Episode · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2025-12-17
Tim Ferriss & Bill Gurley: books mentioned on The Tim Ferriss Show #840
#840: Bill Gurley — Investing in The AI Era, 10 Days in China, and Important Life Lessons from Bob Dylan, Jerry Seinfeld, MrBeast, and More
Bill Gurley (@bgurley) is a general partner at Benchmark, a leading venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. His new book is Runnin’ Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love.
Tim Ferriss discussed Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. Bill Gurley recommended Competitive Strategy by Michael E. Porter and From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks, and discussed Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital by C. Perez, Breakneck by Dan Wang, GRIT The Power of PASSION and PERSEVERANCE by Angela Duckworth, The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth, Moneyball by Michael Lewis, and The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Greenlights
Discussed“I started listening to Green Lights. There's a story in it from when he was like 20.”
Where to get it
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Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital
Discussed“My my partner Peter reminded me of a book that we had seen a a while ago by Carlaua Perez. It has this very benign title, Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital.”
Where to get it
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Breakneck
Discussed“I was aided by the fact that Dan Wong shared his book Breakneck with me right before I left and I read it while I was there, which was interesting.”
Where to get it
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GRIT The Power of PASSION and PERSEVERANCE
Discussed“I had the opportunity to talk to Angela Duckworth when I was working on this and her book Grit talks about two components, passion and perseverance.”
Where to get it
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The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Discussed“I had the opportunity to talk to Angela Duckworth when I was working on this and her book Grit talks about two components, passion and perseverance.”
Where to get it
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Moneyball
Discussed“he reads a book called Moneyball which we all know of the Michael Lewis book about the Oakland A's in almost what seems like an instant decided I really need to be in sports analytics and I mentioned that a lot of the stories we found have this intentionality so that book just like the Seinfeld the last laugh did”
Where to get it
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Competitive Strategy
Recommended“For people who are not going to get an NBA, would you still suggest everyone read the first three chapters of Michael Porter's competitive strategy techniques for analyzing industries and competitive? Unquestionably, anyone that's going to do anything in business should read that book.”
Where to get it
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From Strength to Strength
Recommended“Because you had two successful careers as not just a podcast or influencer, but as an angel investor, I would I would encourage you to read Arthur Brook's book, Strength to Strength. I did. I did. It was already it was great.”
Where to get it
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The Rational Optimist
Discussed“And this gets back to Ridley's book, The Rational Optimist, but he talks about prosperity comes when ideas have sex. And just the sharing of information in my mind should be free”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (1) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“So, as part of researching my new book, Running Down a Dream, my coowriter and I, we spent six years just diving through stories because I had done this speech at the University of Texas and we wanted to enhance it, you know, when we went to the printed form.”