B I DRAKE BAESEP 12, 2014, 08.31 PM
The most powerful people in business spend much of their limited free time on a quiet, contemplative pursuit - reading books.
For example, the third-richest person in the world, Warren Buffett, says he spends 80% of his day tearing through the written word.
We've pored over interviews with some of America's most influential execs - from Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos and Oprah Winfrey - to find out what they read.
Here are the favorites.
When Buffett was 19 years old, he picked up a copy of legendary Wall Streeter Benjamin Graham's "Intelligent Investor."
He remembers it as one of the luckiest moments of his life, because within the book was the framework he would use for making investments.
"To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information," Buffett said. "What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. This book precisely and clearly prescribes the proper framework. You must provide the emotional discipline."
On the recommendation of Buffett, Gates became obsessed with a book called "Business Adventures," a collection of New Yorker stories by John Brooks. The book reminds him that the foundations of successful businesses stay constant, Gates says, regardless of the decade.
He writes:
For one thing, there's an essential human factor in every business endeavor. It doesn't matter if you have a perfect product, production plan and marketing pitch; you'll still need the right people to lead and implement those plans.
Lots of publications — including BI — are getting into the book, too. Slate wrote that it's "catnip for billionaires."
When Bezos was asked what the most influential book for him was, he didn't say a business book — he gushed about a novel: "The Remains of the Day," which deals with age, memory, war, love, and Britain.
"Before reading it, I didn’t think a perfect novel was possible," the Amazon CEO said. "I am entranced by that: the idea of the impossible achieved."
With Amazon — an aggressive, but still profitless company — disrupting retail and publishing alike, it seems his business is doing much the same.
Hsieh told USA Today that one of his favorite books is "Tribal Leadership," a book that takes an anthropological approach to how people form groups in organizations.
"'Tribal Leadership' codifies a lot of what we've been doing instinctually and provides a great framework for all companies to bring company culture to the next level," he said.
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