Naval Ravikant

Krishnamurti is a lesser-known guy, an indian philosopher who lived at the turn of the last century and is extremely influential to me. He’s an uncompromising, very direct person who basically tells you to look at your own mind at all times. I have been hugely influenced by him. Probably the best book is The Book of Life, which is excerpts from his various speeches and books stitched together.

There’s a great book by Randall Munroe who is the creator of xkcd, that
very science-oriented comic, and it’s called Up Goer Five. It’s a reference
to the Saturn Five rocket that took the Apollo missions into space. What
he is doing in that book is he explains all these very complicated concepts all the way from climate change to physical systems to submarines and so on, but he does it only using the 1000 most common words in the English language.

Second best - read Influence by Cialdini, persuasion from @ScottAdamsSays , and actually get out there and sell things.

This is a great book I really liked which summarizes some of the larger themes of history, very incisive. And unlike most history books, it's actually really small, and it covers a lot of ground

He has a gift for poetically describing what children are like, what lovers are like, what marriage should be like, how you should treat your enemies and your friends, how you should work with money, what can you think of every time you have to kill something to eat it. I felt, like the great religious books, it gave a very deep, very philosophical, but very true answer to how to approach the major problems in life. I recommend the prophet to anybody, whether you’re religious or not. Whether you are Christian, Hindu, Jewish, or Atheist. I think it’s a beautiful book, and it’s worth reading.

This is the best book I've read in the last year. Physics, poetry, philosophy, and history packaged in a very accessible form.

I highly recommend Genome as well, to figure out the rational basis behind ethics and the origin of virtue. You helped make me an optimist in a rational way through your famous Rational Optimist, and you drive home the point of the evolution of innovation and how to foster it in How Innovation Works. It’s been a pleasure.

Everything else written by Matt Ridley. Matt is a scientist, optimist, and forward thinker. One of my favorite authors. I’ve read everything of his, and reread everything of his.

This is his collection of ancient wisdom.

The best book I've read in 2018, I highly recommend it. Lots of great ideas in there. Lots of good mental models and constructs. He has a bit of an attitude, but he has that because he's brilliant, and it's okay. So just look past the attitude and read the book, learn the concepts. It's one of the best business books I've ever read. And luckily, it doesn't masquerade as a business book.

Matt Ridley's "The Rational Optimist" is the most brilliant and enlightening book I've read in years. He has written 4 of my top 20

There’s actually a good book. It’s kind of out of print. I think it’s hard to track down. You maybe you can find online somewhere. It’s not the obvious one. The name of the book is called The Art of Manipulation.
I found it because of a tweet that I followed from @illacertus and it was really good. This guy basically goes undercover and lives with con men. He spends time with them running cons and learning all about cons. Without judgment, he just lays down how con men work. He put down there how to spot them when they’re being dishonest. Some of the telltale signs are they will push the deal a little bit too hard. They’ll sell just a little bit too hard. They’ll talk about how honest they are.