Summer Book Recommendations from the Smartest People We Know

Introducing a new annual feature on First Round Review: The Summer Reading List. All year, we bring you advice from the best in tech. Here, they recommend the books that expanded their minds in 2016.

Honorable Mention

Our goal with First Round Review has always been to give you rare, unprecedented access to the people shaping the tech industry — specifically, the advice that they've gained through experience, or used to get where they are today. So when we sat down earlier this year to double down on this mission, we wondered who these exceptional people — including leaders at companies like Airbnb, Slack, Warby Parker and the like — idolize and draw their wisdom from. Who do they turn to when they have tough questions or encounter new challenges? And how can we share this bigger, broader store of knowledge with our audience?

As it turns out, tech pioneers tend to be voracious readers, and they like to apply what they read. So, on the precipice of summer vacations for many, we thought it only made sense to share the reads that have inspired the people we look to for the best tactics and solutions. What follows are top book recommendations sent to us by some of the sharpest folks we've written about and work with to give First Round startups an edge. Bonus: We not only asked them for their top business book from the past year, but the recent bests across genre, and their favorite of all time — leading to a fascinating, counterintuitive web of “people who liked this also liked...” suggestions. (Like most of the advice we feature, we tried to give top billing to the unusual and original. People love Zero to One, but you already knew that.) We hope you enjoy! Happy summer and happy reading!

Your friendly Review editors, Camille Ricketts & Shaun Young

P.S. We're humbled by all the incredible folks who shared their picks with us. It truly left us feeling like this:

Book Recommendations

1. Michael Lopp:

   • Top pick: Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram
   • Other recommendations:
     • The Great Bridge
     • Hyperion

2. Brian O'Kelley:

   • Top pick: Product Strategy for High Technology Companies by Michael McGrath
   • Other recommendations:
     • Wolf Hall
     • Cloud Atlas

3. Julie Zhuo:

   • Top pick: High Output Management by Andy Grove
   • Other recommendations:
     • Mindset
     • The Phantom Tollbooth

4. Dave Gilboa:

   • Top pick: The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
   • Other recommendations:
     • Sapiens
     • Guns, Germs, and Steel

5. Joe Gebbia:

   • Top pick: Start With Why
   • Other recommendation:
     • The Course of Love

6. Bethanye McKinney Blount:

   • Top pick: The Internet of Garbage
   • Other recommendations:
     • Dead Wake
     • Salem's Lot

7. Kristen Hamilton:

   • Top pick: Hot Seat: The Startup CEO Guidebook
   • Other recommendations:
     • The Night Circus
     • The Sparrow

8. Olivia Teich:

   • Top pick: How Will You Measure Your Life
   • Other recommendations:
     • Creativity Inc
     • The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
     • Snow Crash

9. Nikhyl Singhal:

   • Top pick: Leadership and Self-Deception
   • Other recommendation:
     • I Am Pilgrim

10. Colleen McCreary:

    • Top pick: The Geography of Genius
    • Other recommendations:
      • The Color of Water
      • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

11. Bre Pettis:

    • Top pick: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
    • Other recommendations:
      • Sex Object
      • The Hare with the Amber Eyes

12. Joe Dolce:

    • Top pick: Between You and Me, Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris
    • Other recommendations:
      • The Art of Possibility
      • A Little Life

13. Peter Reinhardt:

    • Top pick: Open by Andre Agassi
    • Other recommendation:
      • Sam Walton — Made in America

14. Matthew Bellows:

    • Top pick: Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior
    • Other recommendations:
      • Poems for the Entrepreneurial Journey
      • The Better Angels of Our Nature

15. Erik Martin:

    • Top pick: Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of Blackberry
    • Other recommendation:
      • The Guns of August

16. John Ciancutti:

    • Top pick: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

17. Anne Dwane:

    • Top pick: The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness

18. Angie Chang:

    • Top pick: Women in Tech: Take Your Career to The Next Level with Practical Advice and Inspiring Stories

19. Cindy Alvarez:

    • Top pick: You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory is Mostly Fiction and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself

20. Soleio Cuervo:

    • Top pick: What Technology Wants

21. Cory Ondrejka:

    • Top pick: The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the making of American Capitalism

22. Josh Brewer:

    • Top pick: The Fifth Discipline

23. Gordon Rios:

    • Top pick: Building Great Software Engineering Teams

24. Tamara Steffens:

    • Top pick: When Breath Becomes Air

25. Lynn Perkins:

    • Top pick: Turn the Ship Around: The True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders

26. Arielle Jackson:

    • Top pick: Ogilvy on Advertising

• Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus by Douglas Rushkoff: Advice on company structuring.
• Linked by Albert-laszlo Barabasi: Predictions on the future of interconnectedness.
• Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux: Influential organizational theory.
• All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister: Insight into women’s adult life in America.
• Your Brain at Work by David Rock: Understanding brain operations at work.
• Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance: Insights into Musk's businesses.
• Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe: A humorous explanation of complex subjects.
• Raving Fans by Kenneth Blanchard: A brief guide on customer service.
• Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney: A children's book with a mission-oriented message.