1.

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

"This book has really guided me with insights and best practices for building teams. The most
important thing we can do to drive growth at this stage of our company's evolution is to learn
how to effectively work together. Everyone on our team brings something unique to the table
and my job is to make sure that all those things jive to create both business value and a
productive, healthy environment."

--Eric Palm, CEO of Fuzzy Pet Health, a veterinary care telemedicine startup which has
cared for more than 3,000 pets since it was launched in 2016

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2. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, M.D.

"Before you roll your eyes, let me just say this book is a classic that's still relevant. I find that
you can always take away new learnings from this book. One of the mantras I live by is: It is
what it is. My philosophy in business--and what I tell my team--is that when things are
unfolding, don't spend a lot of time thinking about what happened. When things change (and
the cheese moves), focus on solutions. Change is a good thing. In Silicon Valley, we call this
'disruption,' and it's what keeps us innovating and moving forward in business. My advice to
anyone looking to disrupt a space is to read this book, then recognize and adopt the portions
relevant to your business."

--Amit Haller, co-founder and CEO of Reali, a tech-powered real estate company that has
raised $10 million in funding to expand service in the Bay Area, Sacramento, and beyond

3. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

"This is the most real book for a CEO or business leader. Oftentimes, the external view of
companies is that they are always doing great. However, the reality can be very different--
running a startup isn't always easy. I found it therapeutic to read this book and think it's an
important read for every entrepreneur because it teaches you how to focus on the road instead
of the wall when there are so many things changing internally and externally that impact your
company."

--Vivek Ravisankar, co-founder and CEO of HackerRank, a technical hiring platform that
helps over 1,000 companies--including five of the top eight banks in the U.S. and four of the
top seven retail companies--find and evaluate software developers around the world based
on skill

4. Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under

Any Conditions by John Kotter
"I love this book because of its simple and effective approach to getting its message across.
Change is something that is constantly needed in any business, and this book provides a
practical eight-step process for managing change with positive results. The powerful
framework explained in the book is very effective in helping teams adapt to new
circumstances. The book does a great job in explaining different behaviors within a team
during the change by identifying all the different aspects and it educates the reader on how to
manage them effectively, including how to create a sense and need for urgency."

--Venky Balasubramanian, co-founder and CEO of Plivo, a communications platform that

simplifies how businesses integrate SMS and voice communications into their applications,
which has grown to over 70,000 customers with 200 employees across three offices globally
and has been profitable since 2015

5. The Four Disciplines of Execution by Stephen

McChesney
"This book describes the philosophy that was used to transform Washington, D.C., into the
vibrant city it is today and what is also our philosophy at Phone2Action. It outlines four
disciplines to achieve company success, including focusing on the wildly important (e.g.,
focusing on less in order to accomplish more) and keeping a scoreboard (letting people know
how they are performing on an ongoing basis). The principle I found most useful was 'act on
the lead measures.' Success is based on two measures: leading and lagging. We normally pay
attention to lagging measures, such as revenue and profit. However, lead measures--the
activities team members are doing every day to drive growth--are more important and in the
end will drive the growth and revenue. This book has not only helped me prioritize my time
but also has made me a better manager and has helped me achieve my desired business
outcomes."

--Ximena Hartsock, who previously worked for the D.C. government in the Fenty
administration and is founder and COO of Phone2Action, a civic technology platform with
more than 400 clients and doubling in size each year

6. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil

Knight
"This book is written by Phil Knight and documents the story of his creation of Nike. It's an
inspiring look at the sacrifice he made to create the company. His respect for his employees'
feedback and loyalty to those who partnered with him provides a good roadmap to help
prioritize your own employees as the most valuable aspect of your company."

--Gabe Winslow, EVP of media for Ansira, a local media buying agency that provides data-
driven customer acquisition to over 65,000 retail doors

7. Hyper Sales Growth by Jack Daly

"An absolutely vital book for anyone trying to create a business, which is now and remains
my foremost passion in life. Daly's book details the forgotten art of sales: not how to
convince someone to buy from you, but how to make it so that you never need to. The entire
key to maintaining growth is building relationships with your customers instead of treating
them like a piggy bank; customers respond to respect more than pressure. I sorely wish I'd
had a book like this when I was starting out TransPerfect and hadn't had to learn those lessons
the hard way. And everyone thinking of starting a business should start right here so they can
learn the critical truth of how to show the customer you care more about helping them than
making the sale."

--Liz Elting, co-founder and former co-CEO of TransPerfect, a translation solutions

company, and named to Forbes' Richest Self-Made Women list for the past three years

8. Bold Leadership for Organizational Acceleration by Jim

A. Tompkins
"Jim catches lightening in a bottle with this little book. Slim at just a couple-hundred pages,
it's a quick read, but don't let that fool you. [The book] hides real wisdom under that
admittedly bland title, unfolding a philosophy of human and humane leadership that
encompasses your entire life, including everything from forms of self-care to solidarity with
your team in a constant effort, not to produce more, but to produce effectively in a way that
can be maintained over the long term. No more crunches, no more all-nighters; this book
emphasizes the importance of maintaining your relationships, your energy, your enthusiasm--
in short, everything that makes your job worth doing. And that's something we forget all too
often."

--Eric Yaverbaum, president and CEO of Ericho Communications, as well as best-selling

author of seven books, including PR for Dummies and Leadership Secrets of the World's
Most Successful CEOs

9. The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber

"This book taught me the difference and importance of working on your business as an
entrepreneur, rather than in your business as a technician. In other words, it highlights the
benefits of working on the most important thing, not the most urgent thing."

--Kevin Mann, co-founder and chief product officer at CallRail, a provider of call tracking
and analytics to more than 90,000 companies and marketing agencies globally that received
$75 million in funding last fall

10. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry

"Leaders are not defined by how they feel but how they cope with their feelings in front of
others. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 explains how awareness of your and other's behaviors in a
given situation, and the motivations behind that behavior, are key to more efficient and
effective leadership. Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship
management are critical to my leadership style."
--Andreas Pettersson, CEO of Arcules, a connected intelligent video platform which is
Canon's latest spinoff, built on the intellectual property, technology, and expertise of Canon
Group company Milestone Systems

11. Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by

Zora Neale Hurston
"It may be a bit of a curve ball, but Barracoon is a favorite for me right now. It's a series of
interviews (in 1927) with the last surviving person captured in Africa and transported to the
south in a slave ship. It's a harrowing first-hand account of slavery and a study in the best and
worst of human nature--always relevant to business, leadership, society."

--Bryce Smith, founder and CEO of LevelTen Energy, a renewable energy marketplace which
launched in January 2018, is a 2017 graduate of the Seattle Techstars accelerator program
and raised $6.8 million in a Series A in October 2017

12. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Over the years, this has easily become my favorite book. Fitzgerald's take on the American
dream and how the desire for success influences the decision-making process is a valuable
lesson for any business leader today. One of the great things about being an entrepreneur is
the opportunity to be around highly successful people and learn from them. However, it can
also be extremely easy to lose sight of your core values if you're not careful. This book is a
good reminder to always be true to yourself and retain your values."

--Neill Feather, CEO of SiteLock, a business website security solution which protects over 12
million websites worldwide and was recently acquired by ABRY Partners

13. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life

and Business by Charles Duhigg
"More than anything else in our lives, our habits determine our destiny. Their mysterious
power comes from their automaticity, repetition, and cumulative power. For example,
Benjamin Franklin wrote a summary of his day every night before bed. Arianna Huffington
begins her days with 30 minutes of meditation. These actions, which seem insignificant on
their face, become over time a key to their success. What I learned from this book: The
master skill of life is not a specific habit. It's the power to create new habits. Success is
largely a matter of creating habits of success. And Duhigg shows us how achieve this habit
mindset."

--David Maxfield, New York Times best-selling author and VP of research at VitalSmarts, a
leadership training company that works with more than 300 of the Fortune 500 companies

14. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

"It resonated with me unlike any other book while trying to solve the big question of 'How do
I keep that same family-feeling I had at my first location as I scale across the country?' At the
time, my business was expanding rapidly, but the company was beginning to feel more and
more corporate. Each year, additional rules were being put in place to ensure best practices.
Tony's ideas ultimately helped me implement a unique company culture that would become
one of my company's greatest competitive advantages. If you're tired of building the same old
corporate bureaucracy and want to add spice to your workplace then this is a must-read."

--David Royce, founder and chairman of Aptive Environmental, recently named the 11th
largest pest control company in North America in its second full year in business

15. American Creation by Joseph Ellis

"Any time I feel individually challenged, or my organization feels overwhelmed, I think of
how the founders of this country won a war of independence and created a unified
government without fear of failure, despite the fact that failure was the most likely outcome. I
refer to this all the time, as it shows that people can accomplish extraordinary feats when they
don't limit themselves to a pre-conceived notion of the way things are done. Especially in
business development and sales, where it's all about winning and losing, the differentiator
usually comes from being bold and embracing the art of the possible from what is seemingly
impossible."

--Chris Crowley, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Alorica, the largest
customer service provider in the U.S. and third largest in the world, with over 100,000
employees worldwide

16. Ego Free Leadership by Brandon Black and Shayne

Huges
"In [this book], Encore CEO Brandon Black tells his personal story of professional struggle,
and how eliminating unproductive ego habits not only benefited his company during the
Great Recession but helped him grow as a person. The story is also told from Black's
leadership development coach and president of Learning as Leadership, Shayne Hughes, who
discusses techniques to learn and control your 'egosystem.' I was particularly drawn to the
vulnerability that Black shows by stepping back and realizing how he has a direct impact on
his company's internal dysfunction, and how he and Hughes remedy this by adopting egoless
tactics to boost Encore's profits by 300 percent. As I've started and funded several of my own
companies, I've found myself looking back to the VEDEC communication model--
vulnerable, empathetic, direct, exploratory, and caring--for furthering conversations around
corporate development."

--Andreas Roell, managing partner for Analytics Ventures, a venture capital fund financing
companies driven by artificial intelligence algorithms that supports over 70 employees

17. Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the

Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
"As a serial entrepreneur, I've had many low moments when I wasn't sure whether I had the
strength to keep going. This book helped me realize that we all flounder and fail--not just us
professional risk-takers--and that the power to face hardship comes from embracing the
uncertainty that's inherent in bold choices. It helped me see that the downs are just part of the
entrepreneurial adventure, and to use them to learn what was needed to make me and my
company become that much stronger."

--Sheryl O'Loughlin, CEO of REBBL, a plant-based, super herb adaptogen beverage

company, former CEO of Clif Bar and Company, former co-founder and CEO of Plum, Inc.,
and author of Killing It: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Keeping Your Head Without Losing
Your Heart

18. Talking as Fast as I Can by Lauren Graham

"Growing up, Gilmore Girls was my favorite television show, partly because of the humor
and writing, but mostly because of the relationship that was depicted between two strong
female leads. Being a strong female and having strong females to look up to is so important
to me. Every time I re-read this book I take something new away from it. Lauren Graham
makes you feel like her friend while she takes you on her life journey through
entrepreneurship, sexism, and self-doubt. Two of her biggest opportunities were given to her
by successful women, and this really reinforces the idea that empowered women need to
empower other women, something that I try to do every day. Lauren makes having doubt feel
so relatable and encourages you to keep going. It's a feel-good book that is written in a way
that will leave you wanting to be her best friend."

--Lauren Steinberg, the 24-year-old founder of Queen V, a Millennial-focused feminine

wellness brand that launched nationwide at Walmart in April and has exceeded $1 million in
sales

19. Complexity of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod

"I was aware of game theory, but it was always too abstract for me to map it to day-to-day
business (and life) situations. Axelrod's book really opened my eyes to how game theory can
really make a difference in getting alignment and to win-win with customers, partners, and
even competitors. The book is an extremely easy read that looks at winning (and losing)
strategies across a variety of competitive domains: business, industry standards, trade
negotiations, and even arms control negotiations. Having concrete examples of how the same
strategies worked (and didn't work) across so many different domains really opened my eyes
to how to build systems and structure programs to get to that win-win."

--Ray Ghanbari, CTO at SmartDrive Systems, a provider of video-based safety and

transportation intelligence with a database of over 220 million risky driving events, which
achieved 30 percent growth in its subscription base in 2017

20. Future First: How Successful Leaders Turn Innovation

Challenges into New Value Frontiers by Alice Mann
"With her keen business acumen and deep compassion for people who will inherit our
successes and failures, Mann has written a book that's one-part business strategy, one-part
inspiration, and one-part plea to the leaders of the world to consider the long-term
consequences of our actions. With Future First, Mann moves the corporate responsibility
conversation forward by positioning social issues and global environmental degradation not
as problems but innovation challenges. This is truly a must-read for any entrepreneur
interested in achieving lasting and integrated business results and social change."

--Kirsten Saenz Tobey, co-founder and chief impact officer of Revolution Foods, which
serves nearly three million healthy meals per week to students in 30 cities across 15 U.S.
states and distributes a line of retail food products to over 3,000 grocery stores nationwide

21. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

"It's a book about human decision making. This book has helped me think about how
people--be they customers, peers, or other stakeholders--process information, make decisions,
and the traps that we tend to fall into as humans. The convention of systems, with their
unique characteristics, shed a unique light on how our brains work and has helped change the
way I think about our interactions with each other."