Great Books Distilled: Books by History's Greatest Innovators, Founders, and Investors

The page is a reading list sharing the best books written by history's greatest innovators, founders, and investors. This is a reading list for people who don’t have time for unimportant books—which should be everyone. I only list the best books I've read and recommend.

All Book Summaries

For the best books that I read, I go through the painstaking effort to put together and publish my personal notes including highlights, excerpts, and takeaways. You get the best 5% of the ideas in these books in a form that takes 20 minutes at most to read.

Great Books by Category

These are the best books to read, listed by category. Along with a few collections of rare and hard-to-find speeches, lectures, talks, interviews, letters, and memos that are a great way to go deeper.

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Daniel Scrivner

Best Business Books

Looking for good books on business and entrepreneurship? This is my list of the best page-for-page business books of all-time. If you only have time to read one or two books, I recommend looking at the Top Business Books section below.

You can also find recently released books that are worth your attention in the New and Notable section. I try to carefully curate all of my reading lists and you can be sure that any venture capital book on this page is worth your time. Enjoy!

On This Page


New and Notable

This section features recently released books that are worth your attention.

No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
by Reed Hastings & Erin Meyer
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity
by Frank Slootman
Print | eBook | Audiobook


The Top 10 Business Books

Not sure where to start? These top business books are essential reading.

The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership
by Bill Walsh
Print | eBook | Audiobook

High Output Management
by Andrew Grove
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Principles: Life and Work
by Ray Dalio
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity
by Frank Slootman
Print | eBook | Audiobook

The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
by William Thorndike
Print | eBook | Audiobook

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
by Eliyahu Goldratt & Jeff Cox
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Only the Paranoid Survive
by Andrew Grove
Print | eBook | Audiobook

No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
by Reed Hastings & Erin Meyer
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm
by Verne Harnish
Print | eBook | Audiobook


Best Books on Growth and Scaling

Every company has to overcome the initial hurdles to growth and then lean into scaling to build a big business. These the top growth focused books are essential reading.

High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People
by Elad Gil
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies
by Andrew Chen
Print | eBook | Audiobook

The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects
by Andrew Chen
Print | eBook | Audiobook


Best Books on Decision Making

Building anything is a relentless exercise in making decisions with incomplete information and insufficient time. These books will help you make sound decisions under stress.

Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me: Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
by Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts
by Annie Duke
Print | eBook | Audiobook

Related Reading Lists

If you enjoyed this collection of book recommendations, don't miss exploring my other collections.

Or browse all book recommendations →

About the author

Daniel Scrivner is an award-winner designer turned founder and investor. He's led design work at Apple and Square. He is an early investor in Notion, Public.com, and Good Eggs. He's also the founder of Ligature: The Design VC and Outlier Academy. Daniel has interviewed the world’s leading founders and investors including Scott Belsky, Luke Gromen, Kevin Kelly, Gokul Rajaram, and Brian Scudamore.

Last updated
Sep 16, 2023

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