Thursday, July 18, 2019

50 Billionaires and their top 10 Favorite Books

Hi,
This post gives the list of the top billionaires and their most favourite books which you might be interested in buying and reading. The list has come out after a good amount of internet research, so have to just click the links given and order them if you haven't bought them yet. I hope it is helpful for you.


1. Jeff Bezos.


i) 'The Remains of the Day'  by Kazuo Ishiguro




ii)  'Sam Walton: Made in America'  by Sam Walton


iii) 'Memos from the Chairman' by Alan Greenberg





iv) The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick P. Brooks Jr.




v) 'Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies' by Jim Collins and  Jerry I. Porras



vi) 'Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap'  by Jim Collins

 


vii) 'Creation: Life and How to Make it' by Steve Grand


viii) 'The Innovator's Dilemma'  by Clayton M. Christensen




ix) 'The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement'  by Eliyahu Goldratt




x) 'Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation' by James Wolmach and Daniel Jones




References: https://www.theceolibrary.com/people/jeff-bezos


2. Bill Gates.

Bill keeps updating his favourite books each year on his blog. The list presented here is as per his latest favourites as on 18th July 2019. 

i) 'Capitalism Without Capital - the Rise of Intangible Economy' by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake



ii) 'The Headspace Guide to Mindfulness and Meditation' by Andy Puddicombe




iii) 'Educated - the International Bestselling memoir' by Tara Westover


iv) 'Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine and Mysteries of Blood' by Rose George


v) 'The Moment of Lift - How Empowering Women Changes the World' by Melinda Gates




vi) 'Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist' by Roger Lowenstein


vii) 'Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis' by Jared Diamond



viii)  'Presidents of War: Epic Story from 1807 to Modern Times' by Michael Beschloss



ix) 'The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties'  by Paul collier



x) 'A Gentleman in Moscow' by Amor Towles

 


3. Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are close friends, but they have totally different businesses. Warren Buffett has created his wealth mainly by Investing in Stocks, and he gives big credit of it to Benjamin Graham and highly recommended this book which is at number one spot in the following list. 


i) 'The Intelligent Investor'  by Benjamin Graham


 


ii) 'Security Analysis'  by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd



iii) 'Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits'  by Philip A. Fisher




 iv) 'Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises' by Timothy Geithner



v) 'Jack: Straight from the Gut' by Jack Welch



vi) 'The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success'  by William Thorndike


vii) 'The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs Speculation' by John C. Bogle




viii) 'Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street' by John Brooks





ix) 'Where are the Customers' Yachts?' by Fred Schwed Jr.

x) 'Essays in Persuasion' by John Maynard Keynes





4. Bernard Arnault

Currently (July 2019) he is the 2nd richest person in the world, but I put him at the 4th spot here, because Bill and Warren deserve the top spots because they have been constantly at top spots for decades now. Arnault has risen to the spot this year only.

4. Larry Ellison

i) 'Napoleon' by Vincent Cronin




5. Mark Zuckerberg

Zuckerberg has his favourite books mentioned in his Facebook Page. He has mentioned about 20 to 25 books in there, but only 10 of them which has got most likes on the respective post is mentioned in here. 
i) 'Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty' by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson




ix) 'World Order' by Henry Kissinger

x) 'The Better Angeles of Our Nature' by Steven Pinker

6. Michael Bloomberg




v) 'Principles: Life and Work' by Ray Dalio


7. Larry Page

Lawrence "Larry Page" is the American businessman and a computer scientist who is the co-founder of Google, alongside Sergey Brin. It seems as if Richard P. Feynman was his favourite author, but if Nikola had written more books then it could have been latter. 

There are free versions available on the internet, and they are without any editorial comments. It is very short, and I liked it that way. But if you need comments commentary on the book, please read the other available on the market. 


ii) 'Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!' by Richard P. Feynman


iv) 'QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter'  by Richard P. Feynman

v) 'Pleasure of Finding Things Out' by Richard P. Feynman

vi) 'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson

References:

https://bookauthority.org/profile/larry-page

8. Charles Koch

Apart from being the billionaire CEO of the second-largest privately held company in USA(Koch Industries), he is 83 years old(as on 2019) and has written few books as well. The latest one 'Good Profit' he wrote in 2015 at the age of 80. Another one is 'The Science of Success' written in 2007. Here is a list of his favourite books. 



iii) 'Human Action: A Treatise on Economics' by Ludwig Von Mises


iv) 'In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government' by Charles Murray


v) 'How The West Grew Rich' by Nathan Rosenberg

vi) 'The Law' by Frederic Bastiat


vii) 'The Godfather' by Mario Puzo

viii) 'The Hunt For Red October' by Tom Clancy
 


ix) 'As I Lay Dying' by William Faulkner


x) 'The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature' by Timothy Ferries


8. Ray Dalio





vi) 'The Lessons of History' by Will Durant


vii) 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces' by Joseph Campbell











9. Mukesh Ambani

The Richest in Asia and very famous in India, this man is quite a reader. In his recent interviews, he mentioned two books that he had been reading at the time. He named Dan Brown and Walter Isaacson as his favourite authors, and he named two books by the same. 

i) 'Origin: (Robert Langdon Book 5)' by Dan Brown


ii) 'Leonardo Da Vinci' by Walter Isaacson


As he has named both of these authors his favourites, so definitely, the other books by these authors are also recommended to be read. Check out 'the Da Vinci Code', and others in the series by Dan Brown. And check the Biographies of Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin by Water Isaacson

10. Sergey Brin

The two Google cofounders - Larry Page and Sergey Brin have more common than just the company that they founded together.

i) 'How To Read a Book' by Mortimer J. Adler


ii) 'Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!' by Richard P. Feynman


iii) 'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson

References: 

11. Jack Ma



vi) 'Laozi Daodejing' by Laozi, Edmund Ryden & Benjamin Penny

References:

12. Michael Dell


13. Phil Knight

He is as famous as his company Nike, and in order to know more about him, one must read his memoir 'Shoe Dog' which he got published in 2016. 'Shoe Dog' was in the reading list of 2016, of Bill Gates. Apart from recommending his own book, he recommends a book titles 'Imagine It Forward.'

i) 'Shoe Dog' by Phil Knight

14. Jorge Paulo Lemann

He is currently the second wealthiest Brazilian after Joseph Safra and quite an interesting person to know about. He is a Harvard graduate, a very good Tennis player who has also played in Wimbledon. 

He is very well known for 3G Capital. You must read the story of how he found this investment firm by reading this book, which is also recommended by Warren Buffet who call Jorge a very good friend of his since the time they were together on the Gillette Board. 


Jorge rarely gives interviews, still, there are a few on YouTube. You should check the one he has given to famous author Jim Collins. Search this on YouTube: 'Jim Collins Interviews Jorge Paulo Lemann,' and watch it. There are not many details about his reading habits. 

In this Interview, Jorge tells Jim that his mother was the best mentor to him. He lost his father at 14, and definitely, it was his mother whom he looked up to. He remembered Walmart founder Sam Walton as a friendly guy and admires his qualities, so I guess you got the hint what you should read.  

15. Wang Jianlin

He is the founder of China's largest real estate private company 'Wanda Group.' 
Despite being at the age of 64 he looks like in his late 30s. He is known for strict discipline in his company and penalises the employees for violating the dress code. It may be due to his military background. 
He has authored a book, that will give you a clue about his business and his personality. 


This book was published in 2016 and includes his renowned 2013 ChinaCentral Television Voice Interview, his speech and question-and-answer session to the Harvard Business School, and Wang Jianlin's Business Philosophy on Wanda's real estate, resort, and movie units. 
However in this book, which is a compilation of his interviews, he explains his strategy of success, and he advised not to read books on Corporate Philosophy included his own. 
Reference: https://money.cnn.com/2016/02/22/news/wang-jianlin-book-advice/?iid=EL

16. Elon Musk

He is not just a Billionaire, but the new age inventor. He deserves a great amount of respect for his perseverance. 

i) 'The Lord of The Rings' by J. R. R. Tolkien 


ii) 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy' by Douglas Adams


iii) 'Benjamin Franklin: An American Life' by Walter Isaacson

iv) 'Structure: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down' by J. E. Gordon





vi) 'Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies' by Nick Bostrom



vii) 'Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era' by James Barrat



viii)  'Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming' by Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway


ix) 'The 'Foundation' Trilogy' by Isaac Asimov


x) 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' by Robert A. Heinlein


xi) 'Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence' by Max Tegmark



17. Tadashi Yanai

He is currently the richest Japanese. The company Fast Retailing that he manages is currently the third-largest clothing retailer in the world. H&M and Inditex are at the top spots. 
He recommends reading the books from your own field of expertise. At the age of 41, he wrote his autobiography 'One Win Nine Losses' in which he stresses to learn from the failures. Unfortunately, the book is written in Japanese and I didn't find any English version. 

18. Jim Simons

James Harris Simons is an American Mathematician and a billionaire hedge fund manager. He has had a wonderful teaching career at MIT and Harvard and is known as the best living pioneers of theoretical physics. 
Apart from all this, he has done something very unique with his Renaissance Technologies. He hired mathematicians, physicists and computer experts to predict the market. 

There is not much known about the books that he reads, still, I can guess that he reads a lot about mathematics and physics, so much so that he applied it to the money game and became one of the top billionaires of the world. There is this one book about him I found on Amazon Kindle and it looks promising from its introduction. 

The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman



19. Vagit Alekperov

He is currently the third richest Russian after Leonid Mikheson and Vladimir Lisin. The first two do not have a single page on the internet dedicated to their favourite books. It can be due to a different language they speak or maybe they are secretive. 

I have seen not many details getting out about the Chinese and Russian Billionaires. I saw a book on Amazon claiming to be written by Alekperov, but the reviews say that is not his work, but a simple compilation of the earlier published articles. 
These articles are available for free online at the website with the same title as that of the book. It is a magazine run by the company Lukoil itself. Here is the link:

Oil of Russia by  Lukoil

For a complete list of '50 Billionaires and their Favorite Books,' please buy this upcoming ebook from Amazon Kindle. 

Thanks!


20. Alexey Mordashov

He is the man who bought the shares of the Severstal from its workers and became the Billionaire. As per an article by Telegraph 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins is his favourite book.

  


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