Reading list · 12 books
Ben Horowitz's reading list
Co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), former founder/CEO of Opsware (Loudcloud), and author of "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" and "What You Do Is Who You Are." A voracious reader who pulls management and culture lessons from history, biography, and revolution.
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01
C.L.R. James
Horowitz calls its account of the Haitian Revolution a story of "a management and cultural genius better than anybody I've ever read about," central to his thinking on culture.
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02
Andrew S. Grove
He calls it "a great book on strategy" and repeatedly cites Grove as a formative influence on his management philosophy.
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03
Andrew S. Grove
One of his core management recommendations; he credits Grove's frameworks as foundational to running teams.
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04
Clayton M. Christensen
A top recommendation on disruption and why successful companies fail to adapt.
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05
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
Jack Weatherford
He called it unexpectedly "the most interesting book on the topic of how you think about inclusion."
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06
Alfred P. Sloan
He found it "very interesting particularly on scale issues" facing large organizations.
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07
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
He recommends it as a book about "the dynamics of how large-scale, highly random systems behave."
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08
Shaka Senghor
He praises this memoir of a man who served 19 years in prison and became an author/MIT fellow.
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09
Michael Ovitz
He calls it "truly rare to read a book this honest from a living legend," a favorite on power and dealmaking.
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10
Victor Sebestyen
He recommends this biography for "great insight into how Communism works in practice."
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12
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Peter Thiel
He has praised Thiel's contrarian startup thinking; appears on his recommended list.
More on Ben Horowitz's picks
Horowitz publicly shared a detailed reading list with Fast Company and has repeatedly cited specific books in interviews and his own writing. His tastes skew toward leadership under extreme conditions, military/revolutionary history, and management classics, and he is known for grounding business advice in figures like Toussaint Louverture and Genghis Khan. Recommendations surface in interviews, his books, and the Fast Company list.
