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15 Books That Shaped Jeff Bezos and Amazon
15
items The books Jeff Bezos has named himself, the ones he assigned to Amazon's senior team, and the titles biographer Brad Stone found on the shelf behind Amazon's culture. Each pick links to the source.
Sections
5
The novel he calls perfect, and the space books
Books he gave Amazon's executives
Running operations without waste
Innovation and the unexpected
Companies built to last
The novel he calls perfect, and the space books
Bezos's own favorites, in his words: one quiet English novel and two books about life far from Earth.
Ishiguro's novel about an English butler looking back on a life of loyalty and what it cost him. Bezos has called it his favorite book and said it changed his idea of what a novel could be.
The Remains of the Day (Booker Prize Winner)
A champion game player from a peaceful, post-scarcity society is sent to an empire whose entire power structure runs on a single game. Bezos has called Banks's Culture series a huge personal favorite.
The Player of Games (Culture Series #2)
Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill's 1976 plan for giant space colonies built from lunar materials. Bezos has said the book resonated with him, and its ideas run through his plans for Blue Origin.
The High Frontier: Human Colonies In Space
Books he gave Amazon's executives
Bezos ran all-day book clubs with his senior team, and Brad Stone reports these titles shaped how Amazon is managed.
Peter Drucker's short, practical guide to managing your time, picking priorities and making decisions. Bezos chose it for an all-day book club with Amazon's senior team.
The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
Bear Stearns chairman Alan Greenberg's witty internal memos about cutting costs, staying humble and not wasting paper clips. Brad Stone lists it among the books that shaped Amazon's frugal culture.
Memos from the Chairman
Mark Jeffery's guide to the 15 metrics that show whether marketing is working. Brad Stone ties it to Amazon's rule that every argument has to be backed with data.
Data-Driven Marketing: The 15 Metrics Everyone in Marketing Should Know
Fred Brooks's classic essays on why adding people to a late software project makes it later. Brad Stone credits it as the thinking behind Amazon's small two-pizza teams.
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition
Running operations without waste
Factory floors, frugal retailers and lean production: the operating ideas behind Amazon's warehouses.
A business novel about a plant manager with 90 days to save his factory, built around finding the one bottleneck that matters. Bezos picked it for Amazon's executive book club.
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
Womack and Jones show how Toyota-style lean production cuts waste in any company, using case studies from the US, Europe and Japan. Brad Stone lists it among the books Amazon's managers absorbed.
Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated
Sam Walton's own account of building Walmart through frugality, constant experiments and plenty of mistakes. Brad Stone names it as a book that shaped how Bezos runs Amazon.
Sam Walton: Made In America
Innovation and the unexpected
How new businesses get built, and why the biggest events are the ones nobody predicts.
Christensen's follow-up to The Innovator's Dilemma explains how a company can create disruptive growth instead of only defending against it. Bezos assigned it to Amazon's top executives.
The Innovator's Solution, with a New Foreword: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
Steve Grand's book on building artificial life out of simple parts that interact. Brad Stone says it helped inspire the building-block thinking behind Amazon Web Services.
Creation: Life and How to Make It
Taleb argues that the events that matter most are the ones nobody forecasts, and that we invent neat stories after the fact. Brad Stone lists it among the books behind Amazon's habit of running experiments.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility")
Companies built to last
Jim Collins's research on companies that stayed great for decades, which Brad Stone ties to Amazon's long-term thinking.
Jim Collins and Jerry Porras study companies that lasted for generations and what they had in common. Brad Stone lists it as one of the books central to Amazon's culture.
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
Jim Collins on what separated companies that jumped from average to great, including the flywheel idea. Brad Stone reports that Collins briefed Amazon's executives on its ideas before it was published.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't