62 Books & Podcasts for CEOs & Founders: 2024 Edition

The list you’ve been waiting for!

For five years, we’ve asked our portfolio company leaders, “What book or podcast would you recommend to your peers?” The 2024 list is here, and it has something for everyone. Whether you’re looking for holiday downtime inspiration or a new resource to share with your team, discover recommendations by leaders from 26 of LLR’s portfolio companies.

Pro Tip: Look for the ‘Fan Favorite’ star, which highlights the resources that have been consistently recommended by leaders across our portfolio in past years.

Wishing you a safe and joyful holiday season from all of us at LLR!

Leadership & Management

• Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
• Extreme Ownership and the Dichotomy of Leadership by Leif Babin and Jocko Willink
• Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger
• Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
• Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright
• Climb That Mountain hosted by Kevin Jones and Brian Castle

Sales & Customer Success

• Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn by Nick Mehta and Dan Steinman
• The Challenger Sale by Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon
• The Sandler Rules: 49 Timeless Selling Principles and How to Apply Them by David Mattson
• The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn if Your Business is a Good Idea When Everyone is Lying to You by Rob Fitzpatrick
• The Ticket: Discover the Future of Customer Service, Support, and Experience hosted by Intercom

Founder & Private Equity Advice

• The Private Equity Playbook by Adam Coffey
• What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
• Skin in the Game by Naseem Nicholas Taleb
• Acquired hosted by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
• Masters of Scale hosted by Reid Hoffman, Bob Safian, and Jeff Berman
• Twenty Minute VC hosted by Harry Stebbings
• The Founder Hour hosted by Patrick Tanahan and Posh
• IN DEPTH from First Round Review
• How I Built This hosted by Guy Raz
• IO Podcast hosted by Sterling Snow and Tyler Hogge

News & Tech

• High Tech CEO by Paul DiModica
• Morning Brew Daily hosted by Neal Freyman and Toby Howell
• My EdTech Life hosted by Fonz Mendoza
• SaaS Talk with the Metric Brothers hosted by Ray Rike and David Kellogg
• The Mel Robbins Podcast hosted by Mel Robbins
• EconTalk hosted by Russ Roberts
• Idea Cast hosted by Alison Beard and Curt Nickisch
• Prof G hosted by Scott Galloway
• All In. hosted by Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg
• Goldman Sachs Exchanges from Goldman Sachs

Personal Development

• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephan Covey
• Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss
• Hidden Potential by Adam Grant
• Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• The Road to Character by David Brooks
• Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt
• The Drive hosted by Peter Attia
• Water David Foster Wallace Commencement Speech

Strategy & Operations

• Good to Great by James Collins
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
• Measure What Matters by John Doerr
• Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
• Hope is Not a Strategy by Rick Page
• BG2Pod hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Burley
• Sharp Tech hosted by Andrew Sharp and Ben Thompson
• Business Wars hosted by David Brown

People Management & Culture

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
• Trillion Dollar Coach by Alan Eagle, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Eric Schmidt
• The Culture Blueprint: A Guide to Building the High-Performance Workplace by Robert Richman
• Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times by Donald Phillips
• Resonant Leadership by Annie McKee and Richard Boyatzis
• Who: The Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart and Randy Street
• Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
• Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
• Power Your Tribe by Christine Comaford
• Coaching Real Leaders hosted by Muriel Wilkins

The books and podcasts listed were chosen by LLR portfolio company leaders based on opinion and relevance to this year’s categories. There were no fees or compensation paid to the survey participants, authors or podcasters found on this list.