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18 Books Naval Ravikant and Peter Thiel Recommend for Thinking Differently
18
items Naval Ravikant and Peter Thiel are two of the most quoted contrarian thinkers in tech, and these are the books they have publicly recommended. Expect big ideas about progress, power, philosophy and the future rather than business how-to. I may earn a...
Sections
5
Big ideas about progress
Power, risk and history
Philosophy and the inner game
Peter Thiel's Girard shelf
Fiction about the future
Big ideas about progress
Optimistic books about why humans keep getting better at solving problems.
Physicist David Deutsch argues that good explanations drive all progress and that there is no limit to what knowledge can do. Naval admits it is not an easy read but says it made him smarter.
The Beginning of Infinity
Matt Ridley's case that trade and the exchange of ideas made humans prosperous, and keep doing it. Naval called it the most enlightening book he had read in years.
The Rational Optimist
Harari's sweep of human history, built around the idea that shared stories let us cooperate in huge numbers. Naval called it the best book of the last decade he had read.
Sapiens
Sonia Arrison on how science is pushing against aging and what longer lives would change. Peter Thiel recommended it, saying there is nothing to fear but our own complacency.
100 Plus: How Longevity Will Change Life
Power, risk and history
How power shifts, who bears risk, and what history says about it.
A 1997 prediction that the internet would shift power from nation-states to individuals, with digital money and remote work included. Naval called it the best book he had read since Sapiens, and Thiel wrote the preface to the new edition.
The Sovereign Individual
Taleb argues that people who make decisions should bear the cost when they are wrong. Naval called it the best book he read in 2018.
Skin in the Game
Timothy Snyder's history of the 14 million civilians killed by the Nazi and Soviet regimes between Berlin and Moscow. Thiel recommended it as a reminder that the most important number is one.
Bloodlands
Norman Angell's 1909 argument that war between modern economies had become pointless, published five years before World War I. Thiel named it as one of his favorite old books written about the future.
The Great Illusion
Philosophy and the inner game
Naval's picks for a calmer, clearer mind.
The private notes of a Roman emperor reminding himself how to stay calm, fair and humble. Naval has said it changed his life.
Meditations
A short novel about a young man in the Buddha's time who leaves everything to find out how to live. Naval says he has given away more copies of it than any other book.
Siddhartha
A year of short daily readings from the Indian philosopher Krishnamurti. Naval calls Krishnamurti extremely influential and suggests this as the way in.
The Book of Life
Six of Feynman's famous introductory physics lectures, written for anyone curious. Naval says it is the book he would give his kids.
Six Easy Pieces
Peter Thiel's Girard shelf
Thiel was a student of Rene Girard at Stanford and often credits his ideas about imitation and rivalry.
Rene Girard's big statement of his theory that people copy each other's desires and that this drives rivalry and scapegoating. Thiel calls it the magisterial one among Girard's books.
Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World
Girard reads Dostoevsky's novels as studies in envy, pride and imitation. Thiel says there is no better reader of Dostoevsky than Girard.
Resurrection from the Underground
A psychiatrist applies Girard's ideas about imitation and rivalry to politics and conflict. Thiel called it a fresh application of Girard to power politics.
Psychopolitics
Fiction about the future
Old and new books that imagined the future, a genre both Thiel and Naval love.
Francis Bacon's 1627 sketch of an island society organized around scientific research. Thiel likes the genre of old books written about the future and this is one of his picks.
New Atlantis
A nanotech future where a girl's life changes after she gets an interactive book meant for an aristocrat's daughter. Thiel named it in his Reddit AMA.
The Diamond Age
The 1992 cyberpunk novel that coined the Metaverse, with a pizza-delivering hacker hero. Naval calls it an amazing book in a league of its own.
Snow Crash