5 Self-Made Billionaires On The Importance of Reading

With their favorite books

I have been watching tons of interviews of successful CEOs, especially the self-made ones. One common thing in their early lives was their reading habit and their curiosity to learn new things.

I wanted to dig deeper and find out about billionaires who started their learning and embrace the billionaire mindset way before launching their multi-billion dollar companies.

In this article, I share five billionaires who give credit to books and life-long learning for their success and wealth, along with their recommendations.

Elon Musk

The real-life Tony Stark, a college dropped and the richest man in the world today, Elon Musk, is a voracious reader. He was an extraordinary kid and spent most of his early days reading science fiction and playing video games.

His favorite author was Isaac Asimov, whose Foundation Trilogy gave him the chance to think beyond reality; it opened doors for him to imagine space and artificial intelligence (AI). His imagination and ridiculous work ethic made him build Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity without prior experience.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Elon mentioned that — “books raised him.” When asked how he managed to create three highly successful companies in entirely different domains, viz, electric cars and rocketry, he said he read books about them. Elon learned most about space crafts and rockets from books with no rocket engineering or AI background.

He’s already mentioned enough times in his tweet that you don’t need a college degree to build something or work in his company. He’s been a self-learner since he was a kid and gave credit to books for his knowledge and has been vocal about it.

His favorite books are Foundation by Isaac Asimov and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Isaacson.

Divyank Thurakhia

One of India’s youngest billionaire Divayank Tukaria is the former CEO of Media.net. He sold his company to Chinese Consortium in 2016 for a whopping $900m, which was the 3rd biggest ed-tech deal.

Belonging to a humble middle-class family from Mumbai, Divyank started reading when he was a kid. Not able to go on holidays and afford cable TV — the only way for entertainment he could indulge in was by reading the books from his dad’s library.

In an interview with Entrepreneur India, Divyank mentioned that he reads for around 800–1000 hours a year. Like most ultra-successful, he believes that lifelong learning is essential for any entrepreneur and considers it an ongoing process.

He always learned about new technology and the internet's power through books, events, and business journals, which played a critical role in starting various businesses with seed investments as low as $500.

While talking to Valuetainment, Divyank recalls how he read Tony Robbins and another influencer who helped him build a business mindset, taught him about finance, and made him a million before 20.

He spends a lot of time reading trade journals and books on game programming and technology.

Jeff Bezos

The founder of Amazon and now the former CEO, Jeff Bezos, started his empire by selling books. Jeff's love for reading and the colossal market options available in the niche gave him the idea to start selling books online in the early days of the internet.

In November 2007, Amazon introduced Kindle and revolutionized the reading industry by introducing app-based reading. The book mammoth later acquired Goodreads in 2013 and built a monopoly in the book and reading industry.

Jeff’s love for books isn’t something new; he fell in love with reading while he was reasonably young. He spent most of his free time reading science fiction and inventing various devices.

Books not only made him a billionaire but also a great and prolific leader. In the biography, The Everything Store, based on Bezos, author Brad Stone wrote about how books affected Bezos's leadership style and thinking.

The book he swears by for leadership is Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done, which covers topics like effective leadership, mobilizing strength, and decision-making, among other significant topics.

Some of his other favorite books are The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, Built to Last by James Collin, Black Swan by Nassim Taleb, and Data-Driven Marketing by Mark Jeffery.

Warren Buffet

Warren Buffet, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, sought-after investor, and philanthropist, is known for his reading habit.

In an interview with Harvard Business Review, Bill Gates, one of Buffet’s long-term friends, shared how Buffet keeps his calendar empty and spends most of his time in his office reading and thinking.

In the book written on his life, Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, the author and journalist Roger Lowenstein wrote about how the billionaire investor spends 80% of his time reading. His reading lists contain newspapers, company reports, and books on finance and business.

When asked about his success, Warren told in an interview given to Columbia University students to read 500 pages daily. That’s how wealth compounds, just like knowledge. As Buffet cited

“I just sit in my office and read all day.”

The Intelligent Investor is the book he keeps going back to and recommends the most. The book, known as the bible of investing, was written by his mentor Benjamin Graham. Warren started reading the book at the age of 19 and still rereads it.

Another book that he swears by is his partner and friend Charlie Munger's Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger’.

Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban has been a leading entrepreneur in various domains (Cable TV, Sports, Investments, etc.) and is widely known for Shark Tank's appearance. He’s also the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. At 27, he had zero dollars in his bank account, and now he’s worth $4.3billions.

Marc gives a lot of credit for his success to the books he reads. One of the books that challenged him to dream bigger was Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead, which he read first in high school. The character of Howard Roark taught him about passion and how to fight for what you want.

In his interview with Thrive Global Podcast, he mentioned that life-long learning is probably the most significant skill to succeed.

“I would continuously search for new ideas. I read every book and magazine I could. Heck, 3 bucks for a magazine, 20 bucks for a book. One good idea that led to a customer or solution and it paid for itself many times over.”

Some of his favorite books- Rework by David Heinemeier Hansson and Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie.

“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”

As the 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman wisely said.

The one quality that the top wealthiest people share is their habit of learning and evolving. The best way, even in the 21st century, to learn is through reading. All the books recommended by the billionaires have helped them think clearly, become better leaders, and build billionaire dollar companies.

We may not copy their bank balance or lifestyles, but we can indeed read books they loved and recommended.

Which one are you going to pick next?

If you enjoyed this list, you’d indeed like this one

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