The Founder Bookshelf
Books founders recommend to each other. Browse by topic or by where you are as you grow, mark what you've read, and add what's next.
6 books on Hiring, Team & Culture for growth & scaling
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Turn your hard-won lessons into a system you can repeat.
Dalio distills the life and work principles he developed running Bridgewater into a single framework for making better decisions. He champions radical truth and...
2 founders recommend Get the book ↗
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The instinct, grit, and trading sense behind Gujarati business success.
Dhandha profiles several successful Gujarati entrepreneurs, including a diamond merchant, a New York Life insurance agent, a motel owner, and hotel and manufacturing...
1 founder recommends Get the book ↗
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Why working from anywhere beats forcing everyone into one office.
The Basecamp founders argue that the advantages of remote work usually outweigh the drawbacks, and they address common objections head on. The book covers how to...
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Every organization is a set of tribes, and culture is the lever.
Drawing on an eight-year study of roughly 24,000 people across two dozen organizations, the authors argue that every company is made up of tribes of 20 to 150 people....
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Stop giving orders, start creating leaders at every level.
Marquet recounts how he took the worst-performing submarine in the U.S. fleet and made it one of the best by abandoning the traditional leader-follower model. Instead...
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How Google hires, manages, and frees its people.
Bock shares the people-operations practices that shaped Google, from rigorous, structured hiring to giving employees freedom and using data to make management...
Questions, answered
What books do founders recommend?
Founders on the eChai network recommend titles like Principles: Life and Work, Dhandha: How Gujaratis Do Business, and Remote: Office Not Required. The bookshelf ranks books by how many founders have read them.
Where can I find a startup reading list?
The eChai founder bookshelf is a curated, founder-recommended reading list you can browse by topic (fundraising, product, hiring) and by stage.
How is the bookshelf ordered?
By recommendation: the more founders mark a book read, the higher it ranks. You can also sort by newest or A to Z.
