2022 has been an amazing year for books of all kinds, and business books are no exception. And yet with so many great titles, where do you start?
At the Next Big Idea Club, we crunched the numbers to identify the business books that were loved most by our tens of thousands of app users. (Our curators Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Daniel Pink, and Adam Grant only pick each season’s two official selections.) So if you’re ready to sharpen your business acumen in 2023, check out the 22 books below.
22. How to Make Work Not Suck: Honest Advice for People with Jobs
By Carina Maggar
In this straight-talking guide to the real world of work, discover genuinely useful advice that will help you find the confidence to go for that promotion, quit your job, break into that industry, nail that pitch, or climb over a creative brick wall. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Carina Maggar, in the Next Big Idea App
21. Build for Tomorrow: An Action Plan for Embracing Change, Adapting Fast, and Future-Proofing Your Career
By Jason Feifer
The moments of greatest change can also be the moments of greatest opportunity. Adapt more quickly and use the power of change to your advantage with this guide from the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine and host of the Build for Tomorrow podcast. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Jason Feifer, in the Next Big Idea App
20. How Big-Tech Barons Smash Innovation―and How to Strike Back
By Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice E. Stucke
Two market experts deconstruct the drivers and inhibitors to innovation in the digital economy, explain how large tech companies can stifle disruption, and outline policy changes to take power away from big tech and return it to entrepreneurs. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by co-authors Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice E. Stucke, in the Next Big Idea App
19. Converted: The Data-Driven Way to Win Customers’ Hearts
By Neil Hoyne
Google’s Chief Measurement Strategist and a Senior Fellow at the Wharton School offers a simple, research-backed playbook that anyone can use to find their best customers and develop relationships that last. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Neil Hoyne, in the Next Big Idea App
18. Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind
By Andy Dunn
Burn Rate is an unconventional entrepreneurial memoir, a parable for the twenty-first-century economy, and a revelatory look at the prevalence of mental illness in the startup community. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Andy Dunn, in the Next Big Idea App
17. Direct: The Rise of the Middleman Economy and the Power of Going to the Source
By Kathryn Judge
A finance expert, law professor, and fellow overwhelmed consumer investigates the surprising ways that middlemen have taken control of the economy at the expense of the rest of us, and provides practical guidance about how to regain control, find more meaning, and contribute to a more sustainable economy. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Kathryn Judge, in the Next Big Idea App
16. Ambitious Like a Mother: Why Prioritizing Your Career Is Good for Your Kids
By Lara Bazelon
In this captivating and radical look at work-life balance, an acclaimed law professor and mother reframes our understanding of working women—and shows how prioritizing your career benefits mothers, kids, and society at large. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Lara Bazelon, in the Next Big Idea App
15. How Creativity Rules the World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas into Gold
By Maria Brito
This timeless guide promises to make the creative process of successful seven-figure artists and billion-dollar entrepreneurs accessible and actionable, to help you to take the power of your ideas to the next level. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Maria Brito, in the Next Big Idea App
14. Moonshot: Inside Pfizer’s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible
By Albert Bourla
A riveting, fast-paced, inside look at one of the most incredible private sector achievements in history, Moonshot recounts the intensive nine months in 2020 when the scientists at Pfizer created, tested, and manufactured a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine that previously would have taken years to develop. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Albert Bourla, in the Next Big Idea App
13. Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley
By Carolyn Chen
We all want our jobs to be meaningful and fulfilling. Work Pray Code reveals what can happen when work becomes religion, and when the workplace becomes the institution that shapes our souls. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Carolyn Chen, in the Next Big Idea App
12. Bully Market: My Story of Money and Misogyny at Goldman Sachs
By Jamie Fiore Higgins
Both a revealing, extraordinary look at the industry and a top Wall Streeter’s explosive personal story, Bully Market is an essential account of one woman’s experience in a flawed system that speaks to the challenge and urgency for change. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Jamie Fiore Higgins, in the Next Big Idea App
11. The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future
By Sebastian Mallaby
From the bestselling author of More Money Than God comes the astonishingly frank and intimate story of Silicon Valley’s dominant venture capital firms—and how their strategies and fates have shaped the path of innovation and the global economy. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Sebastian Mallaby, in the Next Big Idea App
10. Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It’s Different Than You Think)
By Reshma Saujani
The founder of Girls Who Code and bestselling author of Brave, Not Perfect confronts the “big lie” of corporate feminism and presents a bold plan to address the burnout and inequity harming America’s working women today. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Reshma Saujani, in the Next Big Idea App
9. Trustworthy AI: A Business Guide for Navigating Trust and Ethics in AI
By Beena Ammanath
The founder of Humans for AI delivers a straightforward and structured way to think about trust and ethics in AI, and offers practical guidelines for organizations developing or using artificial intelligence solutions. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Beena Ammanath, in the Next Big Idea App
8. Present Future: Business, Science, and the Deep Tech Revolution
By Guy Perelmuter
“Perelmuter draws upon his own experiences as a successful tech entrepreneur and investor, and the writings of dozens of other experts, to highlight the most important implications of multiple emerging technologies.” – Ben Casnocha, investor. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Guy Perelmuter, in the Next Big Idea App
7. Split the Pie: A Radical New Way to Negotiate
By Barry Nalebuff
From a leading Yale expert and serial entrepreneur comes a radical, principled, and field-tested approach that identifies what’s really at stake in any negotiation and ensures you get your half—so you can focus on growing the pie. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Barry Nalebuff, in the Next Big Idea App
6. Leading with Heart: Five Conversations That Unlock Creativity, Purpose, and Results
By John Baird and Edward Sullivan
In this Wall Street Journal bestseller, two veteran executive coaches help today’s leaders learn how to retain and inspire their teams through the one thing their research has found works: leading with heart. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by co-authors John Baird and Edward Sullivan, in the Next Big Idea App
5. Build the Damn Thing: How to Start a Successful Business If You’re Not a Rich White Guy
By Kathryn Finney
For all the Builders striving to build their businesses in a world that has overlooked and underestimated them: this is the essential guide to knowing, breaking, remaking, and building your own rules of entrepreneurship. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Kathryn Finney, in the Next Big Idea App
4. See, Solve, Scale: How Anyone Can Turn an Unsolved Problem into a Breakthrough Success
By Danny Warshay
The Executive Director of Brown University’s Center for Entrepreneurship overturns the common misconception that entrepreneurship is a hard-wired trait or the sole province of high-flying MBAs, and provides a proven method to identify consequential problems and an accessible process anyone can learn, master, and apply to solve them. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Danny Warshay, in the Next Big Idea App
3. Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers
By Chip Heath and Karla Starr
Whether you’re interested in global problems like climate change, running a tech firm or a farm, or just explaining how many Cokes you’d have to drink if you burned calories like a hummingbird, this book will help math-lovers and math-haters alike translate the numbers that animate our world. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by co-author Karla Starr, in the Next Big Idea App
2. The Eye Test: A Case for Human Creativity in the Age of Analytics
By Chris Jones
In a world increasingly ruled by numbers and algorithms, an award-winning journalist makes a compelling case for a more personal approach to analytical thinking. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Chris Jones, in the Next Big Idea App
1. From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life
By Arthur C. Brooks
Drawing on social science, philosophy, biography, theology, and Eastern wisdom, as well as dozens of interviews with everyday men and women, a Harvard professor shows us that true life success is well within our reach. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Arthur C. Brooks, in the Next Big Idea App
The Key Ideas in 15 Minutes
“If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books,” Roald Dahl once famously said. The only trouble is, reading even one book from cover to cover takes hours—and you may not have many hours to spare.
But imagine for a moment: What if you could read a groundbreaking new book every day? Or even better, what if you could invite a world-renowned thinker into your earbuds, where they personally describe the 5 key takeaways from their work in just 15 minutes?
With the Next Big Idea App, we’ve turned this fantasy into a reality. We partnered with hundreds of acclaimed authors to create “Book Bites,” short audio summaries of the latest nonfiction that are prepared and read aloud by the authors themselves. Discover cutting-edge leadership skills, productivity hacks, the science of happiness and well-being, and much more—all in the time it takes to drive to work or walk the dog.
Go Deeper with a Next Big Idea Club Membership
The Next Big Idea App is free for anyone to try—and if you love it, we invite you to become an official member of the Next Big Idea Club. Membership grants you unlimited access to Book Bites and unlocks early-release, ad-free episodes of our LinkedIn-partnered podcast. You also gain entry to our private online discussion group, where you can talk big ideas with fellow club members and join exclusive live Q&A sessions with featured authors.
For a more focused learning experience, we recommend a Hardcover or eBook Membership. Every few months, legendary authors and club curators Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink select two new nonfiction books as the must-reads of the season. We then send hardcover copies straight to your doorstep, or eBook versions to your favorite digital device. We also collaborate with the authors of selected books to produce original reading guides and premium video e-courses, 50-minute master classes that take you step by step through their most life-changing ideas. And yes, it’s all available through the Next Big Idea App.
Learn Faster, from the World’s Leading Thinkers
Whether you prefer to read, listen, or watch, the Next Big Idea is here to help you work smarter and live better. Wake up with an always-fresh Idea of the Day, the perfect shot of inspiration to go with your morning coffee. Then dive into one of our Challenges, hand-picked collections of Book Bites that form crash courses in subjects like communication, motivation, and career acceleration. Later, watch the playback of an interview with U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Stanford psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, or philosopher John Kaag. And be sure to check the “Events” tab in the app, so that you can join an upcoming live Q&A and personally chat with the next featured thought leader.
If you’re hoping to grow as a person or as a professional, we hope you’ll join us and tens of thousands of others who enjoy the Next Big Idea. Get started by downloading the app today!
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