188 Books Written By Billionaires (A Constantly Updated, Complete List)

If you read all of these, you will not come out the same person you came in (in a good way).

Here is a list of all the books written by billionaires.

I have looked all over the Internet for a list, and I’ve yet to find a list that comes close to what I’ve compiled here. That’s because no one seems to be as plugged into the billionaire universe and the books out there as me. Nor have many people set out to read most or any of these books.

Richard Branson made a good point in his book that news and internet estimates of net worth are usually wildly off in both directions. I tried my best to make this list as accurate as possible. I put more weight on the two net worth sources I trust: Forbes Net Worth Billionaire List and Fortune. If I had any doubt if people were billionaires, I put their books in a separate list in a section at the bottom.

If you know of a book by a billionaire not on this list, leave a comment. I will keep updating this page. 

If you go through any of the following links to buy a book, I will get a commission at no extra cost to you.

All Books Written By Billionaires:

1. My Life and Work by Henry Ford (founder of Ford Motors)
2. Today and Tomorrow by Henry Ford
3. The International Jew by Henry Ford
4. Edison As I Know Him by Henry Ford
5. Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio (net worth of $17 Billion according to Forbes)
6. Big Debt Crises by Ray Dalio
7. Made in America by Sam Walton (founder of Walmart)
8. Business @ the Speed of Thought by Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft)
9. The Road Ahead by Bill Gates
10. Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell
11. Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller
12. John D. Rockefeller: The Autobiography of an Oil Titan and Philanthropist by John D. Rockefeller
13. Quotations by John D. Rockefeller
14. Attack and Win in Business by John D. Rockefeller
15. The Colorado Industrial Plan by John D. Rockefeller
16. John D. Rockefeller on Making Money: Advice and Words of Wisdom on Building and Sharing Wealth by John D. Rockefeller
17. Dear Father, Dear Son: Correspondence of John D. Rockefeller and Jr. by John D. Rockefeller
18. Zero To One by Peter Thiel (tech investor)
19. Lean In For Graduates by Sheryl Sandberg (female billionaire, one of the first employees at Google and Facebook)
20. Lean In: Work, Women and The Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
21. Lean In for Grads by Sheryl Sandberg
22. The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional Thinking by Eli Broad (net worth of $7.3 Billion)
23. Jimmy: An Autobiography by Jim Pattison (net worth of $6.9 Billion)
24. Birth: When the Spiritual and the Material Come Together by Shari Arison (female billionaire)
25. Activate Your Goodness: Transforming the World Through Doing Good by Shari Arison
26. The Doing Good Model: Activate Your Goodness in Business by Shari Arison
27. The Link: How Doing Good Connects Us to Ourselves, Each Other…and Everything! by Shari Arison
28. From Red Tape To Red Carpet And Then Some by Gina Rinehart
29. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by Phil Knight (founder of Nike)
30. The Wanda Way: The Managerial Philosophy and Values of One of China’s Largest Companies by Jianlin Wang (net worth of $25 Billion)
31. Start Small Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start – and Run – Your Own Successful Business by Fred Deluca (founder of Subway, $3 Billion)
32. Always Fresh by Ronald Joyce (founder of Tim Horton, a doughnut chain, net worth of $1.39 Billion according to Forbes)
33. Simply Rich by Rich Devos (founder of Amway)
34. Ten Powerful Phrases for Positive People by Rich DeVos
35. Believe! by Rich DeVos
36. Compassionate Capitalism by Rich DeVos (this may be confusing since another billionaire wrote a book of the same name)
37. Hope From My Heart by Rich DeVos
38. The Essays of Warren Buffett
39. The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership by Richard Branson
40. Screw It Let’s Do It: Lessons In Life, Like A Virgin by Richard Branson
41. Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
42. Screw Business As Usual by Richard Branson
43. Business Stripped Bare by Richard Branson | Book Summary
44. Reach for the Skies by Richard Branson
45. Like a Virgin: Secrets They Won’t Teach You at Business School by Richard Branson
46. Finding My Virginity by Richard Branson
47. What I Know For Sure by Oprah Winfrey – My Book Summary Of This Book
48. The Snowball (biography of Warren Buffett)
49. Leading By Design: The Ikea Story by Ingvar Kamprad (Net Worth of $33 Billion according to Forbes)
50. The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie
51. Eat More Chikin by S. Truett Cathy (the founder of Chick-Fil-A, Net Worth of $6.2 Billion according to Forbes.)
52. Wealth: Is It Worth It? by S. Truett Cathy
53. How did you do it, Truett? by S. Truett Cathy
54. It’s Better to Build Boys than Mend Men by S. Truett Cathy
55. It’s Easier to Succeed Than to Fail by S. Truett Cathy
56. Measure What Matters by John Doerr
57. The Generosity Factor: Discover the Joy of Giving Your Time, Talent, and Treasure by Ken Blanchard (author of One Minute Manager) and S. Truett Cathy (this is a mini-parable explaining the benefits of generosity.)
58. Netscape Time: The Making of the Billion-Dollar Start-Up That Took On Microsoft by Jim Clark (a.k.a. James H. Clark – net worth $1.3 billion, founder of three billion dollar tech companies)
59. Built from Scratch by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank (Home Depot)
60. How to Lead: Wisdom from the World’s Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers by David M. Rubenstein
61. The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians by David M. Rubenstein
62. Winners Never Cheat by Jon Huntsman
63. Barefoot to Billionaire: Reflections on a Life’s Work and a Promise to Cure Cancer by Jon Huntsman Sr. (Net Worth of $1 Billion according to Forbes, after giving away $1.2 billion)
64. Ralph Lauren by Ralph Lauren
65. The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie
66. Driven from Within by Michael Jordan
67. For the Love of the Game: My Story by Michael Jordan
68. I Can’t Accept Not Trying: Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence by Michael Jordan
69. I’m Back!: More Rare Air by Michael Jordan
70. The Entrepreneur: 25 Golden Rules for the Global Business Manager by William Heinecke (net worth of $1.7 Billion according for Forbes)
71. The Entrepreneur: Twenty-One Golden Rules for the Global Business Manager by William Heinecke (it seems to be an older version of the same book)
72. How To Win At The Sport of Business by Mark Cuban
73. Onward by Howard Schultz (Starbucks)
74. Steering Clear by Peter George Peterson (COE of Lehman Brothers, 1.6 Billion net worth)
75. Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built A Company One Cup At a Time by Howard Schultz
76. Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg (Made his money from Bloomberg terminals)
77. The Business of Happiness by Ted Leonsis
78. Bailout Riches!: How Everyday Investors Can Make a Fortune Buying Bad Loans for Pennies on the Dollar by Bill Bartmann
79. Pizza Tiger by Thomas Monaghan (founder of Domino’s)
80. How To Be Rich by J. Paul Getty (Fortune named him the richest living American in 1957.)
81. How to be a Successful Executive by J. Paul Getty
82. As I See It: The Autobiography of J. Paul Getty
83. My Life and Fortunes, the Autobiography of One of the World’s Wealthiest Men by J. Paul Getty (apparently he wrote two autobiographies?)
84. The Joys of Collecting by J. Paul Getty (this is more about his priceless art collecting hobby)
85. Ernest and Julio: Our Story
86. Charles Schwab’s Guide To Financial Independence by Charles R. Schwab (net worth of $5.3 Billion)
87. You’re Fifty, Now What? by Charles Schwab
88. How to be Your Own Stockbroker by Charles Schwab
89. Reinventing the Market by Charles Schwab
90. Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman (investor)
91. Dream No Little Dreams by Clayton L. Mathile
92. The Essays of Warren Buffett by Lawrence Cunningham (a curation of Warren’s shareholder letters)
93. Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett’s partner)
94. Call Me Ted by Ted Turner (media business)
95. The First Billion Is The Hardest by T. Boone Pickens
96. Boone by T. Boone Pickens
97. Fooling Some of the People All of the Time by David Einhorn (investor)
98. Soros on Soros by George Soros (probably the densest and most difficult of them all. This guy was born with a genius mind for macro-economists far beyond my comprehension.)
99. Direct from Dell by Michael Dell
100. The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman
101. The Science of Success by Charles G. Koch (net worth of $42 billion. #7 richest man in the world according to Forbes. 
102. Good Profit: How Creating Value for Others Built One of the World’s Most Successful Companies by Charles G. Koch
103. Better India: A Better World by Narayana Murthy
104. Compassionate Capitalism: How Corporations Can Make Doing Good an Integral Part of Doing Well (2004) by Marc Benioff (net worth $3.9 Billion+)
105. The Business of Changing the World: Twenty Great Leaders on Strategic Corporate Philanthropy (2006) by Marc Benioff
106. Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry by Marc Benioff
107. Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change by Marc Benioff
108. Habit of Labor: Lessons from a Life of Struggle and Success by Stef Wertheimer
109. Man at a Machine by Stef Wertheimer
110. What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence by Stephen A. Schwarzman
111. Red Zone: Cars, Cows, and Coaches by Red McCombs
112. Big Red: Memoirs of a Texas Entrepreneur and Philanthropist by Red McCombs
113. The Education of an American Dreamer: How a Son of Greek Immigrants Learned His Way from a Nebraska Diner to Washington, Wall Street, and Beyond by Peter G. Peterson
114. Finding America’s Voice: A Strategy for Reinvigorating U.S. Public Diplomacy (2010) by Peter G. Peterson
115. Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It (2005) by Peter G. Peterson
116. Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform America–and the World (2000) by Peter G. Peterson
117. Will America Grow up Before it Grows Old: How the Coming Social Security Crisis Threatens You, Your Family and Your Country (1996) by Peter G. Peterson
118. Facing Up: How to Rescue the Economy From Crushing Debt & Restore the American Dream (1993) by Peter G. Peterson
119. Sharing the Wealth by Alex Spanos
120. I Love Capitalism!: An American Story by Ken Langone ($3.4 Billion according to Forbes)
121. How to Smell a Rat: The Five Signs of Financial Fraud by Ken Fisher
122. The Only Three Questions That Count: Investing by Knowing What Others Don’t by Ken Fisher (I highly disagree with many points in this book; I prefer Warren Buffett’s style and Ken’s father’s book Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits)
123. The Little Book of Market Myths: How to Profit by Avoiding the Investing Mistakes Everyone Else Makes by Ken Fisher
124. Plan Your Prosperity: The Only Retirement Guide You’ll Ever Need, Starting Now–Whether You’re 22, 52 or 82 by Ken Fisher
125. Debunkery: Learn It, Do It, and Profit from It — Seeing Through Wall Street’s Money-Killing Myths by Ken Fisher
126. Markets Never Forget (But People Do): How Your Memory Is Costing You Money—and Why This Time Isn’t Different by Ken Fisher
127. The Ten Roads to Riches: The Ways the Wealthy Got There (And How You Can Too!) by Ken Fisher
128. Beat the Crowd: How You Can Out-Invest the Herd by Thinking Differently by Ken Fisher
129. Battle for Investment Survival by Ken Fisher
130. 100 Minds That Made the Market by Ken Fisher
131. How Google Works and The New Digital Age by Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Alphabet (formerly Google), 138th richest man in the world. (What I find interesting about him is that he doesn’t consider himself an entrepreneur. He considers himself a manager that helped Larry and Sergie create their dream of Google. You don’t have to be a CEO or founder guys!)
132. Get Smarter: Life and Business Lessons by Seymour Schulich (Net worth of $1.5 billion according to Wikipedia)
133. Grinding it Out by Ray Kroc (founder of McDonald’s)
134. PAPA: The Story of Papa John’s Pizza by John H. Schnatter (Net worth of $1 billion according to Forbes)
135. The Art Of the Deal by Donald J. Trump
136. Midas Touch: Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich-And Why Most Don’t by Donald Trump & Robert Kiyosaki
137. Think Like A Champion by Donald Trump
138. Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again Donald Trump
139. The America We Deserve by Donald Trump
140. Trump: The Way to the Top: The Best Business Advice I Ever Received by Donald Trump
141. Trump 101: The Way to Success by Donald Trump (2006)
142. Trump University Wealth Building 101: Your First 90 Days on the Path to Prosperity by Donald Trump (2007)
143. Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges Into Success by Donald Trump (2007)
144. Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life by Donald Trump (2007)
145. Why We Want You to Be Rich: Two Men, One Message by Donald Trump & Robert Kiyosaki
146. Customers Come First: From One Small Shop to a Worldwide Network of Stores by Masatoshi Ito
147. The Heart Of Doing Business: Memoirs Of An Entrepreneur by Masatoshi Ito
148. Am I Being Too Subtle?: The Adventures of a Business Maverick by Sam Zell (Net worth of $5 Billion according to Forbes)
149. Lui Che-woo: Creating Value: The Journey of a Self-Made Billionaire: The Authorized Biography by Lui Che woo by Lui Che-woo (Net worth of $15 Billion according to Forbes)
150. Against All Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Net worth of $4.3 Billion according to Forbes)
151. A History of Great Inventions by James Dyson
152. Design by James Dyson
153. Whatever the Odds The Incredible Story Behind DLF by Kushal Pal Singh (also known as K.P. Singh, Net worth of $5.3 Billion according to Forbes)
154. Lim Goh Tong: My Life Story (Net worth of 4.2 billions dollar according to Forbes when he died, richest Malaysian at the time)
155. Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard (Net worth of $1 Billion according to Forbes, founder of Patagonia, more of his books are in the Honorable Mention section)
156. The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned From Patagonia’s First 40 Years by Yvon Chouinard
157. Billions to Bust and Back: How I Made, Lost and Rebuilt a Fortune by Thor Bjorgolfsson
158. Run Your Business, Don’t Let It Run You: Learning and Living Professional Management by Clay Mathile
159. In for a Penny: A Business Adventure by Peter Hargreaves (founder of Subway, Net worth of $2.9 Billion)
160. Powerhouse Principles: The Ultimate Blueprint for Real Estate Success in an Ever-Changing Market by Jorge Perez ($2.8 Billion)
161. Threshold Resistance: The Extraordinary Career of a Luxury Retailing Pioneer by Alfred Taubman ($3.1 Billion)
162. A Passion to Win by Sumner Redstone (chairman of Viacom, Net worth of $5.4 Billion according to Forbes) – Read My Book Summary
163. Making It Big by Binod Chaudhary (from Nepal, net worth of $1.32 Billion according to Forbes) 
164. Mochtar Riady: My Life Story (from Indonesia, the founder of Lippo Group; net worth of $1.83 Billion according to Forbes) 
165. Everything is Possible: Life and Business Lessons from a Self-Made Billionaire and the Founder of Slim-Fast by S. Daniel Abraham (net worth of $2.1 Billion according to Forbes)
166. Peace is Possible: Conversations with Arab and Israeli Leaders from 1988 to the Present by S. Daniel Abraham
167. The Z Factor: My Journey as the Wrong Man at the Right Time by Subhash Chandra (net worth of $4.4 Billion according to Forbes)
168. A Passion to Build: a Memoir of David M. Consunji (net worth of $3.5 Billion)
169. Dave Says Well Done!: The Common Guy’s Guide to Everyday Success by Rex David “Dave” Thomas (founder of Wendy’s)
170. My Life & the Principles for Success by H. Ross Perot (net worth of $4.1 Billion)
171. Ross Perot: My Life by H. Ross Perot
172. A Business Handbook: Advice I Gave My Son by H. Ross Perot
173. United We Stand: How We Can Take Back Our Country by H. Ross Perot
174. Not for Sale At Any Price: How We Can Save America for Our Children by H. Ross Perot
175. Save Your Job, Save Our Country by H. Ross Perot
176. The Dollar Crisis by H. Ross Perot
177. Intensive Care by H. Ross Perot
178. Ross Perot Speaks Out: Straight Talking Answers to Today’s Tough Questions by H. Ross Perot
179. Simple Fly Fishing: Techniques for Tenkara and Rod and Reel by Yvon Chouinard
180. 180° South: Conquerors of the Useless by Yvon Chouinard
181. Climbing Ice by Yvon Chouinard
182. Out Where the West Begins: Profiles, Visions, and Strategies of Early Western Business Leaders by Philip Anschutz
183. Out Where the West Begins, Volume 2: Creating and Civilizing the American West by Philip Anschutz
184. Oil of Russia: Past, Present & Future by Vagit Alekperov
185. Vertically Integrated Oil Companies of Russia: Formation Methodology and Realization by Vagit Alekperov
186. The New Normal: Great Opportunities in a Time of Great Risk by Roger McNamee (tech investor)
187. Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee
188. Scale: Seven Proven Principles to Grow Your Business and Get Your Life Back by Jeff Hoffman (founder of Priceline.com)

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Billionaires That Lost It All

When I see people rise up quickly to become millionaires in the lime-light but do so in flamboyant, excessive ways, I wonder … but will they stay millionaires? Lately, there have been a lot of young people who have done just that through social media, like Rice Gum or Tai Lopez. While 99% of the world has bought into the idea that they’re gods, history proves differently. I believe time will tell. If you give anyone a couple decades, you’ll find out who stood the test of the time.

The same applies to billionaires. There have been a few who have reached this point and fallen back down. Therefore, I haven’t deemed the books written by the billionaires who fall into this category worthy to be placed into the main list. Their overall strategy failed them, so we shouldn’t take their advice point blank. Nonetheless, we can still learn from their failures so we don’t make the same ones.

That’s why I prefer the advice of Warren Buffet. He’s a billionaire who has consistently stayed rich for over six decades, but preaches the values and qualities of being a good person and living a life beyond money. His whole motto revolves around sacrificing any extra money that can be made if it means a potential loss of reputation or potential catastrophic loss of money.

O X Da Questão by Eike Batista: This book is written in Portuguese. In 2012, he was the richest person in Brazil with a net worth of $30 Billion. Due to risky investments, he loss all of his money and plunged to a negative billion dollar net worth. Many of his cars, including a white Lamborghini Aventador were seized.

Billionaires That Lost Everything And Got It Back

Losing your billion is tough. One billionaire, Adolf Merckle, even killed himself because of this. But it takes mental fortitude to not give up and continue. Two billionaires come to mind who have done this:

Donald Trump is the one billionaire I know who plunged into multiple billions into debt, but managed to pick himself back up and make it back. He details the story in his books. Rather than giving up, he persevered and even ended up becoming President of the United States.

Another book that documents this is Billions to Bust and Back: How I Made, Lost and Rebuilt a Fortune by Thor Bjorgolfsson.

Sam Wyly’s books are also included here:

• 1,000 Dollars and an Idea: Entrepreneur To Billionaire
• Texas Got It Right!
• The Immigrant Spirit: How Newcomers Enrich America
• Immigrants Enrich Us
• The Wyly Family: Coming to America

Sam was once a billionaire but is now bankrupt.

Books About Billionaires But Not Written By Billionaires

This list includes books that were:

• recommended by billionaires.
• written by people directly related to billionaires.
• were written about billionaires, but not by the actual billionaire.

Keep in mind that for some famous billionaires, like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, or Jack Ma, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of books written about them. I will not list them all here because most aren’t worth your time. Anyone can write these and slap their name on them and most have horrible ratings because of this. If you just search their name on Amazon, you’ll find them yourself. 

• DREAM BIG: How the Brazilian Trio behind 3G Capital – Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles and Beto Sicupira – acquired Anheuser-Busch, Burger King and Heinz by Cristiane Correa
• The Billionaire Who Wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune (not written by Chuck himself. It’s a biography)
• Getting There by Zoe Gillian Segal
• Carlos Slim: The Richest Man in the World/The Authorized Biography by Jose Martinez
• How I Did It: Lessons From The Front Lines of Business (Pulls from multiple columns of the Harvard Business Review and features multiple billionaires including Kevin Plank and Eric Schmidt)
• Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life by Lisa Chaney – This one is written about a female founder of a multi-billion dollar fashion company, Chanel. It is put here because it is questionable whether or not she actually hit a billion dollar net worth during her lifetime and it wasn’t written by her. Having said that, she did create an incredible company. The book seems to be more about her personal life than business success though.
• Life Is What You Make It by Peter Buffett (Warren Buffett’s son)
• Showing Up For Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime by Bill Gates Sr. (father of Bill Gates)
• Elon Musk’s biography
• Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor (not by Charlie, but quoting a lot of his best stuff)
• Laws of Success by Napoleon Hill (studied 200+ of the richest people in the world in-person for 20+ years, including Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and more)
• Awaken the Millionaire Within You: Lessons from Carlos Wizard Martins by Carlos Wizard Martins (Net worth of $1 billion in 2014 on Forbes but he sold his company for $700 million and isn’t a billionaire anymore).
• Forrest Mars, Jr. (27th richest man in the world, owner of a candy company, net worth $11+ billion) recommends these books according to Fortune (click the link).
• The Everything Store by Brad Stone (It’s about Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com)
• A Passion For Success by Kazuo Inamori (Net worth of $900 million according to Forbes)
• John L. Gokongwei Jr.: The Path Of Entrepreneurship by Marites A. Khanser (Net worth of $6.2 Billion)
• The Martha Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success As You Start, Build, or Manage a Business by Martha Stewart (She may have hit a billionaire at some point. Now, it seems she’s dipped below that, especially after giving away to charity.)
• Steve Jobs
• How To Get Rich by Felix Dennis (his net worth was estimated around $100 million when he was alive)

These books were recommended by the billionaire Forrest Mars (9+ billion net worth) :

• General and Industrial Management by Henri Fayol
• Elementsof Administration by Lyndall F. Urwick
• The Principles of Organization by James D. Mooney

“Forrest has the best management system I’ve ever come across. It permits decentralization and encourages initiative–but keeps firm control at the top.” -former Mars Executive, according to Fortune article.

Avoid These Books by Billionaires

Let’s be honest. One of the key reasons we read these is to earn more money. Therefore, there are quite a few books by billionaires that I didn’t feel fit to include in the main list because their topic is far off from any advice on earning money. They will go in this list:

• Simple Fly Fishing: Techniques for Tenkara and Rod and Reel by Yvon Chouinard
• 180° South: Conquerors of the Useless by Yvon Chouinard
• Climbing Ice by Yvon Chouinard
• Peace is Possible: Conversations with Arab and Israeli Leaders from 1988 to the Present by S. Daniel Abraham
• Peter G. Peterson’s books on politics
• H. Ross Perot’s books on politics

My Favorites

So far, I’ve read quite a few of them and gained some incredible insights. I love doing this because a lot of millionaire advice is contradictory.

I love doing this because a lot of millionaire advice is contradictory. One of the reasons behind this is that millionaires surprisingly are sometimes still struggling to figure things out and sometimes have naive interpretations on how they did it.

I loved these for many reasons. Some of them included that they were conversational, easy to understand, and had advice applicable to life as well as business. Here they are in no particular order:

• Made in America by Sam Walton
• What I Know For Sure by Oprah Winfrey
• Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
• The Essays of Warren Buffett
• Zero To One by Peter Thiel
• The Virgin Way by Richard Branson (or any book by Branson, really)
• The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman
• Principles by Ray Dalio
• How to be a Billionaire by Martin Fridson

My Least Favorites

• The Science of Success by Charles Koch because it was short and filled with corporate lingo. I still got a lot out of it though.
• Business @ The Speed of Thought by Bill Gates because it was too dry and focused on specific business organization tactics with a touch of strategy. Plus, you can tell Bill isn’t the best writer. Note: Bill is one of my favorite people, but I think I should still be honest here.
• The Only Three Questions That Count by Ken Fischer (or any of his books). Probably my least favorite. Few people will understand the book unless they’re into money management and fund investing. But the real reason I disliked it was that most of the advice given I didn’t agree with, wasn’t logical, had holes, and went against the entire Buffett philosophy of investing. I have a feeling he made his money by getting tons of investors to give him money and taking a hefty management fee. I liked what he says in his books about giving back and charity.

People That Barely Fell Short of the Billion Dollar Mark

• High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove ($400 million net worth in 2008. Likely, an inflated number)
• Life as I Have Known It Has Been Finger Lickin’ Good by Harland Sanders (While people would love to believe that Colonel Sanders started when he was old and became a billionaire starting KFC, he didn’t make the mark by his death.)
• Decisions by Jim Treliving (estimated net worth of 700 million)
• Mary Kay Way by Mary Kay Ash (her company has now made her son a billionaire but it isn’t verifiable that she made the mark during her lifetime)
• Miracles Happen by Mary Kay Ash
• Mary Kay: You Can Have It All: Lifetime Wisdom from America’s Foremost Woman Entrepreneur by Mary Kay Ash
• Mary Kay on People Management by Mary Kay Ash
• Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew Grove (former CEO of Intel)
• Father, Son & Co.: My Life at IBM and Beyond by Thomas Watson Junior (he made $346,590 in 1955, which is around $3.1 million inflation-adjusted)

Books By People Who Can’t Be Verified as Billionaires

• A Business and Its Beliefs: The Ideas That Helped Build IBM by Thomas J. Watson Jr. (This man was in charge of managing billions for IBM as his job but that doesn’t mean he earned billions.)
• Relentless by Ted Rogers
• Billionaire: Secrets to Success by Bill Bartmann (note: he was only a billionaire temporarily)
• Bouncing Back: The Life of Bill Bartmann
• 9 Steps to Achieve Any Goal by Bill Bartmann
• 21 Secrets to Success and Happiness by John Templeton (one of the best investors in history)
• Golden Nuggets by John Templeton
• Templeton Plan by John Templeton

Books Written By Billionaires In Languages Other Than English

• Chairul Tanjung Si Anak Singkong by Tjahja Gunawan Diredja (net worth of $4.9 Billion according to Forbes) – written in Indonesian.
• One win nine losses by Tadashi Yanai [Japanese], $19 Billion Net Worth
• Throw Away Your Success in a Day by Tadashi Yanai [Japanese]
• Notes of a Manager by Tadashi Yanai [Japanese]

Takeaways

There’s too many to mention. I’m better off doing an article focusing on billionaire patterns I’ve learned.

One common thing is to prepare and hold your ground for lawsuits. A lot of these people had to battle in the court. It just ends up happening at some point when you get to that size and a lot of people want to sue you for money.

Be prepared to trust your gut and fight back if you believe you were right. Martha Stewart and Richard Branson’s stories stand out in particular. Remember: bad stuff happens and that’s okay.

Did I miss any books by billionaires? Please let me know in the comments because I’d love to add them to the list and read their books.
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