If you want to think like a billionaire, you might want to stop scrolling through your TikTok feed and pick up a book. For venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, this isn’t just a habit — it’s the way he makes sense of the world — and it continually reshapes the way he thinks about business.
“I’ve always been like this, I read basically every free minute I have,” Andreessen told the How I Write podcast in 2023.
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The billionaire used to set aside two hours of reading most weekdays, according to a detailed version of his weekly schedule published in 2020. But with the business world increasingly under pressure, he increased his knowledge intake — something made possible by the “biggest single technological leap” of his life: AirPods.
Andreessen now spends two to three hours a day glued to audiobooks—often alternating between history, biography, and material from new areas of interest, such as artificial intelligence. Altogether, this practice amounts to almost an entire 24-hour day dedicated to learning each week.
Research suggests that listeners retain about the same amount of information from audiobooks as they do from reading text, which makes Andreessen’s format change less of a detriment and more of an optimization.
“If nothing else is happening, I’m always hearing something,” Andreessen added.
Andreessen did not respond to Fortune’s request for additional comment.
Mark Cuban and Bill Gates Agree: Reading Leads to Success
Andreessen’s approach is far from unusual among the ultrarich. Reading appears as the most frequently cited behavior associated with long-term success, according to a JPMorgan report that surveyed more than 100 billionaires with a combined net worth exceeding $500 billion.
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Bill Gates, for example, has long advocated reading — he usually finishes 50 books a year and publishes annual lists to encourage other people to do the same.
“Reading fuels a sense of curiosity about the world, which I think has helped propel me in my career and in the work I do today with my foundation,” he told Time magazine in 2017.
Former Shark Tank star Mark Cuban also cited reading as a key habit that helped set him apart — and put him on the path to becoming a billionaire.
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“I read more than three hours almost every day,” Cuban wrote on his blog in 2011.
“Everything I read was public,” added the now septuagenarian. “Anyone could buy the same books and magazines. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. It turns out most people didn’t want it.”
Reading in general remains a pillar of refined thinking and communication—skills that are increasingly critical for business leaders, according to Brooke Vuckovic, a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
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“Reading long-form fiction, biography, and history requires focused attention, a tolerance for ambiguity and unanswered questions or unrevealed nuances in characters and situations, and a willingness to have our preconceived ideas questioned,” Vuckovic previously told Fortune. “All of these qualities are requirements for strong leadership, [e] are increasingly scarce.”
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