Got time in your hands? 6 must-read books for founders and CEOs

You’ve probably noticed the trend. With most people away from their offices and workplaces, at Startupxplore we’ve decided to suggest our readers things to watch, read and think about. We’re right in the middle of the summer and it’s time to reflect on what we’ve done in the past few months and we want to do in the near future.

We strongly think it’s time for some inspiration and to find new ideas, thus our next post. Below you will find a list of 6 interesting books related to the world of technology, entrepreneurship and investment. Short and long reads that will keep you entertained for a few hours and that you will also learn from. Let’s start!

1. Ben Horowitz doesn’t need a long introduction. The entrepreneur-turned-venture-capitalist is one of the co-founders of Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most active Silicon Valley VC firms in the past few years. Based on his experience -he also co-founded software company Opsware, acquired by HP for $1.6 billion- Ben published in 2014 The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers, a book in which he offers other entrepreneurs tips and advice. 
2. Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson are the co-founders of 37signals (these days known as Basecamp, their most famous product). In a world that seems to be dominated by investment news and flamboyant startup offices all around the world, 37signals is special. The company has never raised any money -being one of the best examples of bootstrapping- and most of its employees work remotely. Jason and David share their experience and learnings in Remote: Office Not Required, a book that analyses the pluses and minuses of not having an office and having employees scattered all around the world.
3. Should I find a co-founder or should I start a company on my own? Should those co-founders be friends or relatives? Should I try to raise any money at the very beginning? These are questions that most entrepreneurs ask themselves when starting a company. Noam Wasserman’s The Founder’s Dilemmas tries to respond to all of these questions based on his own experience and that of Evan Williams (Twitter) or Tim Westergren (Pandora).
4. Similar to the two previous books we’ve got Scott Berkun’s The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work. Scott worked as a manager at a company that has revolutionized online publishing. Automattic is the company behind WordPress and, in similar fashion to 37signals, most of its employees are spread all over the world. Do you want to know how such a big company can thrive without using email? Check Scott’s book.
5. Behind the great product that Twitter is there’s a story of struggles, internal fights and betrayal. Nick Bilton did a fantastic job of narrating Twitter’s history in Hatching Twitter, a novel published in 2013 where he analyses the company from the very beginning until right before its IPO. Like most startups, Twitter’s life resembles a roller coaster and Nick has all the details.
6. Following on Hatching Twitter’s footsteps we’ve got The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. The Seattle-based company has become on the real giants of the internet economy, reaching all parts of the world and entering all sorts of markets over the past few years, from ecommerce to cloud computing. Brad Stone’s novel starts when Bezos worked in the financial industry in Wall Street and follows his journey in great detail, up until Amazon’s current dominant position in several industries.

Do you know of any recent must read books? Let us know in the comments!