41 Books for Product Managers in Tech, or Founders

There are lots of lists I’ve seen on the internet, but in my opinion, this will be the best one yet, despite not having mini-pitches for any given book. All the books that appear on this list I have read personally and gotten much value from. And, while some are “better” than others, I believe those listed below are the best in their category. NOTE: original list was 39, has been updated as of October 7th, to include 2 new reads.

It’s worth pointing out that there are some books you might expect to see on this list that aren’t here. Without making a separate list of all the books I’ve read and disliked, I’m reminded of the phrase: “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it.” There are also some books I just never got around to…

Why no blurbs/mini-pitches? A blurb is entirely subjective, and when I personally look for a new read, I typically look only for titles and then examine 1 star ratings (because they’re often the most passionate). My expectation/thought for anyone looking at this list is you will recognize other books here, and that those other books might serve as social proof to how good (or bad) this list is. Also, if you’ve had a book on your radar for some time, but haven’t gotten to it. Let it appearing here serve as a call to action.

NOTE: books are listed alphabetically so you can skim to see if a book you like is included, if “The” is in the title, it’ll be listed in the T section.

AI Superpowers by Kai-fu Lee
Actionable Gamification by Yu-kai Chou
Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Artificial Intelligence in Practice by Bernard Marr
Blue Ocean Shift by W Chan Kim
Blue Ocean Strategy by W Chan Kim
Creative Selection by Ken Kocienda
Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull
Data Driven by Tom Chavez
Deep Learning Revolution by Terrence Sejnowski
Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail
How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael Gelb
Impossible to Ignore by Carmen Simon
Influence by Robert Cialdini
Inside the Launchpad by Randall Stross
Inspired by Marty Cagan
Knowledge and Decisions by Thomas Sowell
Loonshots by Safi Bahcall
Moonshots by Naveen Jain
Measure What Matters by John Doerr
Mind in Motion by Barbara Tversky
Mindest by Carol Dweck
Mindshift by Babara Oakley
Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff
Platform Revolution by Geoffrey G Parker
Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam Walton
Spellbound by David Kwong
Start with Why by Simon Sinek
Startup Playbook by Sam Altman
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
The Everything Store by Brad Stone
The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
The Membership Economy by Robbie Kellman Baxter
The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
Think Like a Rocket Scientist by Ozan Varol
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Understanding the Predictable by Lloyd Melnick
Wonderland by Steven Johnson
Zero to One by Peter Thiel

FINAL THOUGHTS: Why did I read all these books? Having formerly pursued screenwriting/fiction to the detriment of a typical career path (until now), I’ve always been interested in Human Action and Human Interaction… hence many of the psychology related books were read prior to enrolling in Flatiron’s Software Engineering Bootcamp in September of 2019. While in Bootcamp, I transferred/substituted my passion for entertainment products with tech products which is why I started reading much more about business, technology and design.

As of September 26th, 2020… I have an open application via internal referral at IBM, for the position of Associate Offering Manager. If you have any advice on making this a reality: please message me on LinkedIn.