Here are 93 books that Hard Drive fans have personally recommended if you like
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My writing career has been organized around the old-school journalistic mission to ‘afflict the comforted and comfort the afflicted.’ Often, I take on big targets that other journalists have missed—a case in point being Bill Gates. News outlets have published thousands of one-sided stories about Gates’s philanthropic goals and gifts but seldom interrogate the Gates Foundation for what it is: an unaccountable, undemocratic structure of power. My investigation of Bill Gates, of course, stands on the shoulders of giants. The five books I recommend here paved the way for me to break new ground, expand the story, and hopefully spark a bigger public debate.
The first book written about the Gates Foundation brilliantly unpacks the foundation’s serial, wrong-headed interventions in public education. Written by school teacher Anthony Cody in clear language with compelling argumentation, the book gives voice to the Gates Foundation’s intended beneficiaries: the teachers who say that Bill Gates’s charitable crusade is hurting, not helping, American schools.
Can a teacher challenge the wealthiest man in the world? This is the question Garn Press asked in 2014 when Anthony Cody’s The Educator And The Oligarch was first published. The answer is a resounding “Yes!”
Anthony Cody not only challenged Bill Gates, but also received the 2015 NCTE George Orwell Award, which recognizes writers who have made outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse, and the 2015 eLIT Silver Medal Award in the education/ academic/ teaching category.
In recognition of the importance of Anthony’s steadfast resistance to Gates’ unacceptable manipulation of public education policies, Garn Press just…
My writing career has been organized around the old-school journalistic mission to ‘afflict the comforted and comfort the afflicted.’ Often, I take on big targets that other journalists have missed—a case in point being Bill Gates. News outlets have published thousands of one-sided stories about Gates’s philanthropic goals and gifts but seldom interrogate the Gates Foundation for what it is: an unaccountable, undemocratic structure of power. My investigation of Bill Gates, of course, stands on the shoulders of giants. The five books I recommend here paved the way for me to break new ground, expand the story, and hopefully spark a bigger public debate.
Sociologist Linsey McGoey’s sharp critique of ‘philanthrocapitalism’ raises pointed questions about the Gates Foundation’s close work with the private sector, including its charitable practice of donating money to for-profit companies. Is this kind of philanthropic giving actually driving social change? Or, the really big question—is the foundation doing more harm than good?
By asking readers to consider the evidence that it might be, McGoey helped galvanize and expand a public debate about our philanthropist in chief—one that continues today.
The charitable sector is one of the fastest-growing industries in the global economy. Nearly half of the more than 85,000 private foundations in the United States have come into being since the year 2000. Just under 5,000 more were established in 2011 alone. This deluge of philanthropy has helped create a world where billionaires wield more power over education policy, global agriculture, and global health than ever before.
In No Such Thing as a Free Gift, author and academic Linsey McGoey puts this new golden age of philanthropy under the microscope-paying particular attention to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.…
My writing career has been organized around the old-school journalistic mission to ‘afflict the comforted and comfort the afflicted.’ Often, I take on big targets that other journalists have missed—a case in point being Bill Gates. News outlets have published thousands of one-sided stories about Gates’s philanthropic goals and gifts but seldom interrogate the Gates Foundation for what it is: an unaccountable, undemocratic structure of power. My investigation of Bill Gates, of course, stands on the shoulders of giants. The five books I recommend here paved the way for me to break new ground, expand the story, and hopefully spark a bigger public debate.
Danish scholar Adam Fejerskov spent months in Seattle doing field research, trying to get behind the impenetrable and secretive PR fortress the Gates Foundation has built to guard its humanitarian image. Calling the foundation a “chameleon,’ Fejerskov explores how the foundation publicly presents itself as an innocent philanthropy while actually operating, at turns, like a private company or a political actor.
The book will leave readers troubled by the foundation's enormous power in global affairs and questioning why this power is so unregulated.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has established itself as one of the most powerful private forces in global politics, shaping the trajectories of international policy-making. Driven by fierce confidence and immense expectations about its ability to change the world through its normative and material power, the foundation advances an agenda of social and economic change through technological innovation. And it does so while forming part of a movement that refocuses efforts towards private influence on, and delivery of, societal progress.
The Gates Foundation's Rise to Power is an urgent exploration of one of the world's most influential but also…
My writing career has been organized around the old-school journalistic mission to ‘afflict the comforted and comfort the afflicted.’ Often, I take on big targets that other journalists have missed—a case in point being Bill Gates. News outlets have published thousands of one-sided stories about Gates’s philanthropic goals and gifts but seldom interrogate the Gates Foundation for what it is: an unaccountable, undemocratic structure of power. My investigation of Bill Gates, of course, stands on the shoulders of giants. The five books I recommend here paved the way for me to break new ground, expand the story, and hopefully spark a bigger public debate.
For Bill Gates, there is no bigger philanthropic goal than eradicating polio, the focus of historian William Muraskin’s book. The author puts a critical lens on the polio eradication campaign not because he is a critic of vaccines but because he’s a critic of colonialism. Why do powerful Western actors—like Bill Gates—get to decide the public health priorities of poor nations?
And who, really, is the primary beneficiary of the Gates Foundation? The answer I came up with when writing my book is Bill Gates. Between the political influence, public applause, reputational enhancements, and tax benefits, Gates himself is the single biggest beneficiary of the foundation.
There are many infectious diseases which kill millions of children every year the world over, but polio is not one of them. So why did the World Health Assembly in 1988 choose the eradication of polio as a global goal? This is the key question that William Muraskin asks and it inexorably leads to the unravelling of the official heroic story of the fight against polio. The author finds that the public health agenda of every single nation of the world was effectively hijacked by a small group of people working at the global level. They were out to show…
I am the recognized expert on work-life balance, harmony, and integrative issues, and since 2009, hold the registered trademark from the USPTO as the “Work-Life Balance Expert®." My books have been featured in 68 of the top 75 American newspapers and, in two instances, advertised in Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. In all, 16 of my books are published in Chinese, among them Simpler Living, appearing as a 3-volume set, Everyday Project Management, The 60 Second Innovator, The 60 Second Organizer, The 60 Second Self-Starter, Ten Minute Guide to Time Management, and Ten Minute Guide to Project Management. I also have 13 books published in Arabic.
It is easier to say what the ‘new, new thing’ is not than to say what it is. It is not necessarily a new invention. It is not necessarily a new idea – most everything has been considered by someone, at some point. The author explains that the new, new thing is a notion, poised to be taken seriously in the marketplace. It is an item that is a tiny push away from general acceptance and when it gets that push, will change the world.
In 1921, Thorsted Veblen predicted that engineers would one day rule the U.S. economy. He argued that the economy was premised on technology and that engineers (in today’s terms, ‘computer science majors’) were the only ones who understood how technology worked. So, inevitably they would use their superior knowledge to seize power from the financiers, captains of industry, and other business elites.
In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis set out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur. He found this in Jim Clark, a man whose achievements include the founding of three separate billion-dollar companies. Lewis also found much more, and the result-the best-selling book The New New Thing-is an ingeniously conceived history of the Internet revolution.
I'm an executive coach, adjunct faculty at several top-tier business schools, and run a boutique firm consulting firm focused on organizational strategy solutions. My diverse and eclectic background in mergers & acquisitions, organization effectiveness, and strategy execution, coupled with two decades of experience in emerging markets in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa, helps me grasp challenging people issues. I'm passionate about the topic of leaders as coaches having written several papers and columns. My research, and writing led Penguin to commission my book Coaching: The Secret Code to Uncommon Leadership that, released globally in late 2021 to much acclaim, is recommended by several academics as an essential read for aspiring and experienced managers.
Hit Refresh is such a fascinating tale – its Satya Nadella’s life story – his childhood in India, immigrating to the U.S. and the life lessons learned to lead along the way.
He succinctly and candidly tells the inside story of how a company rediscovered its soul and transformed itself.
My favorite part is how Nadella describes his role at the helm of Microsoft: The C in CEO for Nadella stood for culture. He liked to believe the CEO is the curator of an organization’s culture.
"Anything is possible for a company when its culture is about listening, learning, and harnessing individual passions and talents to the company’s mission. Creating that kind of culture is my chief job as CEO. The culture change I wanted was centred on delivering a growth mindset, to be customer-obsessed, diverse, and inclusive, and working as One Microsoft to get us there."
"At the core, Hit Refresh, is about us humans and the unique quality we call empathy, which will become ever more valuable in a world where the torrent of technology will disrupt the status quo like never before." - Satya Nadella from Hit Refresh
"Satya has charted a course for making the most of the opportunities created by technology while also facing up to the hard questions." - Bill Gates from the Foreword of Hit Refresh
The New York Times bestseller Hit Refresh is about individual change, about the transformation happening inside of Microsoft and the technology that will soon…
My curiosity and enthusiasm for computers and what they can do has not faded since I first encountered them in grade school (with the Commodore VIC-20). At this stage in my life, I’m thrilled that I can still get paid to play with them and make them do things. The computer industry is both my daily grind and my playground. You can come at this field casually, or intensely, but as long as you can interact with the computer, the computer will welcome you. The five books in this list paint the possibilities of work in this challenging but rewarding industry: failure, success, immortality, and everything in between. Enjoy!
Dan Lyons’ book is the “fish out of water” trope applied to high-tech. Working in high-tech usually means buying into the grandiose vision of transformation that the company’s technology will produce. In industry parlance: you will be drinking a certain amount of Kool-Aid. Dan doesn’t do this. Instead, he applies a certain skepticism to the work his bosses have asked him to do.
It takes a bit of time to develop cynicism and skepticism in high-tech. By its nature, tech companies are optimistic. When you’re fresh out of school, a high-tech company’s vision and working style seem completely natural. But this isn’t Dan’s first job, and he maintains a near-constant level of incredulity at all the high-tech traditions that he sees around him. This is an intense delight to read.
An instant New York Times bestseller, Dan Lyons' "hysterical" (Recode) memoir, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "the best book about Silicon Valley," takes readers inside the maddening world of fad-chasing venture capitalists, sales bros, social climbers, and sociopaths at today's tech startups.
For twenty-five years Dan Lyons was a magazine writer at the top of his profession--until one Friday morning when he received a phone call: Poof. His job no longer existed. "I think they just want to hire younger people," his boss at Newsweek told him. Fifty years old and with a wife and two young kids,…
Things may have gotten better for women compared to our mothers’ and grandmothers’ generations, but that is not to say that it’s easy to navigate work and life, the weight of others’ expectations, and the expectations we place on ourselves. Women of color have a particular set of challenges that others often can’t even see. I have been lucky: I have found wonderful guides and sources of inspiration, and I have been able to pass along what I have learned. Nobody should have to navigate these challenging waters on their own. We need buddies, confidantes, truth-tellers, and sources of inspiration.
The moment I started reading this book, I thought, “YES! EXACTLY!” Alicia Menendez has done a really compelling job of showing how and why women are under so much pressure to be amiable and likable, especially on the job, and how these expectations can make it hard to move forward.
This book reminded me that we don’t have to be limited to “strong and cold” or “weak and warm.” We can succeed by being ourselves.
Be nice, but not too nice. Be successful, but not too successful. Just be likeable. Whatever that means?
Women are stuck in an impossible bind. At work, strong women are criticized for being cold, and warm women are seen as pushovers. An award-winning journalist examines this fundamental paradox and empowers readers to let go of old rules and reimagine leadership rather than reinventing themselves.
Consider that even competent women must appear likeable to successfully negotiate a salary, ask for a promotion, or take credit for a job well done-and that studies show these actions usually make them less likeable. And…
As I moved up in leadership, I found I was not prepared to manage people during uncertain and difficult times. Transitions bring about the worst in people. They get fearful and that causes bad behavior by triggering defense mechanisms. The books I listed are a progression of books that helped me to understand how transitions and change affect people and gave me a framework to continue to learn and increase my leadership skills. I then decided to write about new insights I gained in leadership to help others and have published two books and am writing articles on Medium.
Nigel Travis, chairman of Dunkin’ Brands, discusses why the most effective leaders have people around them with a diversity of thoughts, opinions, and approaches. Travis believes the best way for organizations to succeed in today’s environment is to embrace challenges and encourage pushback. He maintains that everyone in an organization must be able to question the status quo, to talk in a civil way about difficult issues, and to debate strategies and tactics without fear of reprisal.
I love the practice of what he calls “coffee chats,” to open his thought aperture. The attendees were able to ask him any questions within the bounds of civility. As he said, “The purpose of the coffee chat is to provide an open and safe forum for people to ask questions, share information, articulate ideas, express opinions, and surface disagreements.”
'The Challenge Culture is a must-read for employers and employees alike, and promises to get ideas for long-term success percolating.' - Robert Kraft, chairman and CEO of the Kraft Group
'Nigel's career, vision and humanity are very refreshing' - Claude Littner, former Chief Executive of Tottenham Hotspur and author of Single-Minded: My Life in Business
Challenge is essential for survival and sustained success in today's volatile world.
We live in an era when successful organisations can fail in a flash. But they can cope with change and thrive by creating a culture that supports positive pushback: questioning everything without disrespecting…
I have always been fascinated by women’s power in the workplace. My mother was intensely focused on breaking ground as a working mother of four small children on Capitol Hill in the 1960s. She was the first woman to be granted part-time status in Senator Ted Kennedy’s office. She worked her way up to speechwriter for Joan and personal correspondent for the Senator. And she kept a fierce border between work and home. And we were intensely proud of her. At a time when our friends’ mothers were mostly homemakers, our Mom had a cool job and kept a cool head among the political and intellectual elite – most of whom were men.
This should be required reading for girls and women at any stage of their careers. Joann Lubin is the real deal. As management news editor and career advice columnist at the Wall Street Journal, Lubin brings the data with a personal point of view. I appreciate that she interviewed women executives for their hard-won insights and advice, and that she quotes men who are making meaningful change. This book is well written and made me more hopeful about women’s advancement!
More than fifty trailblazing executive women who broke the corporate glass ceiling offer inspiring and surprising insights and lessons in this essential, in-the-trenches career guide from Joann S. Lublin, a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and management news editor for The Wall Street Journal. Among the first female reporters at The Wall Street Journal, Joann S. Lublin faced a number of uphill battles in her career. She became deputy bureau chief of the Journal's important London bureau, its first run by women. Now, she and dozens of other women who successfully navigated the corporate battlefield share their valuable leadership lessons. Lublin combines…
