ZhenFund Recommended Reading List

“Read 500 pages every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest.” - Warren Buffett


Check out our Recommended Reading List to make the best investment in yourself.

Mandatory Reading
  • Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers
    Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers
    Author: Geoffrey A. Moore

    Recommendation: Probably the most important action guide on technology innovation. It is a must-read for tech entrepreneurs and investors. It presents the life cycle of new technology proliferation and provides a roadmap for moving new technologies from the early market to the mainstream and across the divide.

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  • Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups
    Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups
    Author: Jason Calacanis

    Recommendation: The best book on angel investing, written by Jason Calacanis who was one of the first scouts for Sequoia and an angel investor in Uber. It not only discusses angel investing in the US market, but also highlights principles—such as how to evaluate entrepreneurs—that are applicable to the Chinese market as well.

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  • The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
    The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
    Author: Clayton M. Christensen

    Recommendation: It can be said that the entire venture capital industry is built upon the 'dilemma' described in this book. Disruptive innovation, the second curve, and other buzzwords all originated here. While technology keeps changing, history continues to rhyme.

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  • The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future
    The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future
    Author: Sebastian Mallaby

    Recommendation: This book is a panoramic account of the history of the venture capital industry from its birth to its development to its prosperity. The author, Sebastian Mallaby, is one of the best-known writers on the history of finance and economics, and his previous books, such as "The Riches" and "Greenspan", are popular.

    Venture capital has always been a secretive industry due to the small number of practitioners and the secrecy surrounding it, and even many young practitioners do not know much about the industry's past.

    This book is a collection of information about venture capital firms, investment firms, and investment companies. This book is one of the most authoritative works for readers interested in the industry, interweaving several threads: venture capitalists, investors, startups, and technological advances.


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  • The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth
    The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth
    Author: Ilya Strebulaev, Alex Dang

    Anna's recommendation:The Venture Mindset helps non VC investors like startups, governments, and corporates understand the risk mentality of VCs and the importance of outsized returns to the venture business model. Why do VCs need to swing for the fences? Understanding the internal mindset of VCs and their predilection for bold ideas and outliers is essential for founders if they interact with VCs. For the existing venture investor, The Venture Mindset is a bible for the importance of sourcing, hunting, selectivity, talent, internal debate, incentives, patience, instinct and maximizing returns. It is a must read playbook for anyone in the field.

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About VC Industry
  • Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist
    Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist
    Author: Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson

    Recommendation: Venture Deals begins with an overview of the Venture Capital Terms List and discusses the different parties involved in a venture capital deal, as well as how entrepreneurs can raise money from venture capitalists. The book skillfully outlines the core elements of the venture capital terms—from economic factors to control factors—and shares strategies for securing a fair deal.

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  • Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It
    Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It
    Author: Scott Kupor

    Recommendation: Learn how top venture capitalists (VCs) really think. Every startup needs capital, and ambitious founders often seek it on Sand Hill Road – the iconic hub of Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial dream. The most driven startups aspire to meet Scott Kupor, managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the world’s most successful VC firms, which has backed companies like Airbnb, Pinterest, and Slack. In his book, Kupor demystifies the VC world, offering an unprecedented look at how he and other investors operate, along with practical advice for every stage of securing venture capital.

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  • eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work
    eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work
    Author: Randall E. Stross

    Recommendation: In eBOYS, Randall Stross takes us behind the scenes and inside the heads of the gutsy entrepreneurs who are financing the hottest businesses on the Web. The six tall men who started Benchmark, Silicon Valley's most exciting venture capital firm, put themselves at the cutting edge of the new economy by backing billion dollar start-ups like eBay and Webvan. The risks were enormous--but the rewards have proven to be staggering. Within two years, eBay's net worth grew from $20 million to more than $21 billion, while each Benchmark founding partner saw his own personal net worth soar by hundreds of millions of dollars.

    For two roller-coaster years, Stross had total access not only to Benchmark's executives but to the companies they financed. He was a fly on the wall as fortunes were made in an instant, snap decisions got locked in, and new ventures took off--and sometimes crashed. Here are the testosterone-pumped conversations, round-the-clock meetings, and gutsy deals that launched the eBoys and their clients into the stratosphere of mega-wealth. Written like a novel but absolutely true, eBOYS brings to vivid life the glory days of the greatest business adventure of our time.

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  • VC: An American History
    VC: An American History
    Author: Tom Nicholas

    Recommendation: The saga of venture capital is well known to the public and often seen as a game where an investment of 1 can turn into 10,000 or even 100 million. However, "when it comes to venture capital, those who are unaware of its history are more likely to experience poor returns."

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  • Venture Capitalists at Work: How VCs Identify and Build Billion Dollar Successes
    Venture Capitalists at Work: How VCs Identify and Build Billion-Dollar Successes
    Author: Tarang Shah, Shital Shah

    Recommendation: The authors of this book interview some of the most prominent venture capitalists in the investment world, such as Roelof Botha, Mike Maples, and Randy Komisar, about their experiences discovering promising markets, products, and entrepreneurs, and offer insights into the financing and management of world-renowned companies such as YouTube, Zappos, Twitter, Starent, Facebook, and Groupon.

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  • The Hard Thing About Hard Things
    The Hard Thing About Hard Things
    Author: Ben Horowitz

    Recommendation: Ben Horowitz, one of the top investors in Silicon Valley, has a wealth of experience in entrepreneurship and management. He founded the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz with Marc Andreessen in 2009. He has invested in Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, and Skype, and serves as a mentor to many startups in Silicon Valley.

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  • Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
    Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
    Author: Peter Thiel, Blake Masters

    Recommendation: The work of the godfather of Silicon Valley venture capital and founder of PayPal offers a future-changing lesson from Stanford University, presenting a business philosophy that creates value for the world. In today’s rapidly changing technological landscape, to succeed, you must study the outcomes before they unfold.


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Startup Stories
  • Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time
    Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time
    Author: Howard Schultz

    Recommendation: What this book wants to tell readers is how we have learned certain important lessons about running a business and living a life in our own experience. I hope that these insights will help those who are starting businesses and pursuing their dreams in life.

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  • JiuBaiYiSheng (MeiTuan Zhuan)
    JiuBaiYiSheng (MeiTuan Zhuan)
    Author: ZhiGang Li

    Recommendation: All entrepreneurs face many problems, and confusion is not personal, it is common. In addition to feeling the stone walk, they can also learn from those entrepreneurs who have gone further on the entrepreneurial road through learning, lessons learned.


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  • Tencent: The extraordinary story of a Chinese internet enterprise
    Tencent: The extraordinary story of a Chinese internet enterprise
    Author: XiaoBo Wu

    Recommendation: The only authoritative biography officially authorized by Tencent. The work of famous financial writer Wu Xiaobo.

    When the Chinese Internet company with the highest market capitalization meets the calmest pair of eyes in China's financial sector, read Tencent and understand the Chinese Internet.


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  • YiWangWuQian(XiaoMi ZhuanJi)
    YiWangWuQian(XiaoMi ZhuanJi)
    Author: HaiTao Fan

    Recommendation: What kind of story does 10-year-old Xiaomi tell the world? This is the story of a group of people. This 10 years is the 10 years of Lei Jun's upgrading and transformation as an entrepreneur, the 10 years of Xiaomi's tens of thousands of employees going forward, and the golden 10 years of the generation who followed Xiaomi all the way. They persist in their dreams, fearless, even if they are questioned and ridiculed, they are still determined to stand on the most competitive stage in the world.


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  • China Emerging(JiDangSanShiNian)
    China Emerging(JiDangSanShiNian)
    Author: XiaoBo Wu

    Recommendation: Although any period of history has its irreplaceable uniqueness, the China of 1978-2008 is impossible to repeat. In a country of 1.3 billion people, the rigidly planned economic system collapsed and a small group of people turned China into a huge testing ground, turning it into a commercial society in an irreversible manner in full view of everyone.

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  • China Emerging(JiDangShiNian)
    China Emerging(JiDangShiNian)
    Author: XiaoBo Wu

    Recommendation: As a chronicler of the times, Wu has consciously recorded China's sweeping changes and the people and events that have had a profound impact on us from the beginning of China's reform and opening up in 1978, stringing them together into a stirring history of the times for each of us. This latest decade is undoubtedly more spectacular and confusing.

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  • ChuShiJianZhuan
    ChuShiJianZhuan
    Author: Hua Zhou

    Recommendation: Chu Shijian. This is a pivotal name in the history of China's tobacco. This is a local factory development into a world-class industry giant, nearing retirement but folding.

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  • The Heart of Bodhi: An Autobiography
    The Heart of Bodhi: An Autobiography
    Author: DeWang Cao

    Recommendation:Born in 1946 in Fuqing, Fujian Province, Cao Dewang went to school at the age of 9, dropped out at the age of 14, sold tobacco, sold fruit, and repaired crates; in 1983, he contracted a glass factory in Takayama, and in 1985, he quickly switched his main business to auto glass, changing the history of China's auto glass market, which was 100% dependent on imports.

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  • The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World’s Most Important Company
    The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World’s Most Important C
    Author: Michael S. Malone

    Recommendation: This book tells the story of how Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and Andrew Grove built the world's most important company. The company's "diplomat" Noyce is seen as the Holy Father, "thinker" Moore as the Holy Spirit, and "doer" Grove as the Holy Son, a trinity that created a corporate This trinity has created a trillion dollar industry and turned a startup into a $100 billion company.

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  • Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
    Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
    Author: Jessica Livingston

    Recommendation: now available in paperback-with a new preference and interview with Jessica Livingston about y combiner! Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days.

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  • Steve Jobs: A Biography
    Steve Jobs: A Biography
    Author: Walter Isaacson

    Recommendation: He is a highly creative entrepreneur with a roller coaster life and a sharp and radical personality, full of passion for perfection and never stopping, who has created disruptive changes in six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, cell phones, tablets and digital publishing.

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  • Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
    Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
    Author: Ashley Vance

    Recommendation: Elon Musk's life story, like those of countless great industrialists who have changed the world, is the kind of legend that can be written a thousand times in novels and put on the screen, and remains exciting every time you re-watch it, and belongs to all of humanity.

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  • How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story
    How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story
    Author: Billy Gallagher

    Recommendation: How did a serendipitous idea of three young people give birth to a $10 billion Internet giant?

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  • Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
    Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
    Author: Tony Fadell

    Recommendation:Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone and Nest Learning Thermostat and learned enough in 30+ years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia.

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  • Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
    Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
    Author: Phil Knight

    Recommendation:In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.

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  • Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups
    Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups
    Author: Ali Tamaseb

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  • Robert Kuok A Memoir
    Robert Kuok A Memoir
    Author: HeNian Guo (口述) / Andrew Tanzer (笔录)

    Recommendation: Born in Johor Bahru, Kwok Hak Nin is a Hong Kong and Malaysian entrepreneur who started his career in the sugar business and is known as the "Sugar King of Asia". The book is a colorful family history of the founding of his Asia-based group, including memories of his childhood and life with his parents and brothers during the chaotic times. The book also includes his unique insights into managing a business and doing business-how he led the Kwok Group from 1949 to become the multinational corporation it is today. Readers will learn about the lives of Chinese immigrants to Southeast Asia under British colonial rule, the years under the Japanese army during the Second World War, and the economic take-off of China and Asia.

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  • the Airbnb Story
    the Airbnb Story
    Author: Leigh Gallagher

    Recommendation: This is the remarkable behind-the-scenes story of the creation and growth of Airbnb, the online lodging platform that has become, in under a decade, the largest provider of accommodations in the world. At first just the wacky idea of cofounders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb has disrupted the $500 billion hotel industry, and its $30 billion valuation is now larger than that of Hilton and close to that of Marriott. Airbnb is beloved by the millions of members in its “host” community and the travelers they shelter every night. And yet, even as the company has blazed such an unexpected path, this is the first book solely dedicated to the phenomenon of Airbnb.

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  • Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal
    Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal
    Author: Nick Bilton

    Recommendation: The dramatic, unlikely story behind the founding of Twitter, by New York Times bestselling author and Vanity Fair special correspondent

    The San Francisco-based technology company Twitter has become a powerful force in less than ten years. Today it’s everything from a tool for fighting political oppression in the Middle East to a marketing must-have to the world’s living room during live TV events to President Trump’s preferred method of communication. It has hundreds of millions of active users all over the world.


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  • Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber
    Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber
    Author: Mike Isaac

    Recommendation: A New York Times technology correspondent presents the dramatic story of Uber, the Silicon Valley startup at the center of one of the great venture capital power struggles of our time.

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  • The PayPal Wars: Battles with Ebay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth
    The PayPal Wars: Battles with Ebay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth
    Author: Eric M. Jackson

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  • The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World
    The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World
    Author: David Kirkpatrick

    Recommendation: Today - six years after it was created in a Harvard dorm room - over 500 million people use Facebook regularly, in just about every country on earth. That a company this powerful and influential was started as a lark by a couple of 19-year-olds makes it a fascinating and surprising tale. That one of them, the visionary Mark Zuckerberg, had the maturity, strategic smarts and luck to keep his company ahead of its rivals anchors the tale. With exclusive inside access to all the company's leaders David Kirkpatrick tells of the vision, the tenacity, the refusal to compromise, and the vision Zuckerberg has to remake the internet. A brilliant and fascinating cast of characters created Facebook and Kirkpatrick has interviewed all of them. Never before have Zuckerberg and his closest colleagues told what really happened as they built their dynamo while eating fast food, staying up all night, and thumbing their noses at how things are usually done.

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  • The Everything Store: The Story of Amazon and Jeff Bezos
    The Everything Store: The Story of Amazon and Jeff Bezos
    Author: Brad Stone

    Recommendation: The definitive story of Amazon.com, one of the most successful companies in the world, and of its driven, brilliant founder, Jeff Bezos.

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Investment Theory
  • Mastering The Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side
    Mastering The Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side
    Author: Howard Marks

    Recommendation: The legendary investor shows how to identify and master the cycles that govern the markets. We all know markets rise and fall, but when should you pull out, and when should you stay in? The answer is never black or white, but is best reached through a keen understanding of the reasons behind the rhythm of cycles. Confidence about where we are in a cycle comes when you learn the patterns of ups and downs that influence not just economics, markets and companies, but also human psychology and the investing behaviors that result.

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  • The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Best Seller on Value Investing
    The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Best Seller on Value Investing
    Author: Benjamin Graham

    Recommendation: The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham's philosophy of "value investing" - which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies - has made "The Intelligent Investor" the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949.

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  • Thinking, Fast and Slow
    Thinking, Fast and Slow
    Author: Daniel Kahneman

    Recommendation:In order to make the reader truly appreciate the characteristics of the two main characters, System 1 and System 2, Kahneman introduces many classic and interesting behavioral experiments, pointing out when we can trust our intuition and when we can not; guiding us how to make better choices in business, professional and personal life, and how to use different techniques to avoid those thinking mistakes that often get us into trouble.

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  • The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for The Thoughtful Investor
    The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for The Thoughtful Investor
    Author: Howard Marks

    Recommendation: The experts provide excellent insights on concepts such as "second level thinking", the relationship between price and value, patience in waiting for opportunities, and defensive investing. The new and updated edition includes a new chapter on the importance of reasonable expectations, and the author himself adds commentary to expand on the original topics discussed. Also, Bruce Greenwald, who the New York Times called "the leading Wall Street guru," writes the foreword, which covers such concepts as value investing, productivity, and the information economy.

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  • Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
    Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
    Author: Edwin Lefebvre

    Recommendation: Memoirs of a Great Stock Trader is a fascinating biography of the life, dreams, career and fortunes of Jesse Lauriston Livermore (1877-1940), a once-in-a-century financial market trading and investment genius, with a tumultuous and exciting plot.

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  • The Bezos Letters: 14 Principles to Grow Your Business like Amazon
    The Bezos Letters: 14 Principles to Grow Your Business like Amazon
    Author: Steve Anderson, Karen Anderson

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  • Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders
    Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders
    Author: Warren Buffett

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Innovation Theory
  • The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
    The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
    Author: Walter Isaacson
    Recommendation: "The Innovators" is Walter Isaacson's latest masterpiece following his global bestseller "Steve Jobs." It not only narrates the development of computers and the internet from nothing to everything, vividly portraying the collective image of innovators in the digital age, but also deeply explores the spiritual core of the internet and interprets the significant theme of "poetic science."

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  • Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors
    Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors
    Author: Michael E. Porter

    Recommendation: "Competitive Strategy" is authored by Michael Porter, who is globally recognized as the father of modern strategy and a professor at Harvard University. This book, along with works such as "Competitive Advantage," "On Competition," and "The Competitive Advantage of Nations," is widely acknowledged as a "must-read" in the field of management studies.

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  • Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
    Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
    Author: Paul Graham
    Recommendation: This book is a collection of essays by Paul Graham, the father of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship. It primarily explores the passions and motivations of hackers, who are excellent programmers, discusses the growth of hackers, their contributions to the world, as well as programming languages and hacker working methods. It covers a range of topics that are of interest to anyone who is fascinated by the computer age. The content of the book not only helps to understand the essence of computer programming and the rules of the internet industry but also aids in understanding our era, compelling readers to think independently.

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  • Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future
    Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future
    Author: Mike Maples Jr (Author, Narrator), Peter Ziebelman (Author, Narrator)

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Classic Meituan Reading List
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
    The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
    Author: Stephen R. Covey

    Recommendation: This book selects the core ideas and methods of Dr. Covey's "Seven Habits" to bring super-valuable self-improvement experience to busy people. Use the least time to understand the road to sustainable success of high-performance people.

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  • Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking
    Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking
    Author: Neil Browne, Stuart Keeley

    Recommendation: If the subway in your city upgraded its security procedures due to security factors, would you actively cooperate or negatively resist? If a celebrity or KOL you like enthusiastically recommends a product to you, will you place an order immediately or think it over? If your boss asks and encourages you to work "996" or even "007", will you cooperate or refuse? ......

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  • The Say It With Charts Complete Toolkit
    The Say It With Charts Complete Toolkit
    Author: Gene Zelazny

    Recommendation: Data visualization, a new business language and an essential skill for the workplace. Good visual charts are more powerful in conveying information than any other form of communication, and far more efficient in communicating ideas than the average spreadsheet.

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  • Pyramid Principle
    Pyramid Principle
    Author: Barbara Minto

    Recommendation: The book introduces a highly effective method for presenting ideas clearly, and is a practical treasure trove for training thinking and making expression appear logical. The Pyramid Principle organizes fragmented ideas in an orderly manner and simplifies them, making it suitable for all readers who need to refine their thinking, analyzing, and expressing skills.

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Artificial Intelligence
  • Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World
    Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World
    Author: Cade Metz

    Recommendation:Long seen as a technology of the distant future, AI was a project entrusted to the fringes of the scientific community, and even went off the rails and into a cold winter twice in its history, until some desperate researchers broke quiet with a new change-the deep learning revolution.

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  • Impromptu: Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI
    Impromptu: Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI
    Author: Reid Hoffman

    Recommendation: A new vision of how ChatGPT will reshape the world of the future, revolutionize education, business, creativity, social media, journalism, and the way we work.


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  • Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective
    Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective
    Author: Kenneth O. O. Stanley, Joel Lehman

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