Reading Library
The books that shaped this framework
These works inform the Biological First Principles for Business series. Some are foundational biology texts. Others are business books whose insights align with biological patterns - sometimes explicitly, sometimes waiting to be connected. Each entry includes my review explaining how the book influenced my thinking.
Core Influences
These books fundamentally shaped how I think. If you read nothing else, start here.
Behavioral Economics
How humans actually behave, not how economists think they should
Alchemy
A behavioral economics masterclass disguised as an entertaining romp through advertising and human irrationality
Sutherland's counter-intuitive brilliance directly shaped the voice and approach of Biological First Principles. His arg...
Thinking, Fast and Slow
The two systems of thought and the systematic biases that affect decision-making
Kahneman's research explains why organizations make predictable errors. The biases he documents - survivorship bias, con...
Nudge
How small changes in choice architecture can influence decisions for the better
Nudge introduces choice architecture - the design of decision environments. This maps directly to how organisms design t...
Decision-Making
Research on making choices under uncertainty
Thinking in Bets
A professional poker player's guide to making better decisions under uncertainty
Duke's poker-informed decision framework maps directly to foraging optimization under uncertainty. Her distinction betwe...
The Black Swan
A philosophical investigation into the role of rare, unpredictable events in history and markets
Taleb's work on fat-tailed distributions and rare events is fundamental to understanding why standard business planning ...
Superforecasting
Rigorous research on what distinguishes accurate forecasters from everyone else
Tetlock's research on what makes forecasters accurate maps directly to environmental sensing in biology. Superforecaster...
Biology & Evolution
Primary biological sources - the evolutionary thinking that informs the framework
Wilding
The remarkable true story of rewilding a 3,500-acre estate and the cascade of biodiversity that followed
This book fundamentally shaped my understanding of ecosystem dynamics and the power of letting go. The Knepp experiment ...
Feral
A manifesto for ecological restoration and the reintroduction of wildness
Monbiot's passionate argument for rewilding introduced me to trophic cascades - the idea that reintroducing predators ca...
The Selfish Gene
The gene-centered view of evolution that reframed how we understand natural selection
The gene-centered view of evolution is the foundation of evolutionary thinking. Dawkins' reframing - that organisms are ...
The Origin of Species
The foundational text of evolutionary biology and natural selection
The book that started it all. Darwin's careful observation and clear reasoning remain the foundation of evolutionary thi...
The Brain
An accessible tour of how the brain creates our experience of reality
Eagleman's accessible neuroscience provides the foundation for understanding feedback loops, prediction, and adaptive be...
Breath
A deep dive into the science and practice of breathing
Nestor's exploration of breathing reveals how even the most fundamental biological processes can be optimized or degrade...
Gut
An accessible tour of the digestive system and its surprising importance
Enders makes the microbiome accessible and fascinating. The gut as an ecosystem - with its own organisms, feedback loops...
Explaining Humans
A neurodivergent scientist's guide to understanding human behavior
Pang uses her neurodivergent perspective to decode human behavior through scientific frameworks. Her approach - using bi...
Autopoiesis and Cognition
The seminal work defining autopoiesis and the biological basis of cognition
The foundational text that defined what makes living systems alive. Maturana and Varela coined 'autopoiesis' - self-crea...
The Tree of Knowledge
An illustrated journey through how living systems know and create themselves
The accessible companion to 'Autopoiesis and Cognition'. Where the 1980 book is dense academic theory, this is Maturana ...
Business Strategy
Business books with biological parallels, waiting to be connected
Platform Revolution
A comprehensive guide to platform business models and ecosystem design
The definitive book on platform businesses, which I read through a biological lens as mutualism at scale. Platforms are ...
Crossing the Chasm
The classic guide to marketing high-tech products through the adoption lifecycle
Moore's technology adoption lifecycle is ecological succession by another name. The transition from early adopters to ea...
The Venture Mindset
Research-backed insights on how venture capitalists think about risk, opportunity, and growth
Strebulaev's research-based approach to venture thinking maps directly to exploration vs. exploitation trade-offs in bio...
The Infinite Game
A framework for long-term organizational thinking based on game theory
Sinek's distinction between finite and infinite games maps to the biological concept of iteroparity - repeated reproduct...
Blue Ocean Strategy
Creating new market spaces rather than competing in existing ones
Blue Ocean Strategy is niche partitioning in business language. Creating uncontested market space is finding an ecologic...
The Lean Startup
A methodology for developing products through validated learning and rapid iteration
Ries' build-measure-learn loop is evolutionary iteration applied to product development. The emphasis on validated learn...
The Innovator's Dilemma
Why successful companies fail by doing everything 'right' - and what to do about it
Christensen's work is the business equivalent of understanding mass extinctions. Species (companies) perfectly adapted t...
Inspired
The definitive guide to modern product management practices
Cagan's product management framework emphasizes continuous discovery and adaptation - essentially an evolutionary approa...
Accelerate
Research-backed insights on building high-performing technology organizations
Rigorous research showing that high-performing tech organizations share specific capabilities. The emphasis on flow, fee...
Turn the Ship Around!
How a submarine captain transformed leadership by pushing authority to information
Marquet's transformation of a nuclear submarine from worst to best in the fleet demonstrates distributed control in acti...
Good Strategy Bad Strategy
Defining what strategy actually means and how to create it
Rumelt cuts through strategic fluff to the essence: a good strategy is a coherent response to a challenge. His kernel of...
Systems & Scale
Complex systems, scaling laws, and the mathematics of growth
Algorithms to Live By
How algorithms from computer science can inform everyday decisions
This book reveals that computer scientists have independently discovered many of the same optimization strategies that e...
The Unaccountability Machine
A systems thinking explanation for why institutions fail to learn and improve
Davies applies Stafford Beer's cybernetics to explain why large organizations make predictable errors. The concept of 'a...
Scale
A physicist's exploration of why size matters - from cities to companies to organisms
West's work demonstrates that scaling laws aren't metaphors - they're mathematical constraints that govern biological an...
Superintelligence
A philosophical analysis of existential risks from artificial superintelligence
Bostrom's analysis of AI risk is fundamentally about emergence - what happens when systems become more intelligent than ...
Nexus
How information networks have shaped human history and will shape our future
Harari traces how information networks - from myths to algorithms - shape human cooperation. The concept of information ...
Community & Belonging
How groups form, function, and thrive
The Business of Belonging
How to build communities that create business value through authentic belonging
Spinks' framework for building business communities maps directly to colony dynamics in social insects. Community is an ...
Net Positive
A framework for building businesses that benefit all stakeholders
Polman's framework for sustainable business is mutualism at scale. Companies that give more than they take create positi...
Resilience
How systems survive and benefit from volatility
Economics & Markets
Complexity and evolutionary thinking applied to economic systems
Supporting Reading
Excellent books that deepen understanding of specific concepts or provide valuable business context.
Business Strategy
Business books with biological parallels, waiting to be connected
Good to Great
The research-based study of what differentiates great companies from merely good ones
Collins' research provides empirical grounding for several biological concepts. The Flywheel Effect maps to positive fee...
Team of Teams
How networked organizations can outperform hierarchies in complex environments
McChrystal's transformation of special operations forces demonstrates how network organization can outperform hierarchy ...
Loonshots
How organizations can nurture radical innovation using physics principles
Bahcall uses phase transitions from physics to explain why organizations suddenly shift from embracing innovation to kil...
The Mom Test
How to have customer conversations that reveal truth, not politeness
Fitzpatrick's framework for customer conversations is about honest signal detection - learning to extract real informati...
Content Inc.
Build audience first, then monetise - with ruthless channel focus
Pulizzi's core advice is profoundly biological: find one or two channels that work and focus everything there. Don't spr...
Decision-Making
Research on making choices under uncertainty
Poor Charlie's Almanack
A collection of speeches, talks, and insights from Charlie Munger on thinking and investing
Munger's mental models approach is the closest thing to biological first principles thinking in the investment world. Hi...
The Signal and the Noise
An exploration of prediction success and failure across diverse domains
Silver's analysis of prediction across domains - elections, weather, earthquakes, baseball - provides practical framewor...
Human Nature
Understanding what makes us human
Sapiens
A sweeping history of Homo sapiens from the cognitive revolution to the present
Harari's sweep through human history provides context for why we cooperate, create fictions, and build organizations. Hi...
The Righteous Mind
The evolutionary psychology of morality and political division
Haidt's moral foundations theory explains why humans form tribes and how moral intuitions evolved. Understanding these f...
The Blank Slate
The case for acknowledging evolved human nature
Pinker's defense of human nature against blank-slate thinking provides the scientific foundation for understanding why p...
Enlightenment Now
A data-rich argument that the world is improving by most measures
Pinker's data-driven case for progress provides essential context for understanding long-term trends. Despite daily news...
Humankind
Evidence that humans are fundamentally decent and cooperative
Bregman challenges the cynical view of human nature with evidence that humans are fundamentally cooperative. This optimi...
What We Owe the Future
A philosophical case for prioritizing the long-term future
MacAskill's case for longtermism - prioritizing the far future - maps to biological concepts of intergenerational fitnes...
Prisoners of Geography
How physical geography constrains nations' strategic options
Marshall demonstrates that geography shapes geopolitics - nations are constrained by their physical environments. This i...
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Harari turns his evolutionary lens on the challenges facing humanity today
Where Sapiens looked back and Homo Deus looked forward, this book looks at now - the challenges we face today. Harari ap...
Moral Tribes
The neuroscience of why moral disagreements are so difficult to resolve
Greene digs deeper into the neuroscience of morality than Haidt. His 'dual-process' model of moral cognition - fast emot...
Economics & Markets
Complexity and evolutionary thinking applied to economic systems
The Psychology of Money
Behavioral insights on how people actually think about money and wealth
Housel's behavioral finance insights connect directly to survival strategies. His emphasis on survival over optimization...
Why Information Grows
An information-theoretic view of economic development and growth
Hidalgo reframes economic growth as information growth - which connects directly to biological concepts of information s...
The Intelligent Investor
The classic text on value investing and capital preservation
Graham's value investing principles are K-strategy applied to capital allocation - patient, defensive, focused on surviv...
A Random Walk Down Wall Street
The case for index investing and market efficiency
Malkiel's efficient market hypothesis suggests that markets incorporate information so quickly that consistent outperfor...
Doughnut Economics
A new economic model based on planetary boundaries and social foundations
Raworth's doughnut model - meeting human needs within planetary boundaries - is ecological carrying capacity applied to ...
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
700 pages proving that wealth concentrates - and where biological parallels break down
Piketty's central finding - that returns on capital (r) exceed economic growth (g) over time - raises fascinating biolog...
Breakneck
How two superpowers are more alike than they admit - just optimising differently
Wang reveals something profound: America and China are more similar than either admits. Both follow the same underlying ...
Psychology
The evolved psychology underlying organizational behavior
Data & Analysis
Seeing reality more clearly
Product Design
Creating products that resonate with evolved psychology
Biology & Evolution
Primary biological sources - the evolutionary thinking that informs the framework
The Superorganism
The definitive work on how insect colonies function as unified organisms
Insect societies are the best biological models for how large organizations can coordinate without centralized control. ...
Life on Air
The memoir of the man who taught the world to love nature
Sir David Attenborough has done more to connect humans with the natural world than perhaps any person in history. This m...
Design
Nature-inspired approaches to innovation
Complexity
Deep dives into complex adaptive systems and emergence
Technology
How technology evolves and shapes organizations
Writing & Communication
Smart Brevity
A practical guide to communicating clearly and concisely
The Axios founders' framework for concise communication is signaling efficiency in practice. In an attention-scarce envi...
The Sense of Style
A cognitive science approach to clear, effective writing
Pinker applies cognitive science to writing style. His concept of the 'curse of knowledge' - forgetting what it's like n...
Personal Development
Principles
Ray Dalio's systematized approach to life and work decisions
Dalio's codified principles are essentially heuristics - decision rules distilled from experience. His emphasis on radic...
Digital Minimalism
A philosophy of intentional technology use
Newport's case for intentional technology use is about optimizing signal-to-noise ratio in attention. In an environment ...
Peak
The science of how expertise is developed through deliberate practice
Ericsson's research on deliberate practice shows how expertise develops through structured effort. This maps to evolutio...
Why We Sleep
The science of sleep and why it matters for health and performance
Walker's research reveals that sleep is not optional overhead but essential maintenance. The biological requirement for ...
Range
Why breadth beats depth in complex, unpredictable domains
Epstein's case for generalism over specialization challenges the 10,000 hours narrative. In unpredictable environments, ...
The Power of Now
A spiritual guide that accidentally describes how most of nature operates
Here's the biological question Tolle raises without knowing it: what proportion of our energy goes to conscious vs. unco...
Prior Art
The Biology of Business (Clippinger)
A 1999 edited collection applying complexity and self-organization to business management
Until it came to naming this series, I didn't know this book existed. Published in 1999, Clippinger's edited collection ...
The Biology of Business (Eaddy)
A 2024 book applying biological systems thinking to organizational management with diagnostic frameworks
Until it came to naming this series, I didn't know this book existed. Published in 2024 - meaning Dr. Eaddy and I were l...
Broader Reading
Fiction and wider reading that illuminates biological thinking through story and narrative.
Fiction
Stories that illuminate biological concepts better than textbooks
Children of Time
An epic tale of evolution, featuring uplifted spiders developing civilization over millennia
The best science fiction exploration of evolution and emergence I've encountered. Watching spider society evolve through...
Dune
An epic tale of ecology, politics, and religion on a desert planet
The greatest ecological science fiction ever written. Herbert's Arrakis is a complete ecosystem, and the Fremen's adapta...
The Three-Body Problem
First contact with an alien civilization and its devastating implications
Liu's hard science fiction explores contact with alien civilizations through a lens of game theory and existential risk....
Naming Conflicts
Books with titles or concepts that overlap with biological terminology used in this framework.
Framework Crosswalk
Looking for books that influenced a specific framework or concept? The crosswalk maps each of my biological frameworks to the books that shaped it.
View Framework → Book Mapping →Want to go deeper?
The full Biology of Business book explores these concepts in depth with practical frameworks.