The LGF reading list:
An evolutionary perspective on markets and investor behavior
Amazon’s Leadership Principles (WEBSITE)
Applicable to many areas of investing, business, and life
Sam Zell's autobiography
A history of organized efforts to harness human attention for commercial and political purposes
The Big Money: Seven Steps to Picking Great Stocks and Finding Financial Security
Case studies relevant to decision-making and investing in growth businesses
Famed Fidelity portfolio manager Joel Tillinghast's excellent book on investing
On movies and entertainment in the age of the internet
Brain Rules for Baby & Brain Rules
Practically-written books on what we know about the human brain’s development & key characteristics
One of the best financial statement analysis books around
Lessons from former Nabisco and Gillette CEO Jim Kilts
Double Your Profits: In Six Months or Less
On opex and capex discipline, 3G Capital-approved (for better or worse…)
Traces Amazon's development and provides insight into Bezos the man
Essays by Paul Graham (WEBSITE)
Paul Graham of YC’s thoughtful essays on a variety of topics
Expected Returns: An Investor's Guide to Harvesting Market Rewards
A reconciliation of academic and practical finance from an author who has practiced both
On incorrect yet widely-accepted assumptions about our world, by the late medical doctor and public health professor Hans Rosling
On the Kelly Criterion - engaging
Grinding It Out: The Making Of McDonald's
Ray Kroc's autobiography and the story of McDonald's
Relevant and well-written book on the development of the airline industry
David Byrne of the Talking Heads explores how music is written, recorded, distributed, and received
Jeff Bezos’s 2020 Amazon shareholder letter (PDF)
“The world wants you to be typical – in a thousand ways, it pulls at you. Don’t let it happen. You have to pay a price for your distinctiveness, and it’s worth it. The fairy tale version of ‘be yourself’ is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version is misleading. Being yourself is worth it, but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously. The world will always try to make Amazon more typical – to bring us into equilibrium with our environment. It will take continuous effort, but we can and must be better than that.”
Though not explicitly about marketing, one of the best marketing books around
LikeWar: the Weaponization of Social Media
A must-read on social media’s role as a commercial, military, and political tool, and its broader effect on humanity
Ed Thorp’s autobiography
Seth Klarman's concise 1991 book on investing, though out-of-print and expensive
Option Volatility and Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques
The intuition behind options
Profiles of CEOs who allocated capital extraordinarily well
Thesis: more choice can be counter-productive
Frank Zappa’s autobiography - supremely entertaining, not directly related to investing other than Zappa was a notable iconoclast who accomplished much and thought independently
Nate Silver's book on forecasting intelligently, humans versus computers, and Bayesian thinking - a must read
An often hilarious history of Las Vegas and the personalities that created it
Though somewhat dated, a thoughtful overview of all aspects of the significant portion of our waking lives that we spend in traffic
Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies
One of our favorites - on the drivers of enterprise value
Warren Buffett's Partnership Letters (PDF)
Before Warren Buffett was Warren Buffett…he managed a portfolio and wrote about it
You Can Be a Stock Market Genius
Case studies (rare for investing books) and invaluable stock market wisdom