9 books that every founder should read

I never did an MBA.

But I did have a bookshelf.

15 years at Universal McCann, Hulu, NBCUniversal, and Anine Bing, and somewhere in there, reading turned into research.

Something I reached for whenever a decision in front of me didn't have an obvious answer.

These 9 books ended up covering me at different points:

→ When I had to build Fluency from nothing.
→ When I had to make growth calls without complete data.
→ When I had to lead a team instead of just being good at the work myself.

Each one gave me something I needed at the time.
And I still come back to a handful of them today.

So, here's the list I recommend to any founder, starting out or 15+ years in:

1️⃣ Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
↳ You'll never have all the information before you decide.
↳ Duke played professional poker for a living, then built a framework for making calls without all the facts.

2️⃣ The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
↳ Pretty much all leadership advice covers what to do when things are going well.
↳ This one covers what to do when there's no clear answer, and you still have to pick one.

3️⃣ Zero to One by Peter Thiel
↳ Competing in a crowded market is a difficult way to build something.
↳ Thiel argues the value comes from doing something nobody else is doing yet.

4️⃣ Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt
↳ Half the "strategies" you've sat through in meetings were just wishlists with a deadline attached.
↳ Rumelt gives you a way to test whether your strategy is an actual strategy, or just a goal with extra steps.

5️⃣ Atomic Habits by James Clearr
↳ You don't rise to your goals; you fall to your systems.
↳ Nobody notices the small stuff you repeat daily, until years later when they call it an overnight success.

6️⃣ Measure What Matters by John Doerr
↳ Data only matters if it changes what you do next.
↳ Doerr's OKR framework forces you to connect numbers to decisions, instead of just tracking them.

7️⃣ Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew Grove
↳ Every industry hits a moment where the old rules stop applying.
↳ Grove ran Intel through exactly that, and shows how to spot it before it's too late.

8️⃣ Multipliers by Liz Wiseman
↳ Some leaders make everyone around them smarter. Others drain the room without anyone noticing.
↳ It all comes down to how you use the talent already sitting in the room.

9️⃣ Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
↳ Phil Knight nearly went under multiple times building Nike.
↳ If you want proof that persistence matters more than a perfect plan, this is it.

Books don't replace experience.

But they hand you a shortcut to somebody else's, which is about as close to a shortcut as this job has.

So, if you're stuck on a decision right now, one of these probably has the answer.

What would you add to this list?

♻️ Repost this for the founder building their own reading list.
And follow me, Jacob Rokeach, for more on growth, judgment, and building without burning out.