Today, I was asked for the definitive list of books that I’d recommend as the classics for tech products and business. It’s hard to pare things down to such a short list, since there’s so much great stuff that’s been written.
In addition, a lot of new exciting books have been published in recent years, but they haven’t stood the test of time. My lists solely consists of books that skew oldish, but have aged well and continue to provide value today. This leaves out amazing contributions such as The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Zero to One, and The Lean Startup, which will undoubtedly make a list like this in future years.
With that in mind, here’s my list. I’m sure you’ve read many of them, but hopefully you find a gem or two that you haven’t already read. In no particular order:
- Crossing the Chasm
- The Inmates are Running the Asylum
- The Mythical Man Month
- Designing Interactions
- The Design of Everyday Things
- Founders at Work
- Innovator’s Dilemma
- High Output Management
- My Life in Advertising
- Four Steps to the Epiphany
- Bonus 11th book :) Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd
There’s also a number of great books that just tell the narrative of one company, such as The New New Thing, Startup, eBoys, Only the Paranoid Survive, Breaking Windows, but I’ve left those off the list even though they are very fun to read.
I’m sure I’ve missed some great ones! If you want suggest a replacement and/or share your own list, tweet me at @andrewchen.
