Best Books Roundups
The best business books are sometimes the ones where somebody lived it. From a decade of our award lists, these are the memoirs we most recommend: founders, CEOs and insiders telling the truth about what building, leading and surviving really looks like.
*This list does not include books published in 2026, which are currently under review as part of our 2026 awards program.
by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Sarah Wynn-Williams’s explosive insider memoir of life among Facebook’s leadership. Our Most Shareable Book of 2025, and the book everyone in tech spent the year talking about.
by Lew Frankfort
Lew Frankfort’s account of taking Coach from a $6 million family workshop to a global luxury powerhouse: a masterclass in brand-building told first-hand.
by José Andrés with Richard Wolffe
Chef José Andrés serves up the lessons of a life spent cooking, building restaurants and feeding people in crisis: generosity as a business philosophy.
by Oscar Munoz
Oscar Munoz’s story of turning around United Airlines while surviving a heart transplant: leadership under the most literal pressure imaginable.
by Stacy Spikes
MoviePass founder Stacy Spikes on building companies as a Black founder in tech and Hollywood: candid about the doors that opened, and the ones that didn’t.
by Joe Coulombe with Patty Civalleri
Joe Coulombe’s own account of inventing America’s most beloved grocery store: contrarian retail wisdom from the man who did everything differently.
by Michael Dell
Michael Dell’s unvarnished telling of the fights that defined his company: going private, battling Carl Icahn, and betting the business twice.
by Bobby Hundreds
Bobby Hundreds on building streetwear brand The Hundreds: the definitive book on community-first brand building, from someone who lived it.
by Ed Stack
Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack on building a retail giant, and the decision to pull assault-style rifles off his shelves, whatever it cost.
by Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki’s life in stories, from evangelizing the Macintosh to surfing at sixty, told with the warmth and candor of tech’s original evangelist.
by Beth Comstock
Beth Comstock on two decades of championing change inside GE: an honest look at what innovation actually costs inside a giant company.
by Ellen Pao
Ellen Pao’s account of her discrimination suit against Kleiner Perkins and what it revealed about Silicon Valley: the memoir that helped spark tech’s reckoning.
by Satya Nadella
Satya Nadella’s inside account of transforming Microsoft by putting empathy at the center of one of the world’s most powerful companies.
by Dan Lyons
Dan Lyons’s riotous memoir of going from Newsweek to a tech startup at age 50: still the funniest and sharpest book ever written about startup culture.
Keep Exploring
Browse the full archive of winners, shortlists and 100-book longlists from every year of the Non-Obvious Book Awards.
Explore The Archive →
Stay Non-Obvious
Subscribe to the Non-Obvious Newsletter and get a weekly Non-Obvious Book of the Week recommendation, award winner announcements and the non-obvious stories 25,000+ readers look forward to every Thursday.
Subscribe Free →One email every Thursday. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.