Reading list · 8 books
Marc Benioff's reading list
Co-founder, Chair and CEO of Salesforce and author of Behind the Cloud and Trailblazer. A leader who blends Silicon Valley pragmatism with Eastern spirituality; his recommendations range from Buddhist philosophy to hard-nosed management memoirs.
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01
Paramahansa Yogananda
Recommends it to understand Steve Jobs and his own spirituality: "if you want to understand Steve Jobs, it's a good idea to dip into" it.
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02
The Dalai Lama
Says "I started to change my spiritual philosophy based on The Good Heart. I kind of rebooted my religion of origin."
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03
Harold Geneen
"One of the most powerful books in business I ever read. It changed my life and my whole approach to business."
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04
Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
Says it "had a huge impact on me" — a foundational software-management text for the engineer-CEO.
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05
Sun Tzu
Says it "served me well," praising its counsel to keep one's cool at all times.
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07
Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe
Roger McNamee
Blurbed it for capturing "the disastrous consequences that occur when people running companies wielding enormous power don't listen deeply to their stakeholders."
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08
Neil Young
Tweeted that Young's memoir is "amazing," especially the author-read audiobook — a personal, non-business favorite.
More on Marc Benioff's picks
Benioff's recommendations appear across his X/Twitter, public talks, and numerous book blurbs he's written. A spiritual thread runs through his favorites — he credits Autobiography of a Yogi and the Dalai Lama's The Good Heart with shaping his philosophy — alongside foundational management and tech-society books. He's an active blurber, lending endorsements to titles on AI, stakeholder capitalism, and Big Tech accountability.
