Recommendations for Biographies?

[BobbyPenzero]

Hey all, I was just looking for some recommendations on biographies/autobiographies of successful people etc. MJ mentions he read many in his book, but I'm struggling to find any on fameless millionaires and so on. The only decent list seems to be http://www.artofmanliness.com/2008/12/28/self-made-men/ and I'll pick up a few on there, but I was looking for any paperback/hardback recommendations to read in the morning/late night. At the moment I've got the following:

The list above
Alan Sugar
Richard Branson
Steve Jobs
Teddy Roosevelt
Ben Franklin
(I also found this list: http://under30ceo.com/10-billionaire-biographies-you-must-read/)

Any recommendations? Thanks.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Brander]

Charles Koch, Ben Franklin, Peter Thiel. Documentaries and videos exist on these instead of full blown biographies.

 

[HappyFighter]

The only official autobiography I have read so far is "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" by Haruki Murakami. He's a great writer so it's an entertaining read as well.

And thanks for the link, there seems to be other cool articles in the site you have linked.

 

[Jazzcat]

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller. It is long, but then again this is the man who fueled the industrial revolution over a 98 year life.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Kak]

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller. It is long, but then again this is the man who fueled the industrial revolution over a 98 year life.

I freaking loved this book. I enjoy history though.

I'll throw Lee Iacocca, and Andrew Carnagie in the hat here. Also check out "more than a hobby" by David Green it's the Hobby Lobby story.

 

[johnp]

The Wolf of Wall Street - Jordan Belfort

Yea there is a movie, but there is also a 500 page book.

You can either walk away shaking your head at this guy, or you can actually take away some huge lessons about what and what not to do. Personally, I think that Jordan is a genius and I learned so much from paying close attention to him.

 

[Clayton]

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller. It is long, but then again this is the man who fueled the industrial revolution over a 98 year life.

It went a little too long for me.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[BlokeInProgress]

The Wolf of Wall Street - Jordan Belfort

Love the book!

I'd also recommend Sam Walton's biography (Sam Walton Made in America).

 

[TedM]

Be My Guest - by Conrad Hilton
The Wild Company - Ziegler (about founding of Banana Republic)
Peterman rides again - JPeterman (the rise, fall, and rise of the catalog company)
Steve Jobs bio also..

 

[AllenCrawley]

I also recommend The Wild Company and Peterman Rides Again as Ted does.

I would add to that The Republic of Tea, The Barefoot Spirit and Mission in a Bottle (although Mission in a Bottle is in comic book format I enjoyed it, others may not)

I'm pretty much done with reading books like The Four Hour Workweek, Rich Dad, Think and Grow Rich and the like. Those were important for me back then but now I get sooooo much more from books about how companies were birthed, the challenges they had to overcome and successes enjoyed. They are so much more detailed about processes and overcoming roadblocks.

There is a thread about WhatsApp selling to FB for 19B. Cool headline news but I'm way more interested in reading the story of how they got to the point of being sold. @snowbank posted a short article about the founder and his hustle. That piques my interest. Everyone is talking about whether the company is worth the 19B. Who cares? Tell me the nitty gritty road they traveled. Dig in to the reasons why facebook was willing to depart with 19B.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[AllenCrawley]

more than a hobby

Thanks. Just bought it.

 

[oldscool]

Although, I hadnt read her biography I know a little bit about her life and I think it maybe worth reading.

Drum roll...

Joan Rivers.

I wont give away the little I know about her, but, I think you might be surprised how tenacious she was to get her career off the ground.

 

[Xanothraxos]

I have to second The Wolf of Wall Street. Jordan's memoir is slightly unbelievable, very entertaining and packed with some pretty solid business if you can see over the drug induced lunacy. There is no doubt that he is a brilliant businessman, and now that he's cleaned up his seminars and interviews are amazing (youtube).

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[snowbank]

Snowball (Buffet)

 

[decaobr]

Lifehacked... by Allen Wong its a pretty good book.

 

[P789]

My life and work by Henry Ford. Explained the process principle when building his own empire, Ford Motor Company.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[S.Y.]

Andrew Carnagie and John D Rockefeller are amazing. I have them on audible. They freaking long.

Elon Musk one too is pretty great. His resilience is crazy.

Da Vinci bio by Walter Isaacson is phenomenal.

Claude Shanon biography is interesting as well. Dude is the father of the information age.

Ed Thorp. Man... A phenonemal thinker. Can't make justice in few sentences to this guy. But here is one fact: he got a positive return 227 out of 230 months trading options and derivatives. Here is another, the whole quantitative investment field? He is one of the pioneers.
Net worth: 500+ millions.

 

[Olimac21]

The Autobiography of Malcolm X-Alex Haley
Shoe Dog-Phil Knight

 

[Tom H.]

My life and work by Henry Ford. Explained the process principle when building his own empire, Ford Motor Company.

Seconded. Came here to recommend this.

Ford was a hero. For me, almost every line is something to highlight. Two things that just popped into my head from the book:

- Ford wanted to make it possible for every willing worker to be productive, no matter their skill level or physical ability. They would design manufacturing lines to enable workers with disabilities, etc. Her literally made people more valuable.

- He says they were gathering metrics on everything because they could and it was fun, but they needed to re-tool and becomes more profitable, do they dropped all the metrics, except for things that were tied directly to revenue/profit. Sounds like a lesson that a lot of companies are relearning today.

Ford was huge on Control and Scale. And they're was naturally a high barrier to Entry, setting goals like the Model T and the single cast V8.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Martin.G]

You can read the biography of Rockefeller because you can get a lot of value from there. Like save money when things go well to invest when the market crash, that's something that happens with oil wells and explain how he made a lot of money.

I like the biographies of Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger, two great investors of our time, but also business managements.

Elon Musk is great too if you like the technology sector. Also, he suffered a lot in his life being a contrary.

I like to read biographies of athletes. There are not about businessman, but they can teach you a lot about hard work and achieve a lot. I guess if you can extract value for something that is not intended to make business, you can get a lot.

50 cent has a great biography too. When I saw the book I thought that they are going to be nothing than a rapper can teach me, but I've been so wrong.

Probably I forget a lot of people, because I read a bunch of biography of unknown people that can't remember now, but my best advice is that look for someone who do something great and start from there. Like David Gogging to name one.

 

[mylo]

Total Recall - Arnold Schwarzenegger
Very interesting read