Nine Summer Book Recommendations for Forward-Thinking Investors, Chosen by EQT
EQT staff recommend their top beach reads to pack for your vacation this summer.
With northern-hemisphere summer in full swing, we’ve polled our EQT colleagues to collate their top recommendations for books to read on vacation. From AI to psychology, the list is both broad and deep, with something for everyone.
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
By Chris Voss
“Chris Voss makes a compelling case that the best negotiators are not the loudest, toughest or most uncompromising, but the people who listen most carefully, ask the sharpest questions and make the other side feel understood. Never Split the Difference is a reminder that negotiation is not just a business skill; it is a human one. Essential reading for anyone who wants to get better outcomes without losing sight of the person across the table,” says Léonore de Saint Pierre, an associate in EQT’s Global Client Solutions team.
Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI
By Karen Hao
“Most of us use AI daily without questioning who built it, why and at what cost. If you want to understand the forces driving the technology we use daily – not the hype, the actual machinery – this is essential reading,” says Guillermo López, an engineering manager in EQT’s Warsaw office.
Governing the Machine: How to Navigate the Risks of AI and Unlock Its True Potential
By Ray Eitel-Porter, Miriam Vogel and Paul Dongha
“This book provides the practical answers to questions literally everyone is asking. As the blurb says, Governing the Machine provides business leaders with a practical, flexible framework for building comprehensive and robust AI governance. The book is selling like hotcakes, and Ray Eitel-Porter is a new EQT Industrial Advisor, so it’s great to give insights to a broad ThinQ audience,” says Sophie Walker, senior advisor for sustainability and responsible AI at EQT.
Energy and Civilization: A History
By Vaclav Smil
“Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts – from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics and the environment,” says Gautam Nadella, CEO of EQT’s U.S. private equity operating company.
How Great Ideas Happen: The Hidden Steps Behind Breakthrough Success
By George Newman
“Creativity is being reframed as not a sole lightning strike, but rather a skill you can practice and refine. George Newman is a cognitive scientist, drawing on research from innovation and psychology. The finale gives you a framework for scanning widely and finding better ideas not just at work but rather throughout life,” says Charlotte de Weger, a vice-president in EQT’s Compliance team.
1929: The Inside Story of The Greatest Crash in Wall Street History
By Andrew Ross Sorkin
“Inside the greatest crash in Wall Street history, detailing the events leading up to it, the crash itself and its aftermath,” says Peter Aliprantis, EQT’s head of Private Wealth Americas.
Ways Of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence
By James Bridle
“An AI architect’s exploration into non-human intelligence. Bridle considers what it means for mushrooms, cuttlefish and trees to experience the world. The future belongs to collaboration across intelligences rather than domination over them. This is exactly how Real Estate’s AI program is being built: looking to nature to grow our knowledge mycelium. A foundational book in the modern New York technologist’s stack, and a reminder that Silicon Valley keeps writing the intelligence test in its own shape – and missing most of the minds that make the world beautiful,” says Alex Carusillo, who leads AI initiatives in EQT’s Real Estate team.
Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment
By Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R Sunstein
"Not necessarily a sequel to Thinking Fast and Slow but another great book from Daniel Kahneman, this time on how randomness messes with our judgment and creates actual errors that add up. Two smart people making the same call on different days will come up with different answers. That is noise and could potentially be costly. As investors, we cannot control the market or timing, but we can control how much randomness we let into our own decisions. The book walks you through where your blind spots are and how to tighten things up, with lots of entertaining and real-world examples that make it a fun read,” says Queenie Wong, who covers consumer tech and fintech with the Asia Growth team.
Who Knew
By Barry Diller
“Barry Diller's ascent was meteoric. He launched ABC TV's Movie of the Week at age 27, became CEO of Paramount Pictures at 32 and started the Fox TV network at 44. He also founded IAC, growing it into a billion-dollar constellation of brands, including Match, Tinder and Expedia. Diller’s memoir covers more than five industries – including old media, new media and digital – and is full of insightful perspectives on business disruption,” says Hari Gopalakrishnan, EQT’s co-head of Private Capital Asia.
See last year’s book recommendations here.
ThinQ by EQT: A publication where private markets meet open minds. Join the conversation – [email protected]
On the topic ofSummer
Exclusive News and Insights Every Month
Sign up to subscribe to the EQT newsletter.