Whether you are an IT leader or a regular person with an office job, it is quite challenging to keep up with the fast-paced changes in technology. With each passing day, there are more and more technological advancements in every sector of every industry you can think of.
So how do you remain insightful of all the innovations happening around you?
Well, one sure way is to get your hands on some of the best books about technology. If you are really interested in the present and upcoming digital age, you will find no shortage of influential books.
What’s more, influential technological leaders and entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and even Joe Rogan often recommend the best reads for the whole society.
Without further ado, let us check out ten of the top technology-related books in the following article.
10 Best Books About Technology
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
With over 40 recommendations from well-known leaders, celebrities, and businessmen, Sapiens, undoubtedly, offers an insightful look into the past to help you understand the future of our whole race.
Why this Book?
- New York Times Bestseller
- Recommended by influential leaders like Bill Gates and Ashton Kutcher
- Reflects on our history to understand our future
- It offers an insightful view of our actions and thought process
The book explores humanity’s start and how it led to all the technological advancements to this day. To help understand the future, it takes the readers to the very beginning of our existence, where our species gained dominance over the others.
The book focuses on how we found different civilizations and created some of the world’s largest cities. Besides this, it reflects on laws, ethics, human rights, nations, and even different religions.
Moreover, it takes you back to all the breakthrough revolutions, which significantly impacted today’s world. While some of them were much-need for innovations, many of them left a devastating effect on humanity too.
If all of this was not enough, it also pokes us to think more about more about the millennia to come and how we have the power to change everything. Do we still want to live in a consumerist world, or do we need to influence our future paths?
- Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker
If you are hopeless about where the world is heading, this book will surely uplift your mood. Enlightenment Now is another excellent recommendation by Bill Gates, highlighting how science and reason can find the solution to even the scariest problems.
Why This Book?
- Offers statistics and graphs for data
- Instills hope about the future
- Encourages humans to believe in reason and science
Steven Pinker is a public intellectual and cognitive scientist who explores the truth behind the world falling apart. He urges people to back away from the misleading news and trust in technological advancement. What’s more, he proves his point with well-researched numerical data and statistics.
According to the author, Enlightenment is the key to flourishing civilizations. Instead of falling towards tribalism, romantic ideologies, and politics, you should believe in humanism and science to find the solution.
If you are one of those who cannot see a silver lining in your future, read the book to find all the data to change your mind. Pinker has highlighted the rise in safety, peace, knowledge, and health in seventy-five great graphs.
- Measure What Matters By John Doerr
Do you want to know how large tech companies like Google and Microsoft became so successful? Are you about to start your venture and want to find the secret to massive growth?
If yes, get your hands on Measure What Matters to learn more about one of the crucial keys to help your business thrive.
Why This Book?
- New York Times Bestseller
- Tried and tested the OKR approach to business
- Helped tech giants like Google and Intel thrive
- Multiple case studies and first-person narration of real stories
John Doerr is a well-known venture capitalist who wrote this book to share his working experience at Intel in the 1970s. He praises his manager, Andy Grove, for his ideals and incredible approach to running a successful company.
Since then, John has shared the business approach, the Objective and Key Results or OKRs, with more than 50 companies. If the goal-setting system was practiced faithfully, the companies saw explosive growth in their ventures.
This critical approach helps to visualize the goals of every working member of the organization. While the objectives define our end goals, key results lay down the action plan and time frame for the specific goals.
As a result, OKRs focus on the essential matters, boosting coordination, effort, and overall unification at all company levels.
- Digital Minimalism By Cal Newport
If you are addicted to your smartphone or spend a large chunk of your time on your computer, the Digital Minimalism book is sure to help you find a healthier balance. The book highlights how we can live a focused life, even in a highly technological world with a lot of distracting noises.
Why This Book?
- Limits technology from your life
- Includes a 30-day decluttering process
- It helps you reconnect to the physical world
- Has proven to reduce social anxiety
Digital Minimalism explores all the techniques you can adopt to let go of your phone and enjoy the world. Instead of becoming a social hermit and checking your phone every few seconds, it guides minimalist enthusiasts to partake in conversations and make memories without the need for documenting them.
What’s more, it helps people find activities that give them satisfaction and happiness, and not those that are trending. In our tech-saturated society, Newport has helped countless people find the best ways to reconnect with the world by identifying standard practices across the globe.
Although turning your phone off for a day might seem like an ideal method to find solitude, it is not successful for a long-term solution. Hence, Cal Newport has introduced a 30-days digital decluttering routine that will help you get control over your life.
- The Most Powerful Idea in the World by William Rosen
William Rosen has done a remarkable job diving deep into our history and explored the exact time where humans started progressing in leaps and bounds. To be more specific, this is the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Why This Book?
- Focuses on the start of innovations
- Insightful view into scientists’ minds
- Explores our history of the Industrial Revolution
If you are interested in both history and technology, this book is sure to probe your mind. It is another fantastic recommendation by Bill Gates that explores the invention of the steam engine and how the British were such incredible inventors.
Besides this, the book highlights how British law supported their people to profit from their inventions. As a result, it led to the birth of a clumsy steam engine, which later went on to become the backbone of every industry in the world.
Moreover, the book helps you look into some of the most renowned scientists and philosophers’ minds. If you are fascinated by innovations, science, and history, this book is going to leave you awe-struck.
- Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
Are you about to start your own business but need motivation and guidance from your favorite founders? If yes, then the Founders at Work offers incredible interviews from many entrepreneurs regarding their early start-up days.
Why This Book?
- Includes many interviews from renowned founders
- It offers a look at the early start-up days of celebrities
- It helps motivate you to make a game plan for your venture
The book includes interviews from the likes of Steve Wozniak of Apple, Max Levchin of PayPal, and even the founder of Hotmail, Sabeer Bhatia. In this book, you will learn how regular people, like you and me, turned into celebrities after amassing huge success from their business ventures.
Furthermore, the interviewees focus on their mistakes, game plans, recovery from losses, and even how they managed to get investors. If you are interested in business and all its bells and whistles, the interviews are sure to help you out.
- Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
Since Ed Catmull is the co-founder of Pixar Animations, you should rest assured that he is well-versed with bringing creativity into your life. As the book’s title suggests, Creativity, Inc. will help you overcome obstacles in your path to success.
Why This Book?
- Offers experience from the co-founder of Pixar animation studio
- Focuses on creativity and originality
- Defies conventional norms
Ed Catmull takes us on a roller-coaster of ideas on how to manage your team, find originality in all your pieces, and incorporate creativity in every aspect of your job. Furthermore, the author has discussed the ideals that backed all the incredible movies from Pixar Animation Studios.
Ed Catmull has highlighted his journey from when he was in a university till he founded Pixar in 1986. Moreover, the book is exceptionally motivational and teaches you to defy conventional ideas and add creativity to your thoughts.
- AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee
Dr. Kai-Fu Lee is a renowned expert on everything related to AI and China and has highlighted the AI competition between the two superpowers of the world.
Why This Book?
- Dives deep into the success behind AI Superpowers
- Explores AI effect on the society
- Emphasizes finding solutions and alternatives for the negatives associated with AI
If you are interested in learning about AI and ITs impact on job industries, this book is sure to clear out many of your apprehensions. AI isn’t just a gadget for boys, as it has real-life implications that go beyond borders.
The author has focused on the rapid pace of technological innovations and how they will devastate blue-collar jobs in every country worldwide. While white-collar industries will flourish, how can we create alternatives for the other spectrum of society?
Hence, Dr. Kai-Fu has urged superpowers to embrace their responsibilities to the community. Although AI can help many sectors positively, you should never forget its downsides too.
- Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark
Max Tegmark is an MIT professor who has a keen interest in AI and has taken part in many research projects regarding its impact on society. His book, Life 3.0, questions many ideas, problems, potentials, jobs, and the future with respect to AI innovations.
Why This Book?
- Explores the effect of AI on human life
- Discusses alternatives and future career planning with regards to AI
- Gives an insight into all the recent development around the globe
If you have ever wondered about how AI impacts our future, Life 3.0 is going to be an incredible read. It explores the impact of AI on wars, jobs, crime, society, and our whole future.
Moreover, the book explores the dark side of AI and how people fear dangerous autonomous weapons can be used in an arms race against other countries. You are also probed to think about the impact on jobs with the rise of robots, and how it can have both negative and positive effects.
Since the AI revolution is real and rapid, this book opens up one of the most powerful conversations of our time.
- Tools and Weapons by Brad Smith
Brad Smith is the president of Microsoft, who shares his broad thinking, ideas, and even the risks of rapid digitization of the world in his book, Tools and Weapons.
Why This Book?
- Offers insight from the president of the biggest tech giant
- Explores the effect of AI on every field
- Implores influential leaders and technologists to take responsibility for their actions
As the books’ name suggests, it emphasizes how the digital age has both pros and cons. While we all know how it can help humans prosper in every field imaginable, AI and technology have also come at the cost of wars, identity theft, and cybercrimes.
Although it seems controversial, Brad Smith has highlighted how every tech giant, superpower, and world leader is responsible for the repercussions of introducing advanced techniques into society.
If you want to know more about everything related to the digital age, you’ll find all your answers in this book.
Conclusion
The best way to catch up with the fast-paced technological advancements is to pick up a book about technology. Besides exploring all the impacts of these innovations, you get an insightful look into the most esteemed scientists’ minds.
Since all the books listed in our list have excellent recommendations from influential leaders, just pick out any to keep up-to-date with the rest of the world.