Saturday, August 22, 2009

Three Books for Entrepreneurs

From venture capitalist Fred Wilson's blog:

Books For Entrepreneurs


Last week an entrepreneur named Stephen who reads this blog regularly asked me for recommendations that budding entrepreneurs should read. I gave him a list and then forwarded it to my friends Brad Feld and Jerry Colonna who I knew would appreciate the list.

That led to this post by Brad where he lists his top three book suggestions for entrepreneurs. Go read that post. It's great.

As I was reading Brad's post, I realized that I should have shared my list with everyone, not just Stephen.

So here it is:

Kavalier and Clay

Atlas Shrugged


The Prince (Machiavelli)


any and all of shakespeare's tragedies and histories

Brad's suggestion of Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance is a great one and I'll include that in the future when asked this question.

The point of this list is that there is way more insight to be gained from stories than from business books. And these are some amazing stories.



I was surprised to see Michael Chabon's novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay recommended in this context, but I thought it was an impressive novel. About two thirds of the way through, Chabon throws in a brilliant twist that sends the narrative in an unexpected, and ultimately quite moving, direction for the next forty pages or so. Worth reading.

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