10 Best Business Books of 2025, According to Founders and Business Leaders
Looking for a good holiday read? Try these picks from Bill Gates, Steve Blank, Adam Grant, and others.
By Chris Morris
One of the nicest things about the holiday season is that you’re able to sneak in some me time. That gives founders a chance to unplug and catch up on their reading.
The right book for you depends on your interests, your tastes, and your mood. But with so many options on shelves, where should you start? Inc. surveyed an assortment of founders and business leaders and dug through dozens of lists to find recommendations of some of the best business books around today. If nothing in your backlog of books is calling to you today, any of these could be a good place to start.
Breakneck by Dan Wang
Mercury co-founder and CEO Immad Akhund calls this look at China’s rapidly expanding technological and geopolitical profile “one of the better explanations of the gap between an engineering-driven society and a lawyer-driven one. It’s a thought-provoking look at why the U.S. struggles to build things and how we could fix it. It’s not hand-wavy. It’s grounded in engineering reality. If you care about how things actually get made, it’s worth reading.” He’s not alone. The Times of London called it “easily one of the best books on China published this year.”
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Steve Blank, widely regarded as the father of modern entrepreneurship and the creator of the lean startup movement, lists this as one of his top books of 2025. It’s a memoir that looks at one woman’s career at Facebook. Wynn-Williams, a former U.N. diplomat for New Zealand, was the director of public policy at the company from 2011 through 2017. And the stories she conveys, which include alleged misconduct and harassment at the company, are ones Meta did not want told. In March, Meta got an arbitration order ordering Wynn-Williams to stop making “disparaging” remarks against the company and, where possible, cease promoting or publishing the book. Publisher Flatiron Books said the order had no impact on its corporate parent Macmillan and continued to sell it.
When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows by Steven Pinker
Bill Gates included this look at how the concept of common knowledge shapes human behavior on his list of must-read holiday books for 2025. “Few people explain the mysteries of human behavior better than Steven Pinker, and his latest book is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn more about how people communicate,” he wrote. “When we know what others know, indirect signals become clear. Although the topic itself is pretty complicated, the book is readable and practical, and it made me see everyday social interactions in a new light.”
Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
Former president (and co-founder of Higher Ground, the award-winning media production company) Barack Obama, in his 2025 reading list, called Abundance “a must-read for progressives who want a blueprint for reforming government so it can deliver for working people.” The book has continued to gather praise in the ensuing months. It looks at progress in the U.S. through a different lens, illustrating how rigidly clinging to beliefs can sometimes prevent you from achieving what you want.
Todd Sattersten, founder of Bard Press and co-author of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, said of Klein and Thompson’s book, “I came away inspired by another definition for progress. There is a mention in the book how talented graduates have favored digital entrepreneurship, because the online world doesn’t have the constraints and complexities that bogged down many other realms of the economy. I hope the book encourages others to tackle the harder problems that need solving.”
The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom
There are plenty of business books about risk. Bloom looks at a different sort, though—the risk of chasing the wrong dreams. Finance isn’t the only sort of wealth, he writes. There’s also time wealth, social wealth, mental wealth, and physical wealth. He discusses how to achieve each of these. “Bloom broadens the definition of what wealth is and reminds us of the kinds of wealth that actually impact our happiness. [The book includes] lots and lots of tools for building each type of wealth,” says Sattersten.
Reset by Dan Heath
Founders can sometimes suffer from tunnel vision, remaining so focused on the day-to-day business of running their companies that they fail to see when it’s not working. Reset explores how to become unstuck and to find leverage points, where a little effort can yield large rewards, while putting an end to wasteful actions. “It’s a book about why changing systems is so difficult—even when we know change is needed,” says Dave de Céspedes, founder of Workcraft Labs and co-founder of Superform Labs. “It helped me put words to something I’ve seen over and over: You can’t just drop a new tool into place and expect things to get better. [It] doesn’t ask you to fix everything. It asks you to fix the right thing.”
Source Code by Bill Gates
The New York Times bestseller and Amazon’s top pick for business and leadership books this year, this is the first of three planned memoirs by Gates. It doesn’t focus too much on Microsoft or at all on his philanthropic endeavors, but instead Gates discusses his childhood and early struggles to fit in with other kids. He covers meeting Paul Allen and wraps up with stories of the founding of Microsoft. It’s a chance to look at the very early history of a founder who would go on to revolutionize an industry, and Blank lists it as one of his top books of the year.
A deeper dive into how he built the business into what we know today is coming in the next volume (which has not yet been dated). “I write about the relationships, lessons, and experiences that laid the foundation for everything in my life that followed,” Gates wrote when announcing the book. “Source Code is my origin story.”
1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin
Sorkin’s detailed narrative of the 1929 stock market crash that launched the Great Depression has been winning praise since it was published. Critics have noted how it draws parallels between that event and modern financial markets as well as how Sorkin discusses the roles that greed, policy, and psychology did (and continue to) play. “It’s obviously a detailed account of a transformative moment in American economic history, but it also offers interesting case studies on leadership during a crisis,” says Jake Tauscher, a partner at G2 Venture Partners. “Many bold gestures failed because leaders underappreciated the very real issues, while leaders who had a chance to actually make a difference were stalled into inaction (or sometimes, actively destructive action!) by competing interests.”
Algospeak by Adam Aleksic
Etymologists don’t always make it onto business book lists, but with Algospeak, Adam Aleksix looks at how internet algorithms are transforming how we communicate with one another. Among the words and phrases the online world has given us are “brainrot,” incel slang, and adding “-core” to various words. Aleksic looks at how language has changed and how societal changes have reflected that. “A linguist explores how the internet is redefining our vocabulary. No cap—this bruh slaps and slays,” writes Adam Grant, an angel investor, author, professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and co-founder of knowledge collaboration platform Givitas.
The Sweaty Startup by Nick Huber
A finalist for one of the 2025 Porchlight Business Book Awards (which have recognized the best in the genre since 2007), The Sweaty Startup argues that you don’t need a revolutionary idea and significant financial backing to succeed. By focusing on skills like sales, hiring, and delegation, you can succeed by executing a proven idea better than your competition. Huber would know. He founded Bolt Storage, which owns 1.9 million square feet of self-storage facilities across 11 states, he owns stakes in 10 other businesses, and has two popular podcasts. Andrew Wilkinson, co-founder of Tiny, a holding company that owns several online and consumer brands, said “this book should be required reading for any entrepreneur.”