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The question

Which book do you recommend most often to others, and what makes you pass it on?
RB
Roelof Botha

South African-American venture capitalist

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
Well, there are two different ones. There’s Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, which invariably shows up on these lists of 100 books you should read before you die, which really had a big impact on me, and I’ve spoken about it at Sequoia founder events. I’ve given it to many people. I just think the book is amazing in terms of helping clarify what it is that motivates you and what drives you, “What is your purpose,” because we are not really driven by monetary rewards or pleasure by itself. So, that, to me, is a fantastic book. The other one is an annual series called America’s Best Science and Nature Writing , and it’s this collection of about two dozen articles from American publications, written for a lay audience across a range of topics. It could be, “What’s the latest insights from physics and astronomy,” to, “What’s happening in genetics,” “What’s happening with anthropology,” or things like that. I mean, it’s absolutely fascinating.

Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 1 September 2022 source ↗

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Rich Barton American businessman
Yeah, I am not your typical person probably sitting in this seat and that I, maybe I am, I am not a nonfiction, business book, sorry Tim.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 19 April 2025 source ↗
Katalin Karikó Biochemist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 2023
When I was 16 years old, I read the book from Hans Selye. Hans Selye is a Canadian scientist, but he was Hungarian so his book was translated to Hungarian. His mantra was that you have to focus on things that you can change. Many young ones are giving up because they can see that their friends or their colleagues are advancing, and it seems that they do less and somehow, they get higher salary and promoted. I told that if you notice that then you already took away your attention what you can change. Because you cannot change that.
Recorded Adam Smith, Telephone interview recorded shortly after the prize announcement, Nobel Prize Outreach, 2 October 2023 source ↗
Bill Gates Co-founder of Microsoft; co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
I read Stephen Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature a few years ago and got to talk to him about it after, which was a lot of fun. I reviewed it for my blog, Gates Notes, because I wanted other people to read it, love it, and hopefully learn from it the way I did. It's probably my favorite book and the one I recommend most often.
Recorded TIME interview, 2017 source ↗
Tom Morello American guitarist and singer-songwriter
Well, certainly the one book that I’ve gifted the most in my life was a book that I first read when I was 15 and I reread it almost yearly. It’s a book called Watership Down and —
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 1 May 2022 source ↗

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