Science, Technology and Medicine

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

“Rhodes's Pulitzer-winning account of the Manhattan Project shows how theoretical physics, industrial engineering, and wartime administration had to be integrated under extreme time pressure. Musk has pointed to it as a model for how a small team with clear goals can accomplish things governments and large institutions cannot.”Elon Musk

The Copernican Revolution

“Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution”Paul Graham

Hackers

“Steven Levy's 1984 history of the first hacker generation shaped Andreessen's self-conception of what software builders are. He has recommended it as the founding myth of the culture he operates inside — the origin story of why information wants to be free and why the best builders ignore institutional authority.”Marc Andreessen

Where Wizards Stay Up Late

“He recommends it for its focus on the early pioneers (1950s-1980s) who built the modern internet.”Chris Dixon

The Innovators

“Gates reviewed Walter Isaacson's history of computing pioneers on GatesNotes and noted the accuracy of the portraits of people he knew personally. He praised the book's central argument—that collaboration, not lone genius, built the digital age—as a correction to the mythology that surrounds the field.”Bill Gates

How Innovation Works

“It's a must-read for entrepreneurs and government officials who want to either be innovative themselves or foster innovation.”Naval Ravikant

Empires of Light

“One of my favorite history books," on the electrification rivalry of Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse.”Chris Dixon

The Right Stuff

“Wolfe's portrait of the Mercury astronauts and the competitive culture of early NASA is on Musk's list partly for its romanticization of risk-taking and partly as a study in what drove individuals to do things with extremely high probability of death. He has referenced the astronaut ethos when discussing how SpaceX recruits.”Elon Musk

The Information

“Gleick's history of how humans learned to store and transmit information — from African drums to Claude Shannon's theorems — is the kind of deep-time framing Andreessen gravitates toward. He has cited it as essential for understanding why software is categorically more powerful than prior general-purpose technologies.”Marc Andreessen

“Richard Holmes's account of the Romantic-era scientific revolution — Banks, Davy, Herschel, Shelley — when science was still entangled with poetry and natural philosophy. Collison sees this as one of history's underappreciated acceleration episodes.”Patrick Collison