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This book has 12 recommendations
Jeff Bezos (CEO/Amazon)
[From the book "The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon"]
“The scholar argues that people are wired to see patterns in chaos while remaining blind to unpredictable events, with massive consequences. Experimentation and empiricism trumps the easy and obvious narrative,” Stone writes.
Gabriel Coarna (Founder/Readable)
Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan" made me completely rethink my understanding of "risk".Ola Olusoga (Co-founder/Populum)
Like Charlie Munger once said: “I’ve long believed that a certain system - which almost any intelligent person can learn - works way better than the systems most people use [to understand the world]. What you need is a latticework of mental models in your head. And, with that system, things gradually fit together in a way that enhances cognition. Just as multiple factors shape every system, multiple mental models from a variety of disciplines are necessary to understand that system". You can read this book to start building a "latticework of mental models in your head".Michael Herrmann (Founder/Terminerinnerung)
Life is governed by chance, even if we humans like to think of ourselves as in control by retroactively explaining things that happened in the past.James Altucher (Founder/StockPickr)
And throw in “The Black Swan” and “Fooled by Randomness”.
“Fragile” means if you hit something might break.
“Resilient” means if you hit something, it will stay the same.
On my podcast Nassim discusses “Antifragility” – building a system, even on that works for you on a personal level, where you if you harm your self in some way it becomes stronger.
That podcast changed my life
He discusses Antifragility throughout history, up to our current economic situation, and even in our personal situations.
Bill Liao (General Partner/RebelBio, SOSV.com)
The human world occurs in language so best get good at it!Fabrice Grinda (Serial Entrepreneur, Investor)
I have lots of books to recommend, but they are not related to my career path. The only one that is remotely related is Peter Thiel’s Zero to One. That said here are books I would recommend.Audrey Russo (President & CEO/Pittsburgh Technology Council)
Question: What books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path?
Answer:
- Anything by Peter Senge.
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz
- Once you are Lucky, Twice you are good – Sara Lacey
- Revolutionary Wealth – Alvin Toffler
- Black Swan – Taleb
- Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, by Ellen Pao.
- Creative Class – Richard Florida
- Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace
- Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis
- American Government 101: From the Continental Congress to the Iowa Caucus, Everything You Need to Know About US Politics – Kathleen Spears
- The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff.
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
- Any book by Herman Hesse
- The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
Darvin Kurniawan (CEO & Founder/CrowdVilla)
"The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (and basically the others in the series like "Fooled by Randomness" and "Antifragile") are also my favourites. It explained things that I sort of felt existed but unable to articulate. These books explained it well, about the role of chance/probability and randomness, in our lives.Liquan Liew (Founder/Ripple Root)
The Black Swan - realising that Life happens beyond one's control. But also that serendipitous encounters are real if only we open our eyes to them.Marie Denis (Creator/Women Make, Co-Founder/Threader & IP Man)
I’m not sure that’s the goal of the book but it helped me understand the random characteristic of entrepreneurship. Although the author applies it more to finance and research, it explains how some very rare events have disproportionate consequences and how we can’t predict them. I think success in entrepreneurship is the result of a lot of factors and not just hard work. So it might not be very positive and motivating but in a way it allowed me to have this perspective at a time where we highlight lots of successful entrepreneurs and don’t necessary see all the failures.Anant Jain (Co-Founder/CommonLounge)
The five-book series, "Incerto", by Nassim Nicholas Taleb has had a profound impact on how I think about the world. There’s some overlap across the books — but you'll likely find the repetition helpful in retaining the content better.Amazon description
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.
Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.” For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do.
We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. In this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don’t know, and this second edition features a new philosophical and empirical essay, “On Robustness and Fragility,” which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. The Black Swan is a landmark book—itself a black swan.
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See more books recommended by
Jeff Bezos, Gabriel Coarna, Ola Olusoga, Michael Herrmann, James Altucher, Bill Liao, Fabrice Grinda, Audrey Russo, Darvin Kurniawan, Liquan Liew, Marie Denis, Anant Jain
See more books written by
Sources
- 12 books Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos thinks everyone should read
- Gabriel Coarnă's favorite books & what he learned from them
- Interview with Ola Olusoga: How Books Have Guided His Path To Self-Discovery
- Interview with Michael Herrmann
- The Ten Most Important Books To Expand Your Brain
- Interview with Bill Liao
- Serial Entrepreneur & Investor Fabrice Grinda Reads Almost 100 Books Each Year
- Audrey Russo, President & CEO of Pittsburgh Technology Council, Has an Active Reading List of 20 Books at a Time
- Darvin Kurniawan, CEO & Founder of CrowdVilla, Talks About the Books that Challenged His World-View
- Liquan Liew & Estella Ng, Founders of Ripple Root, Share the Books They Turn to for Inspiration
- Book-Talk with Indie Maker Marie Denis: 'Knowledge Comes from the Diversity of Your Readings'
- Book-Talk with Anant Jain, Co-Founder of CommonLounge: Common Entrepreneurial Mistakes & Reading Habits
