The most recommended innovation books

A lot of speculative fiction involves “basic” technologies like animal domestication, farming, and written language. This well-organized, thoroughly sourced non-fiction book will tell you just how difficult developing all that stuff was on our planet, let alone in whatever fictional universes you may find these technologies in! I will never again take charcoal, or the concept of zero, for granted.

Aside from the book’s valuable content, its language is simple. The author integrates the facts into the fiction that our time machine has broken down, stranding us in a previous era where we are a long, arduous journey away from ever eating microwaved ramen again. North also points out, at every opportunity, all the ridiculousness and hilarity involved in invention, civilization, and attempting to do everything by ourselves. Please, read the footnotes in this one.

While all the books listed earlier provide detailed, in-depth, case studies of public-private sector cooperation in developing selected new technologies, the last two chapters of this book provide necessarily brief coverages of the myriad ways in which this cooperation had been successfully manifested beyond encouraging specific technologies.

Although the book’s main purpose is to show how a series of important technologies have transformed economic, social, and political life over the millennia, the last two chapters show how knowledge of these transformations sheds light on the wider use of public policy to achieve economic goals.

While many public initiatives have succeeded, others have failed. The authors isolate the reasons for these successes and failures and offer their template for designing and administering policies that are more likely to succeed than fail.

Written by the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, this book is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand how the technological revolution will change our lives. It begins to unravel the seemingly irreconcilable differences between our insatiable appetite for convenience and consumption with equity and sustainability. 

This is the follow up to The Art of Innovation which describes the strategies of the world-famous design firm, IDEO, which has dissected the process of innovation and, in this book, identified the types of “personas” a CEO should attract in order to tackle big, difficult problems with novel, creative approaches.  I could definitely relate to the first persona described, The Anthropologist, who spends an inordinate amount of time with the clients, listening and observing, in order to understand what they really desire and what has prevented them thus far from achieving or obtaining it.  I also found The Cross-Pollinator interesting, which argued that you should sometimes involve people from other sectors or countries which may at first glance seem irrelevant to the job at hand but, if given the chance to be “heard”, could lead to a solution.  The author makes the case for another eight personas, who may… show more.

The stereotype of the tech entrepreneur in films like The Social Network is of a solitary genius or a group of insurgent hackers tinkering away in a basement, garage, or dorm room.

But Gertner’s lively and fascinating account of the glory days of Bell Labs tells us that large institutions are capable of great feats of innovation, so long as smart people are allowed to collaborate freely, regardless of race, gender, or creed, and apply their talents to real products and solutions.

This should be inspiring reading to any CEO who fears technology will disintermediate her company. Incumbents can be leaders.

Every company wants to innovate, but it's not always clear how to do that in practice. Competing Against Luck highlights the importance of understanding what "jobs" your customer "hires" your product to do. The ‘Jobs to be Done Theory’ is one of the best frameworks I have seen to drive toward innovation and product-market fit. In the CRO world, we typically think about optimizing experience, but optimizing the product-market fit is equally as important.

A thought-provoking book about ammonia, a molecule made easily in nature but with great difficulty by humans.

Fritz Haber was the chemist who found a way to make ammonia artificially, but he was a complicated and controversial figure. The industrial production of ammonia has fed billions through its use in fertiliser, and killed millions through its use for making explosives.

A great book, fun to read – I felt like I’m being taken on an exciting guided tour of the Silicon Valley.

The book was eye-opening to me in terms of the endless possibilities offered by modern-day digital technologies. Before reading it, in my research on economic growth theory I was largely under the spell of Robert Solow’s famous one-liner “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” Having read it, I marked that view as obsolete. 

However, a comment must be made that this book came out in 2014 so that it could not anticipate the scale of the recent AI revolution, represented by large language models such as GPT-4. As it turned out, the potential of “brilliant technologies” was even larger!

The discourse on modern India is often about achievements in science and technology, R&D in national laboratories, and industry. However, in a country of one billion plus people, innovation is happening not just in formal sectors. Ordinary people – farmers, teachers, students, artisans, school dropouts, homemakers – are constantly innovating to solve everyday problems using frugal means. The book is an account of spotting grassroots innovations, nurturing them, and building networks with formal systems and markets. It is critical to understand this process for a deeper appreciation of contemporary India. 

This major textbook written for students with some basic knowledge of economics, written by one of the best expositors in the field, provides a comprehensive yet very accessible introduction to the economics of innovation and as such represents an excellent place to start.

I have known Peter for a number of years and he always offers in his writings (and lectures) both valuable insights into his subject and a sense of excitement.

A single read of this book saved me hours in the years that followed. Newport looks critically at how we bring technology into our lives and suggests that we hold a higher bar to which digital tools we allow into our days.

This book got me rethinking my balance of deep work (what only I can do, when at my best) and shallow work (needing less focus/expertise) and how my digital tools support or disrupt that balance.

It’s a startling question, especially for companies that focus on their own success instead of the success of their customers. But if you’re out to build a lasting brand, it’s the right question to ask. Schrage shows why the goal of innovation should not be to invent a great product but to create a great customer.

So where are you going to invest and develop? Antoine Von Agtmael offers a very interesting analysis, in this regard. He points to the advantages of investing in certain kinds of smaller cities, including those with good community colleges, ample affordable housing, a welcoming political environment, and no shortage of abandoned factory buildings that can be easily converted for high-tech uses. This isn’t the only great contemporary context for investment, of course, but it’s a good one to study and understand.

This is the first volume of a two-volume, tour de force, which jointly offers 29 specially written papers by major contributors to the field that broadly explore the genesis of technological change and the ways it is commercialized and diffused.

It is an invaluable source of literature surveys of the many different areas covered within the definition of the economics of innovation and also provides predictions of fruitful research directions.

Having myself edited a Handbook some years earlier I know both the time and effort involved but also the extent of knowledge dissemination that a book such as this can provide.

Tan Le is a good friend and kickass tech entrepreneur who founded the neurotech company Emotiv.

She talks with the top neuroscientists and technologists in the area of brain-computer interfaces. But what makes it relatable is how Tan weaves in her own story. Tan is a Vietnamese-born Australian and talks about her own journey creating and developing an EEG headset and growing a tech company. 

I recommend this book because I absolutely believe that technology can improve our brain and brain-computer interfaces are our future!

Gates provides a straightforward, numbers-based account of the scope of climate change, breaks down current carbon emissions by sectors of our society and economy, and dissects the technologies we need to employ and invent to cut global carbon emissions to zero and halt global warming.

This is a must-read, especially for those curious and hopeful about practical solutions to climate change. As a science fiction author, I was inspired by this book’s detailed descriptions of technologies that will likely shape our future.

Although Peter Drucker is best remembered as a management guru, he also produced some seminal work on the topic of entrepreneurship, of which Innovation and Entrepreneurship is the most comprehensive. The book explores the close relationship between creative problem-solving (or “innovation”) and successful/socially impactful entrepreneurship. In his lively prose, the fondly remembered business writer provides a rigorous review of the opportunities for entrepreneurship. 

For example, he discusses how “changes in perception” such as changes in how women see themselves in modern society, create opportunities for savvy entrepreneurs. Dr. Drucker also provides excellent insights regarding different forms of entrepreneurship. Perhaps most relevantly, he also explains the ways in which entrepreneurship impacts society and, in his view, makes the United States and some other developed countries more economically resilient. 

This is an important book that attacks head-on the mythology in American culture about the inherent superiority of the private sector over the public sector. 

It documents the many public sector investments, inventions, and innovations that created many of the things that we all use in our daily lives. It shows how, despite decades-long attacks on government, we actually can point to a unique and valuable role that government action has played, and continues to play, in meeting public needs. 

Mazzucato is one of the most important thinkers on this subject and has written a number of books that I’d also recommend if this was a longer list. 

Isaacson’s balanced and compelling portrait of one of the richest people on earth reveals a man on a self-described quest to save human consciousness from annihilation.

His corporate ventures, from Tesla to SpaceX to OpenAI, are all infused with this monomaniacal design, and Isaacson convincingly depicts Musk’s engineering brilliance as key to the success of each of them (though the jury is still out on Twitter, an impulse purchase for which he seems to have serious buyer’s remorse).

At the same time, self-anointed messiahs seldom make good managers, friends, or spouses, and Musk leaves a broad swath of emotional destruction on his journey to the stars. Wildly combining traits of Thomas Edison, Citizen Kane, and Dr. Manhattan, Isaacson’s portrayal of Elon Musk is insightful and absolutely gripping.

If you're interested in learning about the impact of technology on our future, The Future Is Faster Than You Think is a must-read.

In this book, the author explores how converging technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and biotechnology are transforming business, industries, and our lives. 

Diamandis provides examples of how these technologies are already changing our world, and shares his insights into what the future may hold. By reading this book, you can expect to gain a deeper understanding of the potential benefits and challenges that will arise as technology continues to advance at an exponential pace.