Because the curtain falls on 2025, it is solely pure to look again on the tales and concepts that formed our pondering this 12 months — and for Enterprise Insider staffers, that features books.
We requested our reporters to share the enterprise, tech, and innovation books that left the most important impression on them this 12 months. Not all of those titles hit the cabinets in 2025, however every supplied one thing priceless: a brand new perspective, a spark of creativity, or just a narrative we could not put down.
Our picks span every little thing from Huge Tech memoirs and Wall Road deep dives to popular culture biographies and reflections on identification and innovation.
This is a take a look at the books that outlined our 12 months in studying — and would possibly simply encourage your subsequent picks over the vacations and into 2026.
“Burn Guide: A Tech Love Story” by Kara Swisher
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Pictures
Hugh Langley: It is laborious to think about a reporter who’s had a greater front-row seat to the historical past of Silicon Valley than Kara Swisher. “Burn Guide” makes an attempt to each chronicle the unstoppable rise of tech and her position because the dogged reporter caught within the frenzy. Lord is aware of that journalists love tales about journalists, so the latter facet grabbed me most.
For these extra eager about Swisher’s central line of inquiry — how and why did Huge Tech find yourself so cozy with the Trump administration? — “Burn Guide” gives a whistle-stop historical past lesson of how the web upended the media trade, our relationship to know-how — every little thing, actually — and topped a brand new technology of eccentric moguls.
For anybody who has adopted Swisher’s reporting as carefully as I’ve (she launched Recode the 12 months I received my first job as a tech journalist) it is not fairly an earth-shattering exposè, however eminently readable and chock stuffed with anecdotes — together with a very bizarre one about Sergey Brin’s child bathe.
“The Winner’s Curse: Behavioral Economics Anomalies Then and Now” by Richard H. Thaler and Alex O. Imas
Samuel O’Brient: As each a fan and scholar of behavioral economics, I used to be extraordinarily excited after I noticed that Richard Thaler can be releasing an up to date version of the ebook that helped form the complete self-discipline.
Its launch led to me having a nice dialog with each he and Alex Imas about their insights, each outdated and new, and the way a lot they apply to my work at Enterprise Insider. Behavioral economics is extraordinarily necessary for anybody searching for to know the investing world and this ebook helps illustrate why.
“Doppelganger: A Journey into the Mirror World” by Naomi Klein
Kasia Kovacs: There is no straightforward method to sum up this ebook, however I will take a stab: It is a social and political commentary grown from writer Naomi Klein’s frustration with being confused with the “Different Naomi” — Naomi Wolf. However the ebook covers much more floor, too. It is an exploration of tech and the eye financial system, and the way our on-line personas (our shadow selves, or doppelgangers, if you’ll) and the deep corners of the web spur misinformation and conspiracy theories.
“Doppelganger” was revealed two years in the past, and in that brief time AI has continued to proliferate at a fast charge. Studying it in 2025, one should surprise concerning the rising affect of AI on this spectrum of points within the on-line “mirror world.”
“Gwyneth: The Biography” by Amy Odell
Henry Chandonnet: Hear me out: This biography is 60% scrumptious popular culture gossip and 40% a stellar enterprise ebook. After nearly totally quitting appearing, Gwyneth Paltrow devoted herself to her wellness model Goop. There have been peaks and valleys between its increase as a media enterprise, its growth into magnificence and meals supply, and its subsequent bust, marked by layoffs and shutdowns.
Odell made me simply as eager about Paltrow the enterprise maven as I used to be in Paltrow the actor. Her first ebook on Anna Wintour is nice, too, should you’re into the Condé-ology that blew up this 12 months.
“Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Reworking the Way forward for Conflict” by Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff
Julia Hornstein: “Unit X” gives up the requisite context an excellent, critical piece of nonfiction ought to — the type a brand new protection tech beat reporter would possibly artfully deploy when chatting together with her editors. It makes the compelling case that the US misplaced its edge in battlefield tech across the flip of the century as rivals discovered to construct advanced weapons cheaply and rapidly. However the energy of the ebook comes from its tempo — the authors notice the stakes solely moments earlier than the reader does.
“Unit X” opens with Shah flitting over Iraq’s border aboard an F-16 fighter jet, a technological marvel with a small downside: The plane could not show precisely the place Shah was. On his subsequent flight, Shah jerry-rigged his personal navigation software program utilizing low-cost business tech. The repair labored, catalyzing the authors’ driving function — to convey ready-made tech from Silicon Valley to Capitol Hill, as they put it, “we needed to hack the Pentagon itself.”
“What Do You Do With an Thought?” by Kobi Yamada and illustrated by Mae Besom
Melia Russell: The enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz as soon as despatched this ebook to my techie husband when our daughter was born. She’s 5 now, and this was the 12 months the ebook lastly earned its place within the bedtime rotation.
“What Do You Do With an Thought?” follows a toddler who discovers a wierd, barely unwieldy concept that trails him like a misplaced pet. The kid worries about what individuals will suppose, till he lastly decides to nurture the thought. The world is healthier for it. It is a quietly highly effective examine creativity, braveness, and the delicate early days of an enormous thought.
“Careless Folks: A Cautionary Story of Energy, Greed, and Misplaced Idealism” by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Flatiron Books
Jyoti Mann: Few books this 12 months have captured Huge Tech’s inside workings as vividly as this memoir from a former Fb public coverage director.
Studying it by way of the lens of somebody who covers Meta, I used to be each fascinated and unsettled by the eye-opening particulars that give us a behind-the-scenes take a look at the corporate and dynamics inside Meta’s high ranks. The ebook is a feast of perception — deliciously written and not possible to place down.
“1929: Contained in the Biggest Crash in Wall Road Historical past — and The way it Shattered a Nation” by Andrew Ross Sorkin
Emma Cosgrove: If you wish to really feel calmer concerning the financially precarious second we discover ourselves in now, examine a actual crash. Earlier than the SEC, earlier than so many laws that maintain us from monetary oblivion, psychics had been prolific inventory pickers of the day and buying and selling was a cultural phenomenon — a stylish, addictive pastime as a lot as a stairway to wealth.
Nothing calmed me down concerning the AI bubble fairly like learning The Nice Despair and Sorkin’s take is vivid, fast-moving, and about as enjoyable as a monetary catastrophe story may be. Can I hear echoes at present? Positive. Do I believe we’re on the point of something related? Nah.
“No Extra Tears: The Darkish Secrets and techniques of Johnson & Johnson” by Gardiner Harris
Ellen Thomas: That is each a company historical past of an iconic and trusted American heritage model and an exposé into its lengthy sample of exploiting that belief in pursuit of maximal revenue, regardless of the fee to human well being and life. The ebook breaks down J&J’s historical past of legally and ethically questionable — and admittedly harmful — enterprise practices chapter by chapter, masking a distinct product and associated catastrophe in each.
The J&J talcum powder scandal has been well-covered, however I believe you will discover it stunning what number of J&J merchandise have prompted hurt at scale. “No Extra Tears” is admittedly infuriating and to be trustworthy I needed to take somewhat break from company non-fiction after I learn it, however in the end it is an necessary and revealing ebook that jogged my memory why I do that job.
“Chip Conflict: The Combat for the World’s Most Essential Expertise” by Chris Miller
Meghan Morris: From Intel’s new CEO to US-China export controls, Chris Miller’s prescient 2022 ebook explains lots of 2025’s headlines. The ebook traces the underpinnings of at present’s astronomical wealth creation and delicate geopolitical questions again a long time, by way of vignettes about individuals and firms and those who have pale from public consciousness.
For tech consultants and Luddites alike, this historical past will inform your understanding of the forex driving a lot of the world’s financial system. Readers achieve new appreciation for the know-how that powers your iPhone and 401(okay) alike — and insights into simply how fragile the gazillion-dollar ecosystem is.
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