Books like Who Is Michael Ovitz?

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 memoir read.

02

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

John Carreyrou · Business

Bad Blood is Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou's account of Theranos, the blood-testing startup founded by Elizabeth Holmes that claimed its proprietary technology could run hundreds of diagnostic tests from a single finger-prick of blood.

A kindred memoir read.

03

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 memoir read.

04

Liar's Poker

Michael Lewis · Business

Liar's Poker is Michael Lewis's account of his years as a bond salesman at Salomon Brothers in the 1980s, the decade when Wall Street stopped being a gentleman's club and became something closer to a casino.

A kindred memoir read.

05

The Path to Power

Robert A. Caro · Biography

The first volume of Robert A.

Shares power and ambition with Who Is Michael Ovitz?.

06

10% Happier

Dan Harris · Memoir

10% Happier is Dan Harris's account of discovering meditation after a panic attack live on Good Morning America in 2004 forced him to confront an anxiety problem he'd been managing with cocaine and a punishing work schedule.

Both dig into ambition.

07

Adventures in the Screen Trade

William Goldman · Memoir

William Goldman wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, Marathon Man, and The Princess Bride, among many others.

Both dig into hollywood.

08

Born Standing Up

Steve Martin · Memoir

Born Standing Up is Steve Martin's account of the decade-long grind that preceded his sudden, seemingly overnight fame as America's biggest stand-up comedian of the late 1970s.

Both dig into ambition.

09

Born to Run

Bruce Springsteen · Memoir

Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run is among the most substantive rock memoirs written, in part because Springsteen is a better prose writer than his public image suggests and in part because he chose to write about the things that actually shaped him rather than the things that made him famous.

Both dig into ambition.

10

Bossypants

Tina Fey · Memoir

Bossypants is Tina Fey's memoir and comic essay collection about her upbringing in suburban Pennsylvania, her years doing improv comedy in Chicago, her time as a writer and head writer at Saturday Night Live, her creation of 30 Rock, and the experience of being a woman in charge in show business.

Both dig into ambition.

11

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Isabel Wilkerson · Memoir

Isabel Wilkerson's second book proposes a reframing of American racial hierarchy: rather than thinking of racism primarily as prejudice, she argues that the United States has operated as a caste society, with Black Americans at the bottom of a rigidly maintained hierarchy similar in its structure — though different in its specific mechanisms — to the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany.

Both dig into power.

12

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Anthony Bourdain · Memoir

Kitchen Confidential began as an essay in The New Yorker in 1999.

Both dig into ambition.