7 Must-Read Business Books For 2024

Year after year, people who aspire to be more and achieve more make a good-faith effort to jumpstart a reading habit, and for good reason! The world’s most admired leaders also happen to be diligent readers. Warren Buffet, for instance, reads no less than 500 pages a day, and Bill Gates makes it a point to read 50 books a year.

But to make the most out of your book-reading habit, it’s not only about how much you read but also what you read. After interviewing 1,200 of the world’s wealthiest people, Steve Siebold, himself a self-made millionaire, found a few common threads. One of which is this: successful people self-educate by reading.

So, if you are looking to add titles to your reading list that educate and entertain, consider these seven must-read business books!

1. Inside Outsourcing: How Remote Work, Offshoring & Global Employment is Changing the World by Derek Gallimore

As the founder of Outsource Accelerator — the world’s leading outsourcing marketplace, Derek Gallimore is the foremost resource for the offshore outsourcing industry. In his seminal book Inside Outsourcing, Galimore takes readers through the evolution of outsourcing, the myths, the upsides, and the challenges of offshore outsourcing, as well as the vast potential of having access to a global workforce and what that means for your business.

He also addresses criticisms about the billion-dollar global outsourcing industry and generously shares insights and expert advice on successful outsourcing and management of offshore teams.

2. Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World by Daniel Gross and Tyler Cowen

An organisation’s success hinges on having and managing well the right talent. This book shows the reader how to identify brilliant, if underrated, talents at the highest level, those rare people with the right combination of creativity, drive, competence, and social smarts to fit in and better the company. Part science and psychology, leadership and management, and self-help, Talent is not just for human resource professionals looking and screening for people but also those looking to be noticed by high-powered recruiters.

“Most of us have a bias toward well-spoken and articulate storytellers. But make sure you keep an awareness of this at the front of your mind, for it can cause you to hire glib but unsubstantial people and overlook rare creative talent. Do not overestimate the importance of the person’s articulateness.”

3. The Unicorn Within: How Companies Can Create Game-Changing Ventures at Startup Speed by Linda K. Yates

How can established companies compete with the shiny new unicorn or that rare startup that achieves the vaunted billion-dollar valuation when developing disruptive technology? How can larger corporations and established businesses work the “mothership advantage”, and how can they overcome the inertia and orthodoxies that hold them back? This book brings a customer-driven and replicable methodology that will show you how.

4. Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb

How do technology leaders, product designers, and other relevant professionals make the most of Artificial Intelligence? The opportunities and applications for AI are dizzying in their scope and complexity. This book is an optimistic, forward-looking, and insightful exploration of an exciting new frontier that we’ve barely scratched the surface of.

“The point here is that a value-enhancing approach to AI, rather than a cost-savings approach, is more likely to find real traction for AI adoption.”

5. Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies by Ranjay Gulati

What is an example of a purpose-driven company? What is the difference between an organisation’s “convenient purpose” and its “deep purpose”? What is required to achieve the latter? This book tackles how to achieve deep purpose with real-world examples and how it is connected to long-term performance.

6. The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists by Richard P. Rumelt

Leaders are not necessarily strategists. Strategists have a finely honed instinct for identifying potential problems, prioritising how to address those problems, and executing killer strategies. Among the examples in the book is Netflix. Faced with insurmountable competition from new streaming platforms with larger content repositories and knowing they would be unable to license any of them, Netflix boldly pivoted into content creation that leveraged their hard-won international networks. The results: global hits from Korea (Squid Game), Spain (Money Heist), and Germany (Dark). They found their crux. This book will walk you through how you can find yours.

“The art of strategy is in defining a crux that can be mastered and in seeing or designing a way through it.”

7. The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything by Matthew Ball

Who hasn’t heard of the term “metaverse”? But who can explain what it is?

In his book, Matthew Ball, a pioneering theorist and venture capitalist, explains it as an interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds that will eventually serve as the gateway to most online experiences. Once the stuff of science fiction, the metaverse is poised to revolutionise every industry and the very way we live and work. The internet will surround us, with much of our lives, labour, and leisure taking place inside this metaverse. Bringing clarity and authority to a frequently misunderstood concept, Ball predicts trillions in revenue and the radical reshaping of society.

“While technological progress typically occurs out of common sight, science fiction often provides the general public with the clearest view of the future.”

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