Books like Liar's Poker

01

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

Phil Knight · Memoir

Shoe Dog is Phil Knight's account of the first two decades of Nike, from the $50 loan he borrowed from his father in 1964 to fund his first shipment of Japanese running shoes to the company's IPO in 1980.

A kindred business read.

02

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Ben Horowitz · Business

The Hard Thing About Hard Things is Ben Horowitz's account of what it actually feels like to run a company through crisis.

A kindred business read.

03

Fooled by Randomness

Nassim Nicholas Taleb · Psychology

Fooled by Randomness is Nassim Nicholas Taleb's argument that humans are wired to misread luck as skill, noise as signal, and random outcomes as the product of ability or effort.

Both dig into risk.

04

Freakonomics

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner · Economics

Freakonomics is economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner's argument that economics — properly understood as the study of incentives — can explain things that look, on the surface, like they have nothing to do with money.

A kindred business read.

05

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

Peter Thiel · Business

Zero to One began as notes from a Stanford course Thiel taught on startups in 2012, assembled into a book with co-author Blake Masters.

A kindred business read.

06

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Michael Lewis · Economics

The Big Short is Michael Lewis's account of the 2008 financial crisis as seen through the eyes of a handful of contrarians who saw the collapse coming, bet against the American housing market, and were right.

Shares risk and greed with Liar's Poker.

07

The End of Wall Street

Roger Lowenstein · Economics

The End of Wall Street is Roger Lowenstein's account of the 2008 financial crisis, from the early signs of trouble in the mortgage market through the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the government interventions, and the immediate aftermath.

Shares risk and greed with Liar's Poker.

08

Barbarians at the Gate

Bryan Burrough · Business

Barbarians at the Gate is Bryan Burrough and John Helyar's account of the 1988 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, at the time the largest corporate transaction in history.

Both dig into greed.

09

Leadership on the Line

Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky · Business

Leadership on the Line is Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky's more accessible treatment of adaptive leadership, aimed at practitioners rather than scholars.

Both dig into risk.

10

Lights Out

Thomas Gryta · Business

Lights Out chronicles the destruction of General Electric under Jeff Immelt, who took over from Jack Welch in September 2001 and left in 2017 having overseen one of the largest collapses of corporate value in American history.

Both dig into finance.

11

The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

Josh Kaufman · Business

The Personal MBA makes a deliberately provocative claim: that the core concepts underlying business can be learned through self-directed reading for a fraction of the cost of an MBA program, and that most of what business schools teach is either available in books or not taught at all.

Both dig into finance.

12

The Power Law

Sebastian Mallaby · Business

The Power Law is Sebastian Mallaby's history of venture capital, told through the people who built the industry from its roots in postwar military research to its current position as the primary financing mechanism for technology startups worldwide.

Both dig into risk.