r/Entrepreneur · 2020
Most-mentioned books in r/Entrepreneur during 2020
This page ranks books by exact tracked mentions in r/Entrepreneur within the published source unit for 2020. Counts come from the reconciled subreddit-by-month matrix; a source unit may be a bounded sample.
#1 The E-Myth Revisited
Michael E. Gerber
Michael Gerber's diagnosis: most small business owners don't own a business — they own a job, and they're the worst boss they've ever had.
#2 The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Ben Horowitz
Ben Horowitz on the decisions nobody prepares you for: layoffs, firings, and the WFIO moments every real company survives or doesn't.
#3 The Lean Startup
Eric Ries
Eric Ries tells founders to ship a broken version on purpose, collect data, and repeat until the market stops ignoring them.
#4 Zero to One
Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel argues that copying what already works produces competition and thin margins, and that building a monopoly is the only business worth starting.
#5 Never Split the Difference
Chris Voss
A former FBI hostage negotiator teaches the same tactical empathy he used to talk down kidnappers — applied to salary talks, vendor deals, and difficult bosses.
#6 Shoe Dog
Phil Knight
Phil Knight recounts selling Japanese running shoes out of a car trunk in 1962 and the 26-year scramble to turn that bet into Nike.
#7 Company of One
Paul Jarvis
Paul Jarvis's argument that staying small on purpose beats chasing growth, cited on r/startups as the book that reframes what a business is allowed to be.
#8 Deep Work
Cal Newport
Cal Newport makes the case that sustained focus is a trainable skill, then shows why almost every modern workplace is systematically destroying it.
#9 Fooled by Randomness
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nassim Taleb's argument that most successful traders are lucky, not skilled — told through trading floors, coin flips, and survivorship bias.
#10 Good to Great
Jim Collins
Jim Collins studied 1,435 companies to find 11 that leapt from average to elite — the book r/Entrepreneur still recommends even after the methodology got shredded.
#11 Hooked
Nir Eyal
Nir Eyal's blueprint for building products that keep users coming back — and a map of exactly how apps have been rewiring your brain.
#12 The 4-Hour Workweek
Timothy Ferriss
Tim Ferriss's 2007 case for outsourcing your life and working 4 hours a week has become a meme, but 18 Reddit mentions suggest the Pareto principle chapter still lands.
#13 The First 90 Days
Michael D. Watkins
A leadership playbook for the first three months at a new job, built around reading the room before trying to change it.
#14 The Personal MBA
Josh Kaufman
Josh Kaufman argues you can teach yourself everything an MBA covers for the price of a few books, then lists which mental models actually matter.