Top 10 Tech Investing Books
They’re all pretty cheap brand new, but if you’re a real cheapskate like me you’ll buy them for $5 or less used on Amazon.com.
So without further adieu, here are my top ten tech investing books:
1) How to Make Money in Stocks
Momentum investing is politically incorrect – it’s almost a bit savage to some, lacking in intellectual curiousity and unpopular with university professors. But if you want to invest on the leading edge of technology, you must embrace momentum.
The great growth stories in the history of technology – Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), and Google (GOOG)- all had one thing in common during their respective heydays: They constantly smashed earnings estimates, and were all expensive stocks that continued to get MORE expensive. Yes, you must understand technology itself, but you must also understand the nature of go-go momentum.
If you want to play the next big tech stocks, you must pick up How to Make Money in Stocks.
2) The Innovator’s Dilemma
The Innovator’s Dilemma is a great book for not only tech investors, but tech enthusiasts of all stripes. What’s great about it is that it focuses on the concept of disruptive business models, and how seemingly-invincible companies with great products and customer service can be toppled by nimbler competitors with cheaper products. In fact, I believe we’re seeing this phenomena happening in the motion-picture industry, where the low-priced (well, relatively speaking of course) RED camera is replacing camera systems costing 10 times as much money.
The Innovator’s Dilemma really shines because it will make you paranoid – you won’t take your portfolio companies for granted, and you’ll keep your eyes on the little guys that are about to shake things up.
3) Blue Ocean Strategy
What is a Blue Ocean Strategy? It’s a business strategy focused on creating a new market rather than competing an existing one. Many of the world’s most successful companies have employed Blue Ocean Strategies. Here are a few:
- Research-In-Motion – mobile emails
- Salesforce.com – on-demand CRM software
- Nintendo – motion-control video games
Blue Ocean Strategy is a great complement to The Innovator’s Dilemma, because they will educate you about two different types of successful tech business models – the nimble giant slayer (The Innovator’s Dilemma) and the market creator (Blue Ocean Strategy).
4) Wall Street Meat
Wall Street Meat is the Liar’s Poker of the tech bubble. With a cast of characters including Henry Blodget, Frank Quattrone, and Jack Grubman, it is THE ultimate insider story on what went wrong with Wall Street during the Internet boom.
Yes, Kessler sometimes comes off as holier-than-thou in this book, but he did make one significant accomplishment with this book: he showed people like Mary Meeker and Jack Grubman as multi-dimension, rather than just simple bad guys as the press made them out to be.
It’s a great read for a cross-country plane ride. Kessler’s Running Money
5) Confessions of a Street Addict
I read Confessions soon after I joined TheStreet.com (TSCM) in 2004. It’s quite simply the best hedge fund book ever written. If Jim Cramer didn’t exist, someone would have had to invent him as a character. This book is awesome because it wasn’t written by a typical Wall Street guy – it was written by someone who was willing to leave in all the blood, suicidal thoughts, and vomit (yes, vomit) it took to get to the top.
I’m including COASA in this list because like Kessler’s books, it takes us inside Wall Street during the Internet bubble, a historic time for technology investing. Jim tells us what it was like to ride a rocketship, and jump off right before it exploded. A lot of people hate Jim Cramer, but few hedge-fund mavens can match his track record during the 1990’s.
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The rest of this list is coming soon!