What Are Billionaires Reading? Musk, Bezos, Gates, Buffett & Others Recommend These Books

Berkshire Hathway’s (NYSE: BRK.B) Charlie Munger once said, “In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time.”

Numerous studies have demonstrated that successful people who practice reading at least seven business books per year make 2.3 times as much as those who only read one business book annually.

According to research published in Thomas Corley's book "The Rich Habits," two or more books are read by 85% of self-made millionaires each month.

Famed billionaire Warren Buffett was once asked what his secret to success was. He replied, “Read 500 pages every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest.”

Bill Gates reads around 50 books per year – nearly one book every week.

Mark Cuban said in 2016, “I read everything I can. I don't care what the source is.”

Elon Musk mentioned in an interview, “when I was around 12 or 15 … I had an existential crisis, and I was reading various books on trying to figure out the meaning of life and what does it all mean?”

He ultimately said he thought “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” was a favorite because, “I think and it highlighted an important point which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer.”
So, what are the billionaires recommending? We’ve compiled a list
​​​​​Elon Musk

• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
• Human Compatible by Stuart Russell
• Zero to One by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
• Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway
• Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark
• The Big Picture by Sean M. Carroll
• Lying by Sam Harris
• Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
• The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
• Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Jeff Bezos

• Made In America by Sam Walton
• Rework by David Heinemeier Hansson
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Dune (series) by Frank Herbert
• Lights Out by Thomas Gryta
• Creation by Steve Grand
• Built to Last by James Collins
• Culture (series) by Iain M. Banks
• The Blind Matchmaker by Richard Dawkins
• The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb

Mark Cuban

• Principles by Ray Dalio
• The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen
• The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
• The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis
• Rework by David Heinemeier Hansson
• The Sports Gene by David Epstein
• That’s What She Said by Joanne Lipman
• The Great Revolt by Salena Zito
• The Only Game in Town by Mohamed El-Erian

Warren Buffett

• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
• Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger
• One Thousand Ways to Make $1,000 by F.C. Minaker
• The Most Important Thing Illuminated by Howard Marks
• The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John C. Bogle
• The Outsiders by William N. Thorndike, Jr.
• Essays in Persuasion by John Maynard Keynes
• Investing Between the Lines by L.J. Rittenhouse
• The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean

Charlie Munger

• Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field: How Two Men Revolutionized Physics by Nancy Forbes and Basil Mahon
• Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity by John Gribbin
• Fiasco: The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader by Frank Partnoy
• Ice Age by John Gribbin
• How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman
• Models of My Life by Herbert A. Simon
• A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals about the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe by Gino Segre
• Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw
• Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
• The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared Diamond

Bill Gates

• Grand Transitions by Vaclav Smil
• How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil
• The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker
• The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
• Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• The Heart by Maylis de Kerangal
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr