The Essential MBA

While not everyone can afford a $100,000 MBA, everyone can learn the essentials for under $100. Skip the textbooks and go straight to the goods with these nine books.

1. Entrepreneurship: The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Applying Toyota’s Lean Manufacturing principles to starting a business in the Internet Age.

2. Strategy: Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt

Using ‘Kernel’ of Diagnosis, Guiding Policy, and Coherent Action as framework for analysis of all the big companies.

3. Finance: Financial Intelligence by Berman & Knight

Making sense of the science & art of finance from the perspective of a business manager.

4. Economics: Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

A decidedly un-dismal survey of the dismal science by one of the most prolific & insightful writers of the last 50 years.

5. Operations: Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows

Showing how no problem is ever as easy as it seems while geeking out on stocks, flows, links, & loops.

6. Business Law & Ethics: The Legal Analyst by Ward Farnsworth

The intersection of behavioral psychology & the law.

7. Organizational Behavior: Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson et al

Applying a 3-phase framework to the highest stakes conversations we have.

8. Marketing: Influence by Robert Cialdini

Six “weapons of influence”: Reciprocation, Commitment, Proof, Liking, Authority, & Scarcity.

9. Leadership: The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker

Five keys to effective leadership: Time Management, Results Orientation, Strengths Focus, Prioritization, & Decision-Making.

Bonus film: The Founder

Entrepreneurship, Strategy, Operations, Finance, Marketing—all of modern business is here in a nutshell.