CEOs and other leaders share their summer book picks
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. Though June 21 is still a few weeks away, for many Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer. For me, it’s also a time for making a dent in the stack of books on my nightstand. I asked some avid readers to recommend books they think leaders should check out this summer. Here are their inspired picks: Jason Blum, Founder and CEO, Blumhouse Who Knew by Barry Diller Diller is one of the most consequential people in the [media] industry’s history, and he’s also someone I consider a genuine mentor. His memoir, Who Knew, reads the way he actually talks, which means no spin and no flattering self-portrait. He tells you exactly how deals got made and why people behaved the way they did. For anyone trying to understand how real power operates in entertainment, it’s essential reading. Corey duBrowa, CEO, Burson Tailwind: A Compass for Turning Your Setback Story Into Your Comeback Legacy by James T. Olson Professionally, managing crisis has a way of sharpening the mind. In our personal lives, it too often derails us. Jim has been in the captain’s seat for both, and in this powerful book he shares the lessons he learned as a top-flight comms exec, and how he turned them inward to navigate the most difficult challenge of his life. Simon Freakley, Executive Chairman, Alixpartners When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut This book explores the mathematicians and physicists who, during the first half of the 20th century, worked out how to split the atom and discovered the laws of quantum physics. These findings underpin the whole of nuclear science and form the basis of t