Bill Gurley
Author, Executive, Investor
Bill Gurley is a venture capitalist who was a Wall Street technology analyst in the 1990s and a general partner at Benchmark from 1999, backing companies such as Uber, Zillow and OpenTable. He wrote Runnin' Down a Dream (2026).
Bill Gurley's 56 Book Recommendations
- Ready Player One
- Setting the Table
- Brotopia
- Shoe Dog
- The Innovator's Dilemma
- How Innovation Works
- The Sixth Man
- The Billionaire Shell Game
- The Rational Optimist
- The Storytelling Animal
- Lean Solutions
- Virus of the Mind
- Valuation
- Crossing the Chasm
- Bad Blood
- Competitive Strategy
- Negotiating the Impossible
- Security Analysis: Sixth Edition, Foreword by Warren Buffett
- Sapiens
- Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders
- The Wealth of Nations
- Built to Last
- On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
- Catastrophic Care
- A Random Walk Down Wall Street
- Why We Get Fat and what to Do about it
- Startup: “There's a book I love called Startup by Kaplan... it's just fantastic”
- Snow Crash: “Years ago, I read Snow Crash when it came out... Thought it was the best thing that I had ever consumed”
- Mr. China: A Memoir: “This book, Mr. China is fantastic”
- One Up On Wall Street: “You can read Peter Lynch's One Up On Wall Street”
- Greenlights: “I started listening to Greenlights”
- Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages: “Carlota Perez's book, which I just find perfect for trying to understand whether there's a bubble”
- Grit: “Her book, Grit, talks about two components, passion and perseverance”
- Moneyball (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Movie Tie-in Editions): “He reads a book called Moneyball, which we all know of, the Michael Lewis book”
- From Strength to Strength: “I would encourage you to read Arthur Brooks' book, Strength to Strength... great perspective for a later career shift”
- Complexity: “I highly recommend Complexity by Waldrop (my personal fav book)”
- Range: “Range was promoted as a sports book. But it is much more.”
- Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making: “Must read: Build from @tfadell”
- Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future: “Great writing. Must read.”
- Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better: “Great new book... Must read.”
- Young Money: A Field Guide to Wealth and Purpose in Your Twenties: “A great new book to help young people think about money!”
- The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary: “Read the cathedral and bazzar.”
- Throwing Heat: The Autobiography of Nolan Ryan: “'Throwing Heat' is a great book also.”
- Play Nice But Win: A CEO's Journey from Founder to Leader: “I highly recommend listening to Play Nice But Win from @MichaelDell”
- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: “Great book. Read it with @mjmauboussin years ago.”
- Born Standing Up: “It had a profound effect on me. So great. Must read.”
- The Tree of Life and Prosperity: 21st Century Business Principles from the Book of Genesis: “Check out his new book”
- Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story: “I recommend reading Presenting To Win: The Art of Telling Your Story by Jerry Weissman.”
- The Creative Act: “Rick Rubin... summed it up beautifully in his recent book, 'The Creative Act'”
- Influence: “Books like Richard Brodie's Virus of the Mind and Robert Cialdini's Influence do a great job”
- Good Calories, Bad Calories: “Taubes' 2008 New York Times best seller, Good Calories, Bad Calories. Taubes, a successful science journalist and researcher, obliterates the past 30-40 years of medical rhetoric when it comes to diet and nutrition.”
- The World Is Flat: “In his 2005 book, The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman recognizes that the Internet has the ability to create a "level playing field" for all participants”
- The New Journalism: “In The New Journalism, Tom Wolfe argued that properly written nonfiction could be more compelling than fiction.”
- The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft: “And there's another one called the New New Journalism about these writers that kind of left being beat writers on newspapers”
- Sharkproof: Get the Job You Want, Keep the Job You Love... in Today's Frenzied Job Market: “This book I read... back in business school called Sharkproof by Harvey Mackay.”
- Flow: “The word that popped into my brain, and there's a book by this title, was flow.”