My top five business books

A while ago US News asked me for the five business books that had the greatest impact on me. Now they've published my list, along with the lists of other executives and notables. I really enjoyed the interview with the smart reporter, and I think he got the essence of my remarks. I would have just ordered them differently, so I'll do that here: 

1) Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World by Kevin Kelly (1995)

Kelly, a founding editor of Wired, argues that self-sustaining, biological systems are the future, for tropical wetlands or computer networks. "Organic life," he writes, "is the ultimate technology."

Why it's a must-read: "The biggest, most important ideas of our time remain controversial hundreds of years after their creation. We're still debating Darwin and Adam Smith today, and Kevin's idea is one of those. His recognition that we're entering an age where command-and-control systems just don't scale anymore was shocking when it came out, it seemed a little loopy at the time, and now describes the Web as we know it today. It stands as the best of its breed."

2) Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution In Economics And Technology by George Gilder (1989)

Before founding the Discovery Institute, the leading think tank of intelligent design, Gilder tackled the ideas of the eminent computer scientist Carver Mead and the evolution of the microchip.

Why it's a must-read: "Gilder brings an economist's breadth of perspective to an engineer's understanding of the underlying mechanics of semiconductors and was able to really describe the importance and implications of Moore's Law [which predicts that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every 18 months]. He's a very controversial character in many aspects of his life. I don't share many of his views. But when it comes to the power of technology as it becomes abundant, I don't think anyone's phrased it as well as he did."

3) The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Differenceby Malcolm Gladwell (2000)

Gladwell examines how ideas spread, from teenage smoking to crime to tennis-shoe fads.

Why it's a must-read: "The best books on the economics of popular culture–the world we actually live in–are written not by economists but by writers like Gladwell. I suspect academia punishes economists who dabble in things like shoes and jeans and drug dealers–that's probably no way to get tenure. But it's superimportant, and it's a great tool kit to understand the world."

4) Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2001)

Taleb, a math professor and onetime manager of a hedge fund, argues that the world is far more random than we think.

Why it's a must-read: "The book says that you can't predict anything—that when things happen, you try to construct a narrative around what happened, and that narrative is almost always wrong. Why is the market up today? Because home sales did such and such. It's almost never why, but we need to have an explanation. If managers can check themselves from making those all-too-tempting efforts to construct narratives, fundamentally they will have an advantage over the rest of us."

5) The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger (2000)

[Me: This is sort of a Hall of Fame selection. The book's details don't really hold up anymore, but it was directionally so right that I wanted to credit it. I'm not recommending that you buy it now, seven years after its publication, because so much of what it prescribed--which was radical then--is now conventional wisdom. But I did want to acknowledge what a triumph it was at the time.]

What started as a website in 1999 (www.cluetrain.com) became a book by a group of tech veterans, who were among the first to describe how the Internet would change everything—from how businesses advertise to how consumers consume.

Why it's a must-read: "When they wrote this, it was still way too early. This was before blogging, before MySpace. People said, 'Who are these guys, ex-hippies and free spirits talking about economics and marketing and brands?' They talked about consumer empowerment, the inversion of power, that you don't control your brand–you share control of your band with your users. It sounded like a pipe dream, like useless utopian wishful thinking. And it's just remarkable to see how the world has basically evolved to demonstrate exactly everything they said."

Comments

[Devin]

I'd also recommend in place of Book #4 but same author, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400063515/ref=wl_it_dp/103-2021811-5971815?ie=UTF8&coliid=IAAKZCFF7RNN7&colid=2G3GFFY5AYJ6Q

[Trade Show Displays]

The Tipping Point was a great book. You can't just look at economics from a big picture perspective, you have to dabble in the "riff-raff". The big wig economists simply can't do that as well as the little guys who have first hand experience.

[Bianca Caampued]

Hi Chris- 3 Things:
1) I enjoyed your presentation yesterday of The Long Tail- and I definitely see the relevance of all your points in regards to fashion
2) I absolutely love your book recommendations (bc though I work at a fashion magazine, i'm a secret science geek & marketing aficionado)
3) I just wanted to let you know how much I LOVE wired. I don't consider myself a techie, but like I mentioned I do have an interest in science and things of that nature. Obviously Wired is geared for men, but I love that fact that as a girl I can read it and appreciate the breadth of topics covered, in which I can take what is of interest to me. It's just so well edited in that it's a very intelligent magazine, without being pretentious.
It was REALLY great seeing you speak yesterday. Thank you!
- Bianca (from Lucky)

[Artorios]

"The Tipping Point" was a great book!

[Pam]

"The Cluetrain Manifesto : The End Of Business As Usual" is on-line (legally) : http://www.cluetrain.com/book/

You can add a section to "Free" about that.

[P Trades]

here's another amazing book on business:
my partner in P Trades, Karel Baloun, wrote another excellent book on business called: Inside FACEBOOK here: http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Facebook-Life-Visions-Greatness/dp/1425113001/ref=sr_1_1/103-5557423-7691028?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180036916&sr=1-1
It's a great inside look on exactly how they made facebook happen, plus the outlook for social networks and business on internet etc very insiprational for those interested in biz, internet and entrepreneurship etc. --Patrick Kerr of Ptrades and Oil Gas Futures

[翻译公司]

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[Anonymous]

"Wikinomics" by Tapscott. I highly recommend it.

[wow powerleveling]

it's really very hard to handle for every first time,all we can do is trying calm down and do our best

[Jordan Henderson]

Everything came out as predicted by The Cluetrain Manifesto?

Huh? Sorry to break into your revisionist fantasy, but pretty much nothing came out as they predicted.

Most startling example? The most secretive company around Apple, the company that muzzles their employees to keep them from participating in "The Global Coversation", the company that threatens lawsuits against sites that dare to leak details of their upcoming products, has the most buzz and does the best in "The New Economy of the Internet". Sun, on the other hand, continues to languish and follows the recommendations of the Manifesto as well as anyone.

Their breathless assurances about the power of the consumer to connect in new ways have been pretty much dashed. The Media Giants are still in control, MySpace is owned by Murdoch, Google has centralized marketing on the Internet to an unexpected level when we were assured that marketing was changing to a "conversation" where centralization was dead. More examples? BitTorrent is a medium for MPAA distribution. Napster is a brand of some RIAA company.

[Eyal Sivan]

I completely agree about "Out of Control". To this day the best non-fiction book I have read, and far and away the best business book I have read. Absolute genius in its depth and scope. Kelly is the man.

But you have, in my humble opinion, omitted maybe the 2nd best: "The Ecology of Commerce" by Paul Hawken: a startling and hopeful book about sustainable economics. Al Gore lifted half of Inconvenient Truth from that book (and the other half from Ishmael by Daniel Quinn - another must read).

And as for Hall of Fame, I'd have to go with anything from Alvin Toffler, probably The Third Wave.

I'm reading Long Tail now... so far it's excellent. Thank you and keep up the phenomenal work.

[Jack]

This site gives information about top five business books, which are very useful for new beginners in any business field. Here you can get variety of books where you can collect more information and get succeed in your own business.

[Howard Owens]

For me, in no order

The Long Tail (of course)
Innovator's Solution
The Search
We the Media
First, Break all the Rules

Somewhere in their, the Vanishing Newspaper should fit, too.

As for Cluetrain, I'll buy "directionally right" to an extent, but it was never right all of the way. It was largely a book of unexamined platitudes. I couldn't even finish it. Too much idealism, not enough nuance or research.

[red1]

You said about Cluetrain, "The book's details don't really hold up anymore". Hmm... i tot its a pretty evergreen book, where so many leaves from from its tree. Why, recently i read Innovation Happens Elsewhere and even the Long Tail, and i thought they were original. Until of course i read Cluetrain. That choo-choo gave away the core mantras in the first place.

[red1]

Another commenter above remarked that none of the Cluetrain Manifesto came true, and he gave the right examples. But taking it with a longer historical perspective we can see how, by not seeing further to those clues, we lose out to those moghuls. Marc Andeersen had the chance with Netscape, but open up its sourcecode too late till Bill Gates completed the massacre. Now we see how Firefox came through the ashes.

As every dotcom hopeful from the conversing community rises up, the moghuls try to buy them off or rather their own selfish greed allow moghuls in. They should resist, and wait. They are now all in the past tense. So now the ultimate will still await the community. The Manifesto is in the future tense. The final winner takes all, finally. Just wait, wait, wait for the Choo-Choo.

[Linda Nelson]

Curious what you think about some of the new books encouraging the corporate use of social networks, blogs, etc. to engage the groundswell? So much has happened since 2001. I'm personally interested in relating all this to the digital distribution of film and am experimenting with our catalogue - we've found tipping points on Facebook and MySpace and of course we have great hopes for the future of the Long Tail, but now hope to use the groundswell to monetize our films while they are in development, aggregate audiences all during development and production, and provide theaters with great tools for aggregating independent audiences for completed films. It all seems quite possible now, so I'm encouraged that there is a huge market for independent film, despite all the negativity that seems to be prevailing these days.

[Caleb]

Chris- your book is in my top 10 business books to read!

http://blog.freedoma.com/2009/06/12/the-best-10-business-books-to-read/

It had a great big impact on me. Great to read the ones that have been significant to you. Not read microcosm, so will be ordering that one! Thank you.

[kabin]

thanks...
Kabin
Konteyner

[christmas presents]

Great list.thank you so much for the list!! I’ll be heading over to Amazon to pick ‘em up!