The Books that Warren Buffett and Bill Gates Want You to Read in 2025

Two of the world's wealthiest minds—worth a combined $230 billion—just handed you their reading lists. And before you roll your eyes at another billionaire book club, consider this: Bill Gates credits one Nicholas Kristof article with launching the Gates Foundation. Warren Buffett has followed Benjamin Graham's Security Analysis for 57 years and counting. These aren't vanity picks. They're breadcrumbs from people who read to win.

Gates' 2025 selections lean hard into memoir—five transformative life stories for summer, plus four "make sense of the world" titles for the holidays. His picks reveal a man grappling with legacy, inspired enough by what he read to write his own memoir, Source Code, at 69. Buffett, meanwhile, serves up his perennial classics alongside fresh perspectives on technology and cognitive bias. One favors narrative; the other favors frameworks. Together, they offer a masterclass in learning: combine someone else's lived truth with timeless principles, then act.

This isn't about reading more. It's about reading better. It's about recognizing that the gap between where you are and where you want to be might be closed by a $20 book and the willingness to let it change you. We all resist transformation. We all think we're too busy. These books exist to dismantle those delusions—gently, but firmly. Here's what two men who turned reading into billions want you to know before 2026 arrives.

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Gates Goes Personal: Why the Richest Tech Founder Wants You to Read Memoirs

Bill Gates spent 2025 obsessed with other people's stories.

Not business case studies. Not tech manifestos. Memoirs. Five of them dominated his summer list, each one a testament to the transformative power of someone else's truth. This matters because Gates doesn't do things halfway. When he commits to a reading theme, it's because something clicked—hard.

1. Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life by Nicholas Kristof

Nicholas Kristof's memoir isn't just on Gates' list. It is the list.

In 1997, Gates read a Kristof column in The New York Times about children dying from preventable diseases in developing countries. The article described in devastating detail how simple interventions—vaccines, clean water, basic antibiotics—could save millions of lives. Most readers felt sad for a moment, then turned the page. Gates faxed it to his father with six words: "Maybe we can do something about this." That moment birthed the Gates Foundation—an organization that has since deployed over $70 billion in global health and development.

Chasing Hope expands on that journalism, chronicling Kristof's decades of bearing witness to suffering across war zones, refugee camps, and forgotten corners of the world. But this isn't disaster tourism. Kristof writes about the people who refuse to accept injustice as inevitable—the doctors operating by candlelight, the mothers walking miles for clean water, the activists who won't shut up until someone listens. The memoir grapples with a brutal question: How do you maintain hope when you've seen humanity at its worst?

Gates loves this book because it demonstrates what vulnerability looks like at scale: showing up to pain, documenting it without flinching, and trusting that someone will care enough to act. Kristof didn't save those children himself. He made you see them. That's a different kind of power—and one Gates has spent billions trying to amplify. The book proves that one person with a pen and the courage to tell the truth can set foundations in motion. Literally.

We all think we need certainty before we move. Kristof's work proves otherwise. You need exposure. Proximity. A willingness to be disturbed. Then you need to do something about it.

2. Personal History by Katharine Graham

Katharine Graham didn't want to run The Washington Post. She inherited the paper in 1963 after her husband's suicide, terrified, unprepared, and convinced she'd destroy her family's legacy within months.

Then she proceeded to become one of the most consequential publishers in American history. Under her leadership, the Post published the Pentagon Papers—classified documents exposing government lies about the Vietnam War—knowing the Nixon administration would retaliate.

When White House officials threatened her broadcast licenses and tried to intimidate her into silence, she published anyway. Then came Watergate, the investigation that brought down a president. Nixon personally targeted Graham, calling her terrible things, weaponizing the full power of his office to make her pay. She stood firm.

Her Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir chronicles this transformation with searing honesty. Graham writes about her crippling self-doubt, her terror of public speaking, her struggle to be taken seriously in a male-dominated industry. She doesn't present herself as fearless. She shows you someone who was terrified—and showed up anyway. The book captures the internal dialogue of someone learning to trust her own judgment when everyone else is telling her she's wrong.

Gates, who befriended Graham in 1991, calls Personal History "a good reminder that great leaders can come from unexpected places." Translation: stop waiting to feel ready. Graham wasn't ready. She learned brutally and publicly, made mistakes, second-guessed herself constantly—and still changed journalism forever. Her memoir doesn't sugarcoat the fear. It just proves fear isn't disqualifying.

You think you're not qualified? Neither was she. The difference is she moved. The book will make you question what you're capable of if you stopped demanding certainty before you started.

3. Educated by Tara Westover

Tara Westover grew up in rural Idaho in a family so isolated from mainstream society that she didn't have a birth certificate. Her father, deep in fundamentalist paranoia, didn't believe in hospitals or public schools. He stockpiled food for the End Times and put his children to work in his junkyard, where Westover witnessed horrific accidents that should have killed people—and might have, if they'd been allowed proper medical care.

She had never set foot in a classroom. Didn't know about the Holocaust. Couldn't do basic math. At seventeen, she taught herself enough to get into Brigham Young University. From there, she won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship and earned a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. The ascent should feel triumphant. It doesn't. Because education didn't just give Westover knowledge—it gave her the tools to question everything she'd been told about who she was and what she deserved.

Educated is about the violence of transformation. Westover didn't just learn trigonometry and European history. She learned that her family's version of reality was one option, not the only truth. That realization fractured relationships that couldn't survive her evolution. She lost her family to gain herself. The book forces you to sit with that trade-off—not to judge it, but to understand that real growth always costs something.

Gates champions this memoir for its raw examination of self-invention. The thesis: education isn't just information. It's permission to reimagine yourself. It's the courage to say, "What I was taught might be wrong. What I believed might be limiting me. I can become someone different."

We love the idea of transformation. We resist the cost. Westover's story forces you to confront what you'd sacrifice for growth. What are you willing to lose to become who you could be? The book won't let you answer lightly.

4. Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Trevor Noah's very existence was illegal. Born in 1984 to a Black Xhosa mother and a white Swiss-German father during apartheid, he was living proof of a crime his parents committed. His mother could be jailed for having him. He couldn't be seen in public with both parents. The government literally classified children like him as evidence.

Born a Crime chronicles growing up under a system designed to erase people like him, and the brilliant, fierce woman who refused to let her son be erased. Noah's mother was a rule-breaker who taught him to think for himself, question authority, and use humor as both shield and weapon. She drove him to three different churches every Sunday—Catholic, Protestant, and Pentecostal—because she wanted him to think about faith, not just inherit it. She learned to type so she could get an office job that would let her escape domestic servitude. She defied her own family, the government, and eventually an abusive husband to give Noah a chance at a different life.

The book shouldn't be funny. It documents poverty, violence, systemic oppression, and personal trauma. But Noah weaponizes humor against horror. He doesn't minimize the evil of apartheid—he refuses to let it have the last word. There's profound wisdom in that approach: you can acknowledge the weight of injustice and still find lightness. You can tell the truth and still laugh.

Gates appreciates this tonal balance. The memoir demonstrates that resilience Resilience: Building Strength Through Life’s Challengesisn't grim determination. Sometimes it's deciding your oppressor doesn't get to define your emotional range.

Noah survived by being adaptable—learning multiple languages, navigating different racial and cultural spaces, using comedy to defuse violence. His mother survived by being ungovernable.

The book proves that the system doesn't have to win. Even when it's rigged against you, you can find angles, exploit contradictions, and carve out space to be fully human. That's not inspiration-porn positivity. That's strategy born from necessity—and it's worth studying.

5. Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono

Bono writing a memoir about activism shouldn't work. A rock star lecturing world leaders about African debt relief? Absurd. An ego that large trying to end poverty? Please.

Yet Surrender succeeds because Bono knows exactly how ridiculous he is—and does it anyway. The U2 frontman structures his memoir around 40 songs, each one a window into his evolution from Dublin street kid to global megastar to unlikely policy advocate. He writes with disarming self-awareness about leveraging celebrity for impact, cringing at his own pretensions while refusing to abandon the mission.

Gates—whose foundation partners with Bono's ONE campaign—loved the book for its clever, self-deprecating honesty. Bono doesn't transform into a serious policy wonk. He stays himself: theatrical, earnest, occasionally insufferable, deeply committed. He buttonholes presidents at state dinners. He flies to remote African villages with economists. He wears ridiculous sunglasses while discussing debt restructuring. The contradiction is the point.

The memoir explores decades of campaigning for debt relief and HIV treatment in Africa, showing the unglamorous work behind the headlines—the failed meetings, the political calculations, the moral compromises required to move powerful people toward action. Bono reveals the cost of staying weird in serious spaces: people dismiss you, question your motives, reduce you to celebrity stunt. He also reveals the advantage: access, attention, resources that wouldn't exist otherwise.

Gates admires that Bono stayed authentic while tackling global problems. He didn't become someone else to do important work. He brought his gifts—music, charisma, shamelessness—and leveraged them.

The permission here is profound: you don't have to transform into someone serious to do serious work. Bring your weird. Bring your voice. The world needs solutions, not conformity. If a rock star in designer sunglasses can help restructure African debt, you can contribute your own strange talents to problems that matter.

Buffett's Blueprint: Investment Wisdom That Transcends Markets

Warren Buffett reads to avoid mistakes—his own and everyone else's.

His 2025 recommendations span 90 years of publishing, from Graham's 1934 Security Analysis to Walter Isaacson's recent The Innovators. This isn't nostalgia. It's pattern recognition. Buffett knows that human nature doesn't upgrade. Markets cycle. Technology evolves. But fear, greed, and cognitive bias? Those are permanent.

6. The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson's The Innovators claims the top spot in Buffett's 2025 list—and that's notable.

Buffett famously avoided tech stocks for decades, admitting he didn't understand them. He missed the dot-com boom (and bust). He didn't invest in Apple until 2016. For someone who built a fortune on knowing what he knows and avoiding what he doesn't, technology remained a deliberate blind spot. Until it couldn't.

The Innovators traces the digital revolution from Ada Lovelace's 1840s algorithms through Alan Turing's code-breaking machines to Steve Jobs' reality distortion field. Isaacson argues that innovation happens at intersections—when artists collaborate with engineers, when hardware meets software, when individual brilliance submits to team dynamics. The book profiles dozens of figures you've heard of (Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg) and dozens you haven't (Grace Hopper, Robert Noyce, Larry Roberts), showing how each built on what came before.

Buffett's endorsement signals something important: even at 95, he's still learning into his blind spots. Pride would say, "I made billions without tech knowledge—why start now?" Wisdom says, "The world changed. So will I." Technology now shapes every industry, including the ones Buffett owns—insurance, energy, transportation, retail. Understanding the forces remaking society isn't optional anymore.

The meta-lesson transcends tech: your expertise is both your asset and your prison. You built success by knowing something deeply. That same knowledge can blind you to what's changing. Buffett is modeling intellectual humility—the willingness to admit gaps and fill them, even when you're already wildly successful.

What are you refusing to learn because you've gotten this far without it? That question has an expiration date.

7. The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly systematically dismantles 99 cognitive errors that sabotage your decision-making—and you commit most of them daily without noticing.

Confirmation bias: seeking information that validates what you already believe. Sunk cost fallacy: continuing bad investments because you've already invested so much. The halo effect: assuming someone good at one thing is good at everything. Social proof: doing what everyone else does because everyone else is doing it. Survivorship bias: studying winners without accounting for all the losers who tried the same strategy.

The book reads like an autopsy of human rationality. Each chapter dissects a different cognitive trap with examples from business, psychology, and everyday life. Dobelli doesn't just explain the errors—he shows you how to recognize when you're committing them and what to do instead.

Buffett endorses this book because self-awareness beats intelligence. He didn't build Berkshire Hathaway by being the smartest person in the room. He built it by being less wrong than everyone else, more often, over longer periods. That requires understanding how your brain lies to you.

We think we make rational decisions. Neuroscience laughs. You're running on heuristics, evolutionary shortcuts designed for the savanna—not the stock market, not modern complexity, not long-term planning. Your brain optimizes for survival, not truth. It chooses speed over accuracy, emotion over logic, tribal belonging over objective analysis.

Dobelli maps that terrain. Buffett endorses it because knowing your cognitive blind spots is competitive advantage. Everyone has the same flawed hardware. Most people never check the error logs. The ones who do? They make fewer catastrophic mistakes. Over decades, that compounds.

The application extends beyond investing. You make hundreds of decisions daily—hiring, firing, strategic direction, resource allocation, personal relationships. Each one filtered through cognitive biases you don't know you have. This book is the manual for your broken operating system.

8. Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham

Benjamin Graham's Security Analysis, first published in 1934, remains the foundation of value investing—and Buffett calls it "a road map for investing that I have now been following for 57 years."

Fifty-seven years. Same principles. Different markets. Consistent results.

Graham wrote Security Analysis during the Great Depression after watching investors lose everything in the 1929 crash. The book emerged from wreckage, attempting to answer a fundamental question: How do you invest without getting destroyed by your own emotions and the market's madness?

His answer: analyze businesses like a private owner, not a speculator. Calculate intrinsic value based on fundamentals—earnings, assets, management quality, competitive position. Buy assets for significantly less than they're worth (the margin of safety). Then wait. Ignore market fluctuations. Ignore hot tips. Ignore what everyone else is doing. Trust the numbers and time.

The approach sounds simple. It's brutally hard because it requires patience in a culture addicted to speed, and contrarianism when everyone else is euphoric or panicking. When the market is soaring, value investing looks stupid—your returns lag while everyone else gets rich quickly. When the market crashes, value investing requires buying when every instinct screams to sell.

Buffett studied under Graham at Columbia, worked for his investment firm, and absorbed these principles so deeply they became automatic. The book taught him to separate price from value, to think in years instead of quarters, to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

Security Analysis is 700+ pages of dense financial theory. It's not entertaining. It's transformative—if you implement it. Graham's genius was creating a system that worked regardless of whether you were brilliant. You just had to follow it. Discipline beats talent. Process beats intuition. Buffett proved it with 60 years of market-beating returns.

The book is 91 years old and still relevant because human psychology and market dynamics haven't fundamentally changed. Fear and greed still drive cycles. Assets still get mispriced. Patience still beats panic. The technology changes. The wisdom doesn't.

9. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

If Security Analysis is the technical manual, The Intelligent Investor is the practical guide for mere mortals.

Graham published this in 1949 as a more accessible version of his investment philosophy. Buffett calls it the "Bible of Value Investing" and credits it as a major influence on his thinking. He read it at nineteen and it changed his life—shifting him from trading stocks like baseball cards to analyzing businesses like an owner.

The Intelligent Investor introduces Mr. Market, Graham's brilliant metaphor for market psychology. Imagine you own shares in a private business, and every day a manic-depressive partner named Mr. Market shows up offering to buy your shares or sell you his. Some days he's euphoric, offering absurdly high prices. Other days he's despondent, offering fire-sale prices. You can accept his offer, ignore him completely, or make him an offer instead.

The insight: Mr. Market is there to serve you, not instruct you. His mood swings create opportunities—chances to buy low and sell high—but only if you maintain emotional equilibrium. Most investors do the opposite: they get excited when Mr. Market is euphoric (buying high) and scared when he's depressed (selling low). They let his emotions drive their decisions.

Graham teaches you to be the rational actor in a room full of irrational participants. The book walks through portfolio construction, defensive versus enterprising investing, and the difference between investing and speculating. It emphasizes margin of safety as the central concept: only buy when the price gives you substantial protection against being wrong.

Buffett has gifted this book to countless people. He rereads it every few years because he's different—his context has changed, and the same wisdom yields new insights. The book doesn't promise to make you rich quickly. It promises to keep you from getting poor stupidly. That's a different value proposition, and arguably more valuable.

10. Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charles Munger

Charles Munger—Buffett's longtime business partner and Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman—spent 60+ years practicing what he called "worldly wisdom": collecting mental models from multiple disciplines and applying them to investing and life.

Poor Charlie's Almanack compiles decades of Munger's speeches and writings, revealing a mind that draws equally from physics, psychology, biology, history, mathematics, and literature. Munger argues that knowing one discipline deeply makes you narrow and brittle. Knowing the big ideas from many disciplines makes you antifragile—you can approach problems from multiple angles and avoid single-paradigm blindness.

The book covers Munger's investment philosophy, his approach to decision-making, his famous mental models checklist, and his brutally honest takes on everything from academic economics to human nature. Munger doesn't sugarcoat: he calls out stupidity, excoriates sloppy thinking, and champions intellectual honesty with almost aggressive directness.

Buffett joked in his 2010 shareholder letter: "Just buy a copy and carry it around; it will make you look urbane and erudite." The self-aware humor acknowledges that Munger's thinking can be intimidating. The man quotes everyone from Cicero to Darwin to Feynman. He expects you to keep up.

But underneath the erudition is practical wisdom: invert problems (instead of asking how to succeed, ask how to fail—then avoid those things), understand incentives (show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome), and embrace the power of compounding—not just money, but knowledge, relationships, and reputation.

The Buffett-Munger partnership demonstrates the value of complementary thinking. Buffett brings discipline and patience; Munger brings multidisciplinary wisdom and willingness to say uncomfortable truths. Together, they created one of history's most successful investment records. The Almanack gives you access to half of that equation.

11. The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike

William Thorndike's The Outsiders profiles eight CEOs who massively outperformed the market—and their famous peers—by obsessively focusing on capital allocation.

These weren't the celebrity founders dominating magazine covers. They were operators like Tom Murphy (Capital Cities Broadcasting), Henry Singleton (Teledyne), and Katharine Graham (yes, she appears on both billionaires' lists). What united them? A relentless focus on how they deployed every dollar: acquisitions, stock buybacks, debt paydown, organic growth, or simply returning cash to shareholders.

Buffett called the book "outstanding" because it identifies what actually matters in business leadership. Most CEOs optimize for revenue growth, market share, or headcount. These eight optimized for return on capital. They made unconventional, often unpopular decisions—massive stock buybacks when buybacks were unfashionable, radical decentralization when centralization was gospel, acquisitions during downturns when everyone else was retreating.

The book demolishes the myth that great leaders need big personalities or visionary rhetoric. Several CEOs profiled were media-averse introverts who rarely gave speeches. They succeeded through disciplined, rational decision-making repeated over decades. Boring beats flashy. Consistent beats dramatic.

The application extends far beyond business. You have limited resources—time, energy, attention, money. Where you allocate them determines everything. Most people let drift decide. They follow norms, chase trends, react to urgency rather than importance. These CEOs didn't. They thought probabilistically, acted countercyclically, and trusted math over emotion.

Buffett's endorsement highlights his own approach: he's essentially a one-person capital allocator for Berkshire Hathaway, deploying billions based on similar principles. The book is a blueprint for anyone responsible for resource allocation—which is everyone.

12. A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel

Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street argues you can't beat the market consistently—a thesis Buffett's entire career contradicts.

Yet Buffett recommends it anyway. Why?

Because intellectual honesty requires engaging with opposing viewpoints. Malkiel's efficient market hypothesis suggests that all available information is already priced into stocks, making outperformance essentially random luck. The solution: buy index funds, minimize fees, hold forever. Don't try to pick stocks. Don't try to time the market. Just ride the average.

Buffett disagrees—he's proven you can beat the market through disciplined value investing. But he wants you to understand the strongest argument against his position because it sharpens your thinking. Can you articulate why you might be wrong? Can you steel-man the opposition? If not, you don't truly understand your own position.

This approach—seeking disconfirmation rather than confirmation—separates rigorous thinkers from ideologues. Most people curate echo chambers. Buffett deliberately reads people who think he's wrong. It's intellectual stress-testing: if your ideas can't withstand the best counterarguments, they probably shouldn't survive.

There's also humility embedded in the recommendation. Buffett knows most people won't beat the market. They'll chase hot stocks, panic during downturns, trade too much, and pay excessive fees. For them, Malkiel's advice—low-cost index funds held forever—is genuinely better than trying and failing to be Buffett.

The book forces you to confront an uncomfortable question: Are you disciplined enough to actually execute value investing? Or should you acknowledge your limitations and choose the sensible default? Self-awareness about your own capabilities might be the most valuable investment insight of all.

13. Business Adventures by John Brooks

When Bill Gates asked Warren Buffett in 1991 for his favorite business book, Buffett sent his personal copy of Business Adventures—a 1969 collection of twelve corporate stories by New Yorker writer John Brooks.

Gates later called it his favorite business book. Buffett has recommended it longer than any other title. Both billionaires champion it for teaching through narrative rather than prescription, demonstrating that fundamentals of human behavior under business pressure haven't changed in 60 years.

Business Adventures examines triumph and disaster: the Edsel's catastrophic failure, Xerox's improbable rise, the 1962 stock market crash, a Texas tycoon's near-destruction of General Electric, Ford's pricing decisions, tax policy battles, and more. Brooks writes like a novelist—building suspense, developing characters, revealing how small decisions cascade into massive consequences.

The book reveals patterns: how hubris precedes failure, how groupthink suppresses dissent, how bureaucracy stifles innovation, how short-term thinking destroys long-term value. These aren't abstract concepts. They're stories of real people making real decisions with real money at stake.

What makes Business Adventures endure? The technology in these stories is obsolete—typewriters, carbon paper, mechanical adding machines. But the human dynamics are eternal. Executives still ignore warning signs. Companies still chase fads. Leaders still confuse activity with progress. The trappings change. The patterns don't.

Both Gates and Buffett value learning through case studies rather than theory. Abstract principles rarely stick. Concrete stories do. When you read about the Edsel's failure—how Ford ignored market research, let ego override data, and lost millions—you internalize lessons that a bullet-point list about "listening to customers" never achieves.

The shared recommendation reveals philosophical alignment: frameworks matter, but so do people. You need the system and the story. Theory without application is academic. Stories without analysis are just entertainment. The books that change you deliver both.

14. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder

Alice Schroeder's The Snowball is the authorized biography of Buffett—900+ pages chronicling his life from awkward Nebraska kid to investment legend.

Buffett granted Schroeder unprecedented access: archives, personal correspondence, dozens of interviews. He imposed only one condition: she had to tell the truth, even unflattering parts. She did. The book reveals Buffett's difficult relationship with his mother, his first marriage's complexities, his social awkwardness, his mistakes and regrets alongside his triumphs.

What emerges is remarkably human. Buffett wasn't born knowing how to invest. He made bad trades, ignored obvious opportunities, let emotions override analysis. What separated him wasn't genius—it was obsessive learning, brutal self-honesty, and the discipline to follow his principles even when they hurt.

The "snowball" metaphor captures Buffett's philosophy: start early, find wet snow (good opportunities), and roll downhill for a long time (compound). Small advantages, sustained over decades, create exponential results. The biography shows how this applies beyond investing: to relationships, reputation, knowledge acquisition, and character development.

Buffett recommends this book—about himself—because it's instructive, not celebratory. It shows the work, the failures, the learning process. It demystifies success by revealing the unglamorous reality: reading annual reports for hours, saying no to 99% of opportunities, enduring years of underperformance while trusting your process.

If you want to understand how someone becomes Warren Buffett, this is the manual. Not because it gives you investment tips, but because it shows you how discipline compounds.

The Intersection: What Both Billionaires Want You to Read

One book appears on both lists: Business Adventures.

Gates asked Buffett in 1991 for his favorite business book. Buffett sent his personal copy of this 1969 collection without hesitation. Both men value it for teaching timeless business fundamentals through narrative rather than prescription. The technology changes. The wisdom doesn't.

They also share an appreciation for biography and memoir—Gates explicitly through his summer list, Buffett through recommendations like The Snowball and Poor Charlie's Almanack. Both understand that frameworks matter, but so do people. You need the system and the story. Theory without human context is sterile. Stories without analysis are just entertainment.

Their reading lists reveal complementary approaches: Gates seeks transformation through understanding lived experience. Buffett seeks discipline through understanding timeless principles. Combined, they offer a complete learning strategy: study how people navigate adversity (memoirs) while mastering frameworks that explain patterns (investment classics).

What This Reading List Says About Learning

Gates is 69. Buffett is 95. Combined, they've read thousands of books across 164 years of life.

They're still reading. Still learning. Still letting books change their minds.

That's the real lesson. Not the specific titles—though those matter. The posture. The humility. The recognition that your current understanding is incomplete and possibly wrong.

We treat learning like something that ends with formal education. Gates and Buffett treat it like breathing. Continuous. Non-negotiable. The fuel for every decision. Buffett spends 80% of his working day—five to six hours—reading and thinking. Not networking. Not in meetings. Reading.

You want their results? Start with their inputs. Read better. Read more strategically. Read to be challenged, not confirmed. Read memoirs to understand human resilience. Read classics to avoid repeating history's mistakes. Read opposing viewpoints to sharpen your own.

Then—and this is where most people fail—act on what you learn. Gates didn't just read Kristof's article. He faxed it to his father and launched a foundation. Buffett didn't just read Graham's books. He followed the principles for 60 years. Reading creates potential. Action creates results.

The Books You Won't Read (And Why That Matters)

Let's be honest: you probably won't read most of these books.

You'll save this article. You'll add a few titles to your Amazon wish list. You'll mean to get around to them. Then life will happen—emails, meetings, Netflix, the seductive comfort of doing what you already know how to do.

This isn't judgment. It's pattern recognition. Most people treat learning like vegetables: important in theory, easy to skip in practice.

But here's the truth Gates and Buffett embody: your growth is directly proportional to your willingness to be uncomfortable. Books offer the cheapest, lowest-risk way to access other people's expensive lessons. Graham's value investing principles cost Buffett nothing to learn and made him billions. Kristof's journalism cost Gates $25 and launched a foundation that transformed global health.

The ROI on reading is absurd—if you actually implement what you read.

So the question isn't whether these books are worth reading. It's whether you're serious about growth or just performing the aesthetics of self-improvement. Billionaire reading lists make great social media content. Actually reading the books? That requires something harder: time, attention, and the vulnerability to admit you don't know everything.

The gap between knowing and doing is where most transformation dies. Don't let that be you.

How to Read Like You Mean It

Here's what Gates and Buffett do that you probably don't:

They take notes. Gates is famous for annotating everything; Buffett spends 80% of his day reading and thinking. They're not passively consuming. They're actively engaging—questioning, arguing with authors, connecting ideas across disciplines.

They let books change their behavior. Kristof's article changed Gates' entire philanthropic direction. Graham's books shaped 57 years of Buffett's investment decisions. They don't read for entertainment. They read for transformation. Every book is a potential inflection point.

They reread. Buffett rereads The Intelligent Investor every few years. Why? Because he's different. His context has changed. His business has evolved. The same book offers new insights when you bring different experiences to it. The text is stable. You're not.

They share what they learn. Both billionaires publish annual reading lists, embedding learning in their public identity. When you tell others what you're learning, you increase accountability and deepen retention. Teaching forces understanding.

You want to read like they do? Stop treating books like content to consume. Treat them like mentors to interrogate. Ask questions. Challenge assumptions. Decide what you'll do differently based on what you've learned. Write it down. Tell someone. Then act.

Otherwise, you're just moving your eyes across pages. That's not reading. That's pretending.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Bill Gates focus on memoirs in his 2025 summer reading list?

Gates released his own memoir, Source Code, in February 2025. His summer list of five memoirs reflects his deep dive into the genre while writing his own story. He wanted to understand how other transformative figures—journalists, publishers, educators, activists—navigated their lives and documented their journeys. Each memoir on his list demonstrates resilience, self-invention, or courage under pressure. Gates isn't just recommending books; he's showing you the research that shaped his own vulnerability in going public with his story. The subtext: if you're going to tell your truth, study people who told theirs well.

Which book had the biggest impact on Bill Gates' philanthropy?

Chasing Hope by Nicholas Kristof—specifically, a 1997 Kristof article about preventable childhood deaths. Gates faxed it to his father with a note: "Maybe we can do something about this." That moment catalyzed the creation of the Gates Foundation. The memoir expands on Kristof's decades of bearing witness to global suffering, demonstrating how proximity to pain can transform into action. Without that article, the foundation—which has deployed over $70 billion in global health initiatives—might never have found its focus. One piece of journalism. One decision. Billions of lives touched.

What is Warren Buffett's most recommended book of all time?

Business Adventures by John Brooks, hands down. When Bill Gates asked Buffett in 1991 for his favorite business book, Buffett sent his personal copy without hesitation. He's been recommending it since 1991, longer than any other title. The 1969 collection of 12 corporate stories teaches through narrative rather than prescription, examining timeless business principles through real-world cases. Both Gates and Buffett champion it because the fundamentals of human behavior under business pressure haven't changed in 60 years. The book proves you don't need the latest thinking—you need the right thinking.

Why does Warren Buffett recommend books he disagrees with?

Because intellectual honesty requires engaging with opposing viewpoints. Buffett recommends Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street, which argues you can't beat the market—a thesis Buffett's entire career contradicts. He endorses it anyway because understanding the best arguments against your position sharpens your thinking. If you can't articulate why you might be wrong, you don't truly understand why you're right. This approach—seeking disconfirmation rather than confirmation—is what separates rigorous thinkers from ideologues. Buffett stays intellectually honest by reading people who think he's wrong.

How much time does Warren Buffett spend reading each day?

Approximately 80% of his working day—around 5-6 hours—is dedicated to reading and thinking. This isn't leisure. It's his competitive advantage. While most executives fill calendars with meetings, Buffett fills his with learning. He reads annual reports, newspapers, books, and research, looking for patterns, opportunities, and mistakes to avoid. This reading habit has remained consistent across his 60-year investing career. The lesson: if you want extraordinary results, you need extraordinary inputs. Buffett treats learning like compounding interest—small daily deposits yielding massive long-term returns.

What's the oldest book on their 2025 reading lists, and why does it still matter?

Benjamin Graham's Security Analysis, first published in 1934. Buffett calls it "a road map for investing that I have now been following for 57 years." The book is 91 years old and remains the foundation of value investing because human psychology and market dynamics haven't fundamentally changed. Fear and greed still drive cycles. Assets still get mispriced. Patience still beats panic. Graham's framework—buy assets below intrinsic value, maintain a margin of safety, think long-term—works because it's rooted in timeless principles, not temporary trends. The technology changes. The wisdom doesn't.

Are there any books that both Gates and Buffett recommend?

Yes. Business Adventures by John Brooks appears in both billionaires' recommendations. Buffett sent Gates his personal copy in 1991, and Gates later called it his favorite business book. The 1969 collection transcends typical business advice by examining real corporate stories—triumphs, failures, and everything between. Both men value it for teaching through narrative, demonstrating that human behavior under business pressure follows predictable patterns. Their shared endorsement reveals common ground: frameworks matter, but so do stories. You need both the system and the human element to truly understand success and failure.

What book does Bill Gates call "the definitive book" on AI?

The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman. In his holiday 2024/2025 reading list, Gates wrote: "Of all the books on AI, that's the one I recommend the most." The book examines how artificial intelligence and scientific advancements are transforming society, offering both analysis and prescription. Gates values it for making complex technical shifts accessible and actionable. As someone who built Microsoft and now oversees a foundation deploying AI in global health, Gates understands the technology's potential and risks. His strong endorsement suggests this book successfully navigates both, making it essential reading for anyone trying to understand the technology reshaping every industry.

How did Katharine Graham's memoir influence Bill Gates?

Personal History taught Gates that "great leaders can come from unexpected places." Graham never wanted to run The Washington Post—she inherited it after her husband's suicide, terrified and unprepared. But she led the paper through the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, defying President Nixon to protect journalistic integrity and earning a Pulitzer Prize for the memoir. Gates, who befriended Graham in 1991, values her story for demonstrating that readiness isn't a prerequisite for leadership. You can be scared, uncertain, and unqualified—and still show up and change history. The memoir doesn't romanticize courage; it proves courage looks like moving despite fear.

What makes Warren Buffett's reading strategy different from typical business leaders?

Buffett doesn't read for information—he reads for transformation. Most leaders read to stay current; Buffett reads to avoid errors. He prioritizes timeless principles over trending topics, favoring books from the 1930s-1960s alongside contemporary titles. He rereads classics because his context evolves, allowing the same book to yield new insights. He recommends books he disagrees with to stress-test his thinking. And he dedicates 80% of his day to reading and reflection, treating learning as his primary work rather than a supplementary activity. The difference: Buffett reads to change his mind, not confirm his biases. Most people read to feel smart. Buffett reads to become less wrong.

References

[1] Wikipedia - Source Code (memoir). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_(memoir)

[2] Gates Notes - My First Memoir: Source Code. https://www.gatesnotes.com/my-first-memoir-source-code

[3] Kirkus Reviews - Bill Gates Releases His Summer 2025 Reading List. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/bill-gates-releases-his-summer-2025-reading-list/

[4] Gates Notes - Summer Books 2025. https://www.gatesnotes.com/books/books-home-topic/reader/summer-books-2025

[5] Times Now News - Bill Gates Names the 5 Memoirs He Believes Everyone Should Read. https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/books/bill-gates-names-the-5-memoirs-he-believes-everyone-should-read-article-151702143

[6] Gates Notes - Personal History. https://www.gatesnotes.com/personal-history

[7] Tertulia - Bill Gates Summer Books List: Best Memoirs. https://tertulia.com/editorial-list/bill-gates-summer-books-list-best-memoirs

[8] The New York Times - Book Review: Chasing Hope by Nicholas Kristof. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/books/review/chasing-hope-nicholas-kristof.html

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[10] Inc. - Bill Gates Says You Should Read This Book. https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/feeling-hopeless-bill-gates-says-you-should-read-this-book/91193349

[11] Gates Notes - Chasing Hope by Nicholas Kristof. https://www.gatesnotes.com/chasing-hope

[12] Times of India - Bill Gates Wants You to Read These Five Books This Summer. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/microsoft-co-founder-bill-gates-wants-you-to-read-these-five-books-this-summer/articleshow/121378473.cms

[13] Gates Notes - Surrender by Bono. https://www.gatesnotes.com/books/people/reader/surrender

[14] Gates Notes - Bono's Surrender. https://www.gatesnotes.com/surrender

[15] Entrepreneur - Bill Gates Suggests These Four Books During the Holidays. https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/bill-gates-suggests-these-four-books-during-the-holidays/483847

[16] Durovs Code - Bill Gates Holiday Reading List. https://durovscode.com/bill-gates-holiday-reading-list-5-books-for-a-mindful-new-year

[17] Investment Mastery - Top 10 Warren Buffett Recommended Books in 2025. https://www.investment-mastery.com/top-10-warren-buffett-recommended-books-in-2025/

[18] LinkedIn - Lawrence Cunningham: 5 Books Warren Buffett Wants You to Read. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lawrence-cunningham-68b7574b_5-books-warren-buffett-wants-you-to-read-activity-7273746277509599232-4RAj

[19] Investment Mastery (NL) - Top 10 Warren Buffett Recommended Books in 2025. https://www.investment-mastery.com/nl/top-10-warren-buffett-recommended-books-in-2025/

[20] Ample Reads - Warren Buffett's 2025 Reading List. https://blog.amplereads.com/warren-buffetts-2025-reading-list-is-pure-gold-dont-miss-7/

[21] Most Recommended Books - Warren Buffett Recommended Books. https://mostrecommendedbooks.com/people/warren-buffett-recommended-books

[22] World Economic Forum - These Are the Books Warren Buffett Thinks You Should Read. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2016/11/these-are-the-books-warren-buffett-thinks-you-should-read/

[23] Trustnet - Fund Sectors. https://www.trustnet.com/investing/13445214/fund/sectors

[24] Benzinga - Bill Gates Says His Favorite Business Book Is a Warren Buffett Recommendation. https://www.benzinga.com/news/education/25/10/48293975/bill-gates-says-his-favorite-business-book-isnt-some-preachy-tome-but-a-warren-buffett-recommendation-published-in-1969

[25] Trustnet - Warren Buffett's Reading List: Must-Read Books for Investors. https://www.trustnet.com/investing/13445214/warren-buffetts-reading-list-must-read-books-for-investors