I highly recommend the following books:
(1) Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future – Written by technology entrepreneur and co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel. In 1998, Thiel foresaw a world where people could seamlessly transfer money online, and by co-founding PayPal he helped to make e-commerce as we know it possible. Hailed as one of the most successful investors in the world, Thiel was the first outside investor in Facebook, and he has funded hundreds of other early stage companies including LinkedIn, Yelp, Spotify, and SpaceX.
Zero to One is at once an optimistic view of what the future of progress looks like in America and an intellectual meditation on the nature of innovation and other challenges of today’s business world of which Thiel writes: “If American business is going to succeed, we are going to need hundreds, or even thousands, of miracles. We call these miracles technology.
(2) Brandwashed – by Martin Lindstrom. I’m always interested in learning about branding and how companies utilize psychology to consciously and subconsciously influence one’s purchase decision. As Martin Lindstrom reminds us in "Brandwashed," marketers make sneaky appeals to our fears and desires, leverage our social connections to maximize peer pressure, dazzle us with tinfoil celebrity and lure us with sexual come-ons that would embarrass a bawd.
(3) How We Got To Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World – by Steven Johnson. One of my favorite authors is James Burkes who wrote and starred in the BBC Series “Connections”. Steven Johnson explores similar territory as he traces the history of six innovations and their influence on human progress.
(4) The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us – by James W. Pennebaker. I’m interested in reading Pennebaker’s research in computational linguistics-in essence, counting the frequency of words we use-to show that our language carries secrets about our feelings, our self-concept, and our social intelligence.
(5) Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China – by Evan Osnos. Age of Ambition is an extended cultural and political trawl through modern China, reflecting Osnos's eight years reporting on the country. It's a story, essentially, about people: the people swept up in the cult-like enthusiasm for learning English; the Chinese journalists trying to expose corruption but careful not to push their investigations too far for fear of being shut down; the self-confident young nationalists determined to defend China against Western intellectual subversion.
(6) Shantarum – by Gregory David Roberts. Shantaram is a 2003 novel by Gregory David Roberts, in which a convicted Australian bank robber and heroin addict who escaped from Pentridge Prison flees to India. The novel is commended by many for its vivid portrayal of tumultuous life in Mumbai.
