Meaning and the good life

Being Mortal

“Gates reviewed Gawande's book on aging and end-of-life care on GatesNotes and wrote that it changed how he thought about his own family and about what good medicine actually means. He has since cited it as a model for how doctors and institutions should approach the limits of intervention.”Bill Gates

Finite and Infinite Games

“He says it "gets you in the mode of thinking long term" and "provides a powerful shared language with those who read it.”Daniel Gross

The Education of a Value Investor

“…books I've recommended, highlighted to death, or forced on friends.”Andrew Wilkinson

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mor

“A recommended favorite on finitude and how to spend a limited life.”Sahil Bloom

“I have been deeply influenced by the existentialist and eminent psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who wrote the perennial best seller Man's Search for Meaning, one of the most influential books I've ever…”Frank Martin

The Monk and the Riddle

“A recommended entrepreneurship read surfaced in his AVC book discussions.”Fred Wilson

The Art of Travel

“Recommends de Botton's meditation on why we travel; resonates with Airbnb's "belong anywhere" mission and his thinking on the meaning of travel.”Brian Chesky

Sum

“Rated 10/10; Sivers loves it as a creativity-expanding set of "what if" thought experiments.”Derek Sivers

The Bed of Procrustes

“His own volume of philosophical aphorisms within the Incerto.”Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Gifts of Imperfection

“Her earlier, more personal book, written before the TED talk changed her public profile. It reads as a field guide for letting go of the perfectionism and people-pleasing she documented in her early shame research, and it remains the entry point she most often recommends to new readers.”Brené Brown

Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It

“He says this book "helped me massively," a personal favorite on founder mental health.”Garry Tan

The Courage to Be Disliked

“This book is oddly written (it's translated from Japanese), but it changed my life.”Andrew Wilkinson

Fallen Leaves

“a book that historian Will Durant wrote in his 90s, a summation of his thoughts on the meaning of life at the end of his”Andrew Wilkinson

12 Rules for Life

“An all-time favorite he wrote a full review of (titled "Meaningful").”David Perell

The Road to Character

“It certainly was a stimulating read, and it got me thinking about my own motivations and limitations in new ways.”Bill Gates

“I love this line from Dr. James Hollis' incredible book (one of my favorites from the last few years)”Andrew Wilkinson

How to Live

“I also recommend Derek's other books (How To Live is especially good).”Andrew Wilkinson

Useful Not True

“Derek is one of my favorite writers, and his latest book is focused on a simple idea: our beliefs are often not necessarily true, but simply useful to us. That beliefs are tools, not truths.”Andrew Wilkinson

Nicomachean Ethics

“Aristotle's ethics grounds the classical philosophy strand. Thiel's argument in Zero to One that the best career is not the most competitive but the most singular echoes Aristotle's eudaimonia—a life fully actualized in its own specific excellence rather than in comparison to others. The contrast with Girard is deliberate: where Girard sees mimesis as inescapable, Aristotle points toward a way out.”Peter Thiel