Martin Reeves
Mihnea Moldoveanu
Adam Job
As has become our annual tradition, we are kicking off the holiday season (for some of our readers) with a list of notable business books that have been featured on our Thinkers & Ideas podcast. If you are taking some time to unplug, bring one (or more) of these books along and listen to our interviews with the authors. The discussions reinforce why the books’ ideas are relevant to leaders—adding some inspiration to bring to the new year.
The Corporate Life Cycle with Aswath Damodaran
Damodaran, a professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University known as “the Dean of Valuation,” explores how corporations age, the characteristics of each stage of their life cycle, and the implications for managers and investors alike. Damodaran presents understanding this corporate life cycle as a universal key for demystifying business finance, strategy, and company valuation, and outlines how to determine where in the life cycle your company is—and what leadership skills and behaviors are required.
How to Become Famous with Cass Sunstein
Sunstein, long at the forefront of behavioral economics as a best-selling author of titles like Nudge, a professor at Harvard Law School, and former administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, asks the question: why do some individuals become celebrities—and others don’t? He unpacks the role of skill, luck, and social processes in achieving of fame and success. With insights based on his recent research on informational cascades, reputation cascades, network effects, and group polarization, Sunstein posits that these mechanisms can help not just achieve fame, but help businesses make better decisions in marketing, talent management, and innovation.
The Unaccountability Machine with Dan Davies
Davies, an economist, writer, and former investment banker, is known for his insightful analysis of finance, corporate governance, and decision-making systems. In his latest book, he examines why companies and governments systematically generate outcomes that everyone involved claims they do not want. He combines cybernetics theory and real-world examples to explain how decisions are increasingly made not by accountable individuals, but by systems.
Big Bet Leadership with John Rossman
Rossman, a former Amazon executive who launched its Marketplace business and a best-selling author of books like The Amazon Way, examines large-scale change, why high-stakes change efforts fail, and how to frame and manage such efforts more effectively. Rossman provides a playbook for becoming an innovation and transformation winner, including how to think big while betting small and how to make the critical decisions to “continue, pivot, or kill” a project.
The Age of Outrage with Karthik Ramanna
Ramanna, a professor of Business and Public Policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, provides a framework for leaders to navigate outrage—the intense, polarized reactions to perceived social injustices, political stances, and misaligned corporate actions—by addressing root causes, engaging stakeholders, and building resilience. Ramanna identifies the three causes of outrage (fear of the future, past injustices, and ideologies of othering) and the common instincts that mislead leaders.
The Great Disconnect with Marco Magnani
Magnani, who teaches international economics at LUISS University in Rome and Università Cattolica in Milan, explores what’s driving the crisis of globalization we are currently experiencing. Magnani dissects the causes of this increasing global disconnect, beyond U.S.-China tensions, laying out four scenarios for how globalization may play out—as well as practical tips for how executives can prepare for these different futures in a time of deep uncertainty.
Critical Systems Thinking with Michael C. Jackson
Jackson, an emeritus professor of management systems and former dean of the University of Hull Business School, emphasizes the need for integrating diverse systems methodologies to navigate complexity and uncertainty. Best known for his development of Critical Systems Thinking (CST), Jackson explains how different systems perspectives can be combined to manage complexity, how theory informs interventions, how organizations are embracing system thinking, barriers to adoption, and the relevance of systems thinking to today’s business environment.
The Ritual Effect with Michael Norton
Norton, a professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School where he also leads the unit for negotiation, organization, and markets, explores how the little things we do can create big impact. A well-known and respected researcher on behavioral economics and well-being, Norton demonstrates the power of small acts—and how a subtle shift of turning habits into rituals can add purpose and pleasure to life.
Deep Utopia with Nick Bostrom
Bostrom, author of the 2014 bestseller Superintelligence about the dangers of AI, now considers what can go right with AI in his new book Deep Utopia. Formerly a professor at Oxford University and currently principal researcher of the Macrostrategy Research Initiative, Bostrom ponders AI’s impact, envisioning an economy that could double every few months—and space colonization by self-replicating machines that may not, in fact, be hundreds of years away.
Survive, Reset, Thrive with Rebecca Homkes
Homkes, who teaches business strategy at the London Business School, has developed a framework for leading through uncertainty based on three principles: setting up the firm for continuity through shocks (survive), making strategic choices for growth as the situation changes (reset), and ensuring implementation of the new business model (thrive). Homkes offers insight into how to thrive under uncertainty and how her framework for dealing with uncertainty applies in the context of the AI revolution.
AI Snake Oil with Sayash Kapoor
Kapoor, a member of TIME’s inaugural list of the 100 most influential people in AI and a researcher at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy, examines the societal impacts of AI, with a focus on reproducibility, transparency, and accountability in AI systems. In his new book, Kapoor cuts through the hype to help readers discriminate between legitimate and bogus claims for AI technologies and applications.
Assembling Tomorrow with Scott Doorley and Carissa Carter
Carter, the Director of Teaching and Learning at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (also known as the Stanford d.school), and Doorley, a Creative Director at the d.school, explore the intangible forces that make it hard to anticipate how new technologies create impact and how to use design to address this challenge. The authors find that by giving more weight to non-technical factors like emotions, perceptions, imagination, and serendipity, designers, technologists, and corporate leaders can more effectively harness transformative technologies like AI.
