There’s no shortage of advice from top CEOs on which books to read — they almost uniformly claim that books help them build their knowledge bases and broaden their worldviews — but one of the most successful CEOs around seems to be going against the grain.
Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, who is one of the highest-paid CEOs in the world, says he doesn’t read long-form books. “Nikesh Arora says he doesn’t read,” an X user said after listening to Arora on a podcast. “He is the highest-paid CEO in the world. Is reading a Psy-Op? What should we do instead? Feeling really lost right now,” they added.
The post caught the attention of Arora. “Don’t read long form books my friend,” he said. “I guzzle information, I absorb from wherever I can. I have read as much about agentic architectures lately to build a mental teamwork to understand how one might protect our customers in such a future. Always be learning. Many long form books take a lot of prose to make a few points, I find summaries interesting there, unless I feel like a good story,” he said.
Arora might have an unusual approach to books, but he is one of the world’s most successful CEOs. Arora was born in Ghaziabad, India in 1968 and earned a B.Tech from IIT (BHU) Varanasi. He then went abroad and completed MBA from Northeastern University, an M.S. in Finance from Boston College, along with a CFA designation.
Arora began his career at Fidelity Investments before founding T-Motion PLC, which was later integrated into T-Mobile International. Arora joined Google in 2004, rising to become Chief Business Officer and driving significant revenue growth for platforms like YouTube. In 2014, he moved to SoftBank as President and COO, leading global internet investments and briefly being considered a successor to Masayoshi Son before resigning in 2016. Since 2018, he has served as Chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, transforming the cybersecurity firm into a unified platform for modern solutions. In 2023, he was the fourth highest paid CEO in the world with an annual compensation of $151 million. He has an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion.
And his perspective on not reading long-form books might have its own merits. Top CEOs have busy schedules, and like Arora says, reading the summaries of these books might be a more optimal use of their time. And Arora’s approach to reading shows that reading books might not be as vital as most career advice makes it out to be — there could be many paths to being informed and successful at your job.