a company whose staff work wherever they choose and seldom use email, drawing lessons on productivity and work culture. Om Malik describes it as the script for distributed work.

Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals argue that the habit of putting every worker under one roof is fading, weighing gains such as a wider talent pool and coverage across time zones against the real challenges. Zack Onisko returned to it since Dribbble works fully remote.

Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee show how machines now automate or augment cognitive tasks as the Industrial Revolution did physical labor, then examine the inequality that follows and propose policies such as education reform. Michael Dell reads it as a case for a better future built on technology.

Tim O’Reilly asks what happens to work, inequality and unemployment as intelligent machines take on or share jobs, and whether networks and marketplaces could deploy talent better than companies do. He also looks at on demand learning and the future of safety nets.

Nicolas Colin reads three decades of change as a shift out of the Fordist age into the digital one, and argues for a redesigned safety net that protects households and businesses from its risks without blocking progress. Carlota Perez calls it a primer on the technological present.

Tyler Cowen, an economist, sees the safe middle tier of American employment vanishing, with a small educated group that works well alongside automation and a large, poorly paid majority. He points to team chess played alongside software as a preview.

Futurist Martin Ford warns that AI and smart software now endanger skilled jobs held by paralegals, journalists and programmers, doubts new industries will hire many people and calls for policy such as a guaranteed basic income. Matthew Barby recommends it for its focus on AI.

Arun Sundararajan studies Uber, Airbnb, TaskRabbit, BlaBlaCar and similar platforms to argue that crowd-based capitalism may displace the corporation, and he weighs what that means for work, labor law and how the social safety net is paid for.

Tim Ferriss’s manual is mainly about lifestyle design and cutting workload, but its advice on overseas virtual assistants, mini-retirements and negotiating with bosses sketches an alternative to the deferred-life plan. Jules Schroeder says it showed her what working online and remotely could look like.

Cal Newport’s book is mainly about focus, arguing that concentration on demanding tasks is growing rare and valuable in almost any profession, and setting out rules to train it. Daniel Pink ties that skill to a workplace reshaped by automation and outsourcing.

Kai-Fu Lee’s book is mainly about the AI contest between China and the United States, but he also expects AI to reach both white-collar and blue-collar work, ranks jobs by risk and questions universal basic income as a remedy.

Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha treat a career as a start-up its owner must run, a reply to a jammed career escalator and faded job security, with advice on networks, intelligent risk and adapting plans as industries change. Jack Dorsey calls that approach to life necessary now.

Kevin Kelly forecasts twelve technological forces, from cheap AI in the cloud to accessing services instead of owning assets, and argues they will reshape buying, working, learning and communicating. Matthieu David-Experton says it gave him perspective on taking part in coming changes.

Douglas Rushkoff’s critique of the growth-obsessed digital economy links the gig economy, big data, robots and AI, and argues the economy should be rebuilt to serve people. Adam Pisoni says it pushed his thinking on why the old way of structuring companies cannot last.

James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg forecast a move from industrial society to an information age that frees individuals and weakens states, with chapters on the cybereconomy and on earnings in a world without jobs. Marc Andreessen recommends it.

Aaron Dignan’s book is mainly about reinventing how organizations operate, replacing top-down control with autonomy, trust and transparency, with cases such as a bank that dropped traditional budgeting. Adam Grant sees in it a world of work with more dignity and freedom.

Thomas L. Friedman argues that globalization put countries, companies and individuals on a level field, naming outsourcing, offshoring and workflow software among the forces behind it. Jamie Dimon put it on a reading list for JPMorgan summer interns.

Garry Kasparov recounts his 1997 match against Deep Blue and traces the history of machine intelligence, then answers critics who fear AI, above all for jobs, by arguing that people can achieve more with these machines. Walter Isaacson frames it around thriving among thinking machines.

Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb, all economists, recast AI as cheaper prediction and advise managers to split work into tasks that need prediction and tasks that need human judgment. Lawrence Summers calls it the best book yet on AI.

Barbara Oakley’s book is mainly about learning, drawing on neuroscience to show that adults can develop new talents at any age, and it presents career changers as cross-pollinators between fields. Daniel Pink recommends it to anyone seeking a reboot or reinvention.

Futurist Gerd Leonhard offers a moral map for the machine era, covering AI, automation, the Internet of Things and the end of work as people know it, and asks how to embrace technology without losing what is human.

Yuval Noah Harari’s survey of present challenges ranges widely, but its first part takes on automation, biotechnology and AI before turning to politics, truth and personal resilience. He argues that clarity is a form of power in a world flooded with information.

Jenny Blake’s guide is mainly about changing careers, applying the startup pivot to individuals when a typical job now lasts roughly four years, with a method for moving in small steps built on current strengths.

James Altucher argues that college, steady employment and retirement no longer promise security as jobs vanish and middlemen are squeezed out, so individuals must create their own work. Dick Costolo admires that Altucher picked his own route with no idea how it would end.

Dorie Clark writes for professionals going out on their own as work turns more freelance and location-free, covering how to monetize expertise, build a brand and assemble several streams of income. Marvin Liao has it on his reading list.

Ron Davison’s economic history traces the West through agricultural, industrial and information economies and predicts a fourth built on entrepreneurship, one that will redefine the role of the employee. Marvin Liao recommends it.

Alec Ross, after visiting forty-one countries, forecasts fields such as robotics, AI, genomics and big data, and weighs their effects on jobs, education and inequality as robots move from repetitive work to cognitive tasks.