The best books that startup founders read in 2022

We gift each other a lot of books each year. It’s a good practice, as having more books makes you a more handsome individual, and buying books helps support the arts. Or at least quasi-vanity business book publishers.

Regardless, we’re wrapping up the TechCrunch Book-A-Thon today with a series of recommendations from founders. Recounting the best books that entrepreneurs read in 2022 follows our list of recommendations from venture capitalists and the TechCrunch staff.

Naturally, you’ll find a good number of business books below. There are also recommendations from founders that stray into the autobiographical and fiction realms. If you need even more book ideas, you can check out both parts of our 2021 list here and here.

This article contains links to affiliate partners where available. When you buy through these links, TechCrunch may earn an affiliate commission.

Founder book favorites, 2022 edition

Process Mining: Data Science in Action by Wil van der Aalst

• Recommended by Alex Rinke, co-founder and co-CEO of Celonis.

His research changed my life and the course of my career. Reading that book opened my eyes to a new way of running processes to companies everywhere — an adventure that involved my co-founders and me hand-writing over a thousand letters to top executives, driving all over Germany in a beat-up Opel Astra and so much more.

Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

• Recommended by Brennan Spellacy, CEO at Patch.

A foundational piece of the growing cli-fi genre, “Ministry for the Future” paints a vivid picture of how climate change will impact all of us. The novel showcases the disturbing reality we’re creating, particularly for the most vulnerable, and leaves you with a haunting sense of urgency to act.

Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter

• Recommended by Clearspeed CEO and co-founder Alex Martin.

I like “Comfort Crisis’ because it reminds us that “hard” things can be very good and healthy … a reminder that as entrepreneurs we should embrace adversity and pain to make us stronger.

Die with Zero by Bill Perkins

• Recommended by Clearspeed CEO and co-founder Alex Martin.

It’s a reminder that in this very short life we have only few windows to make memories that out value material wealth — these experiences should be financially invested in now to optimize life’s journey for ourselves, our families and our communities — also, as entrepreneurs — we aren’t doing this for money, first of all, we are doing this for the memory and adventure and stories we are making.

The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t by Julia Galef

• Recommended by Playbyte’s Kyle Russell

We’re naturally inclined to violently identify with and defend our beliefs, though we can become more effective by learning to hold them loosely and becoming comfortable with incrementally updating how we see the world over time.

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore

• Recommended by Satyen Sangani, CEO of Alation.

I don’t think there’s a single book that’s affected how I’ve thought about the journey of building a startup more than [this one]. From a simple positioning statement to scaling technology, he provides the map for the journey that most technology companies have to traverse to get to the promised land.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X (As told to Alex Haley)

• Recommended by Satyen Sangani, CEO of Alation.

If you want to hear about someone that’s persevered and transformed in the search of meaning, this is an incredible story. Malcolm’s journey is fundamentally human and totally inspiring. Starting with his childhood, through his militant stage and then to a rebirth, he lives every season of life and does so in a way that displays growth, grit and authenticity.

Be 2.0 by Jim Collins

• Recommended by Rachel Mack Robinson, DotCom Therapy.

This book sits next to my computer and is one I revisit frequently. People often laugh when they see it on my desk as it has post-it notes fanning out from every direction. It serves as an important reminder of why you start a company and the questions you need to ask yourself in order to stay on track. For anyone at the beginning, middle or end of their entrepreneurial journey, this book always reignites a fire in me!

Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson

• Recommended by Rachel Mack Robinson, DotCom Therapy.

I often tend to recommend or reference it whenever I hear from individuals struggling to find quality talent on their teams. It can also help you assess your team’s talents differently. In my past years, the most successful employees have been abstract problem-solvers who know how to rally a team to push through barriers and think strategically.

Radical Candor by Kim Scott

• Recommended by Rachel Mack Robinson, DotCom Therapy.

Having a remote company requires a deep investment in culture. Within culture, it is easy to slip into a company that shies away from constructive feedback of their team members. This book helps anyone with direct reports navigate the difficult conversations to help steer them into coaching opportunities, which will enable your direct report to grow and your company to achieve optimal impact.

And now, recommendations that were shared with less commentary:

Recommended by Tracy Chou of BlockParty:

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
• An Immense World by Ed Yong

Recommended by Mo Shaikh of Aptos Labs:

• The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe
• Edison by Edmund Morris
• Fallibility, Reflexivity, and the Human Uncertainty Principle by David Lindley

Recommended by David Rabie of Tovala:

• Hangry by Mike Evans
• Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Recommended by Todd Olson of Pendo:

• Sales Management. Simplified by Mike Weinberg

Recommended by Andrew Bialecki of Klaviyo:

• Hearts Touched with Fire by David Gergen
• The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

Recommended by Kalpesh Kapadia of Deserve:

• The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni

Recommended by Alison Smith of Roga:

• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

Recommended by Alex Kosyakov of Natrion:

• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

Both “were interesting in that there are a great deal of tools that management in a company can leverage to get high performance from employees,” Kosyakov wrote.

Recommended by Torben Friehe of Wingback:

• Anna: The Biography by Amy Odell
• The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over by Jack Schaefer
• Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel by Tom Wainwright
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
• Measure What Matters by John Doerr
• Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
• The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power by Max Chafin

Recommended by Victor Oribamise of Kquika:

• Super Founders by Ali Tamaseb
• The Genetic Lottery by Kathryn Paige Harden
• The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman
• The Founder’s Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman
• Lean AI by Lomit Patel
• Count Down by Shanna Swan

Recommended by Girish Mathrubootham of Freshworks:

• Zone to Win by Geoffrey Moore

Recommended by Liran Belenzon of BenchSci:

• Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed by Ben Rich and Leo Janos
• The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni
• Jack: Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch
• The Story of Lululemon: Little Black Stretchy Pants by Chip Wilson
• That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea by Marc Randolph

Recommended by Sam Eder, co-founder and CEO of Big Wheelbarrow:

• The New Builders: Face to Face With the True Future of Business by Seth Levine and Elizabeth MacBride

Recommended by Jon Ebel, co-founder and CTO of Verivend:

• On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

Recommended by Courtney Caldwell, co-founder and COO of ShearShare:

• What Happy People Know: How the New Science of Happiness Can Change Your Life for the Better by Dan Baker, Ph.D., and Cameron Stauth

Recommended by Tye Caldwell, co-founder and CEO of ShearShare:

• Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv. Eker

Recommended by Marco Zappacosta, co-founder and CEO of Thumbtack:

• The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future by Sebastian Mal. “An engrossing history of venture capital, highlighting how fundamental it was to making Silicon Valley what it is today.”
• Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death by Nick Lane. “A fascinating look at the chemistry at the heart of life itself.”
• The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality by Kathryn Paige Harden. “A helpful guide to the latest research on how genes shape our lives and a thoughtful meditation on what that means for building a more just and fair society.”
• Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality by Anil Ananthaswamy. “A wonderful book bringing to life the cosmic weirdness of the two-slit experiment and the quantum world we live in.”