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Alyssa Powell/Business Insider
Warren Buffett - arguably the most skilled investor of our time - said reading 500 pages a day was the key to success, because, "That's how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest."
This is likely why so many important businessmen and women make reading a daily part of their lives. It's why Bill Gates reads 50 books every year (roughly one a week) and Mark Zuckerberg kicked off 2015 with the goal of reading one every other week.
If you want exposure to new ideas, modes of thinking, and a compounded aggregate of diverse knowledge, then reading is important. And it's going to help you in business, be it by a mixture of accounts on other corporate successes or failures and lessons on lean startups, or a 2,500-year-old military tome that works just as well in boardrooms as war.
Below are the 25 most influential business books of all time, if you're looking to start with those most worth your time:
Descriptions provided by Amazon and edited for length.