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Dedicated to the notion that knowledge often comes when you’re studying something else, I offer up the following pre-enterpreneur (incidentally also the pre Columbia University Entrepreneurship in Biotechnology course) reading (or listening or watching) list.
- Joe Hyams: Zen in the Martial Arts. Focus. Calm. Wisdom. How to learn. I have given this book to so many people over the years I have lost count. Available used on Amazon for 2 cents.
- Barry Targan’s 1975 short story “Harry Belten and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.” Google it. Not only the best short story I have ever read but a great illustration of the heart of entrepreneurship: how to handle being right when everyone else is wrong. Read and enjoy.
- Steve Tesich: the script from “Breaking Away.” Read it or watch the 1979 movie. Dave Stoller, entrepreneur disguised as a confused and aimless recent high school grad, finds redemption by cultivating a quirky interest and finding a way to move forward with it. Warning: absolutely heartbreaking scene midway – but stick with it.
- Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out (Columbia Records, 1959.) Read up on how this album came about. The record label tried to talk Brubeck out of it, and it became one of the best selling (and greatest to listen to) jazz albums of all time.
- Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On (Motown Records, 1971.) Same story as Brubeck. Innovation defeats skepticism. Number six on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
- Charles Wheelan: Naked Statistics. Because … statistics.
- William Zinsser: On Writing Well. Lesson number one is “I tell students that there is no one "right" way to get ahead -- that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination.” Lesson number two is how to write well.
- Bob Dylan: Chronicles, Volume One. The second secret to entrepreneurship: being fearless. “Remember Bob: 'no fear, no envy, no meanness.'"
- Thomas Friedman: From Beirut to Jerusalem. On knowing context and history, and telling the story clearly.
- Abraham Verghese: Cutting for Stone. Because it is a wonderful novel, and even entrepreneurs should find time to read fiction.
