10 different books for startups & founders

If you were building a library for startups and their founders, what books would you recommend? Someone asked me this recently, probably because the lists online look like those terrifying airport bookstands: titles like Crush the opposition with your Hustle!

These were the first ones I thought of; many not new, many not about being a founder, just the ones that struck me in Feb 2016.

Because we should be thoughtful about power, accelerated change and the future we want:

Alone Together by Sherry Turkle on isolation, tech dependence and robotics (and watching the excellent/Paro-referencing Master of None reminded me of this)

The People’s Platform: taking back power and culture in the digital age by Astra Taylor — wasn’t the world wide web supposed to make us more democratic?

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson

Because we sometimes just need a 101:

Fundraising Field Guide by Carlos Espinal — super practical, and love the donation model

Let My People go Surfing: the Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard — my kind of founder

Because great products come from great teams with great culture:

Do Breathe: Calm your Mind. Find Focus. Get stuff done by Michael Townsend Williams

Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that can’t stop Talking by Susan Cain

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (the last two are pretty obvious but worth the mention)

Because we should take our inspiration from the past (and what goes around comes around, right?)

Living Dolls: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life by Gaby Woods — because the recent news about DeepMind, AI & Go isn’t so very different from the 18th century Mechanical Turk.

The Obstacle is the Way: the ancient art of turning adversity into advantage by Ryan Holiday