Books That Shaped My Thinking
A curated collection of books that influenced Ali Khalfan’s approach to business, leadership, investing, execution, discipline, personal growth, and long-term value creation.
Learning From Builders, Operators, and Long-Term Thinkers
Great leaders continue learning.
For Ali Khalfan, books are not just sources of information. They are tools for sharpening thinking, improving decision-making, building discipline, and understanding how great companies, leaders, and investors operate over time.
This page highlights books that reflect Ali’s interest in business building, leadership, operations, investing, ownership, and personal development.
Featured Books
Relativity: the special and the general theory
by Albert Einstein
A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking
Flatland
by Edwin Abbott Abbott
Tao Te Ching
by Laozi
In Search of Schrödinger's Cat
by John Gribbin
The Prince
by Niccolo Machiavelli
The Fountainhead
y Ayn Rand
Rich Dad Poor Dad
by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter
Teams At The Top
by Jon Katzenbach
The One Minute Manager
by Ken Blanchard
Think and Grow Rich
by Napoleon Hill
The Art of War
by Sun Tzu
Atomic Habits
by James Clear
Chaos
by James Gleick
Management
by Richard L. Daft
The 4-Hour Workweek
by Scott Dikkers
The 80/20 Principle
by Scott Dikkers
SQL For Dummies
by Allen G. Taylor
How to Win Friends and Influence People
by Dale Carnegie’s
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap
by James C. Collins
Indiamodern: Traditional Forms and Contemporary Design
by Herbert J. M. Ypma
The Transition to Agile Manufacturing
by Joseph C. Montgomery
One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey
by Hal Burrows, Ken Blanchard, and William Oncken
Graphic Design and Architecture
by Richard Poulin
The Small Business Survival Guide
by Robert E. Fleury
What the IRS Doesn?t Want You to Know: A CPA Reveals the Tricks of the Trade
Martin S. Kaplan
Every Investor's Guide to High-Tech Stocks and Mutual Funds
by Michael Murphy
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
by Robert Wright
Calculus: Early Transcendentals
by James Stewart
What These Books Represent
These books reflect 4 themes that connect directly to Ali’s work and mindset:
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Building companies with discipline, systems, and long-term thinking.
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Leading people through accountability, ownership, and personal development.
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Making better decisions through patience, judgment, and clear thinking.
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Creating value through consistency, execution, learning, and improvement.
Closing Statement
Books do not build companies by themselves.
People do.
But the right ideas, studied consistently and applied with discipline, can shape better leaders, stronger businesses, and smarter long-term decisions.