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.
23 books for leading at scale
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The wildest corporate takeover battle of the 1980s, told in full.
Barbarians at the Gate is a detailed account of the 1988 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, the largest of its era. It follows the egos, bankers, and executives who...
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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...
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The foundational text that built modern value investing.
First published in 1934 in the wake of the Great Depression, Security Analysis is the rigorous, technical foundation of value investing. Graham and Dodd lay out a...
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Honest advice for the brutal decisions running a company forces on you.
Ben Horowitz shares hard-won lessons from building, running, and selling Opsware through dot-com collapse and constant crisis. Rather than offering tidy formulas, he...
1 founder recommends Get the book ↗
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Great design dies in the meeting unless you can explain it.
This book focuses on the conversation that happens after the design is done, when you have to defend and explain your decisions to clients, executives, and teammates....
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Economic freedom is the foundation of political freedom.
Friedman argues that competitive capitalism and free markets are essential to individual liberty and political freedom. He makes the case for limited government and...
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The messy, backstabbing birth of Twitter and its founders.
Nick Bilton tells the behind-the-scenes story of Twitter's founding by Ev Williams, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass. The narrative centers on the shifting...
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How Google built a company around smart creatives.
Schmidt and Rosenberg explain the management principles that guided Google's growth, centered on attracting and empowering people they call smart creatives. They cover...
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Win people over by genuinely caring about them first.
Carnegie distills timeless principles for getting along with and influencing others: avoid criticism, give honest appreciation, see things from the other person's...
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Drucker's comprehensive encyclopedia of the manager's job.
This sweeping volume gathers Drucker's mature thinking into a single reference on what managers actually do. It covers the tasks of management (economic performance,...
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A founder returns to rescue the company he built.
Howard Schultz tells how he returned as CEO of Starbucks in 2008 to lead a turnaround as the company faltered amid overexpansion and the financial crisis. He recounts...
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Win big deals by asking the right questions, not by pitching harder.
Based on a twelve-year study of thousands of sales calls, Rackham shows that techniques that work for small sales backfire in large, complex deals. He introduces the...
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The world is shifting from owning products to subscribing to outcomes.
Tzuo argues that customers increasingly prefer ongoing access over one-time ownership, pushing every industry toward subscription models. The first half traces the...
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A clause-by-clause walkthrough of a real VC term sheet.
This short, practical guide breaks down a venture capital term sheet section by section, explaining what each clause means and what can be negotiated. It includes an...
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How a doubted idea became Netflix, told by its first CEO.
Marc Randolph recounts the founding of Netflix, from the brainstorming that produced the idea through the scrappy early days of a DVD-by-mail startup. He is candid...
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Top reps win by teaching and challenging customers, not just building rapport.
Based on a study of thousands of sales reps, the authors identify five seller profiles and find that Challengers, who teach, tailor, and take control, consistently...
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Effectiveness is a habit anyone can learn.
Drucker argues that effectiveness, doing the right things, is a discipline that can be learned rather than an innate talent. He lays out practices including managing...
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Master the first three months of any new role.
Watkins lays out a structured plan for the critical first ninety days in a new leadership role, when momentum or failure is set early. He covers accelerating learning,...
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Five interlocking dysfunctions that quietly sink any team.
Told as a business fable about a struggling tech company's new CEO, the book lays out a pyramid of five dysfunctions: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of...
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A stage-by-stage map from engineer to technical executive.
Camille Fournier walks through each step of the technical leadership ladder, from mentoring and tech lead to manager, director, and CTO. Each chapter gives practical,...
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Eight contrarian CEOs who crushed the market by mastering capital allocation.
The book profiles eight unconventional CEOs (including Warren Buffett, Tom Murphy, and Katharine Graham) whose companies dramatically outperformed the S&P 500. Their...
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The book that turned management into a discipline.
Drucker's foundational text argues that management is a distinct, learnable practice rather than an accident of personality. It introduces management by objectives,...
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The coaching principles behind Silicon Valley's most valuable mentor.
The authors distill the leadership lessons of Bill Campbell, the executive coach who quietly guided leaders at Google, Apple, and beyond. They show how Campbell built...
Questions, answered
What books do founders recommend?
Founders on the eChai network recommend titles like Barbarians at the Gate, Dhandha: How Gujaratis Do Business, and Security Analysis. 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.
