Nova's Picksa16z: You Can Just Read 25 Books List
A16Z founders, general partners, and senior operators were asked to share the under-recognized books that shaped how they think about building companies, markets and culture. This is the curated list. Happy Reading!
1. 1. How to Innovate
Inventing what doesn’t yet exist, learning from breakthrough pioneers.
Wright Brothers
Recommended by Ashwin Sreenivas, Cofounder & CTO, Decagon
Liftoff
From David George, General Partner & Head of Growth, a16z
Competing Against Luck
From Ali Ghodsi, Cofounder & CEO, Databricks
Monetizing Innovation
Picked by Ali Ghodsi, Cofounder & CEO, Databricks
2. 2. How to Organize
Build scaling teams, execution engines, and organizational resilience.
Sam Walton
From Qasar Younis, Founder & CEO, Applied Intuition
The Score Takes Care of Itself
Recommended by Qasar Younis, Founder & CEO, Applied Intuition
The Effective Executive
From Ali Ghodsi, Cofounder & CEO, Databricks
Who
Recommended by Ali Ghodsi, Cofounder & CEO, Databricks
Good to Great
From Jesse Zhang, Cofounder & CEO, Decagon
Crossing the Chasm
Picked by Jesse Zhang, Cofounder & CEO, Decagon
3. 3. How to Decide
Judgment under pressure. Strategy, markets, risk, pricing, and navigating fog-of-war complexity.
4. 4. How to Understand People
Leading humans means first making sense of humans.
