Recommended reading: Inside Snapchat’s rise and removing creative clichés

How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars – The Snapchat Story

By Billy Gallagher

Want to learn how Snapchat built its social media empire? Well, now you can. This book documents Snapchat’s rise, including how the company’s founding trio Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown grew the app, from a late-night idea to one of the world’s most influential social media platforms, valued at more than $25bn.

Former TechCrunch journalist Billy Gallagher has covered Snapchat from the very start, and draws on more than 200 interviews and inside access, to explains why Snapchat’s founders turned down a $3bn offer from Facebook.

The Making of a Manager

By Julie Zhuo

For most, being given the task of leading a team for the first time can be daunting. In Julie Zhuo’s new publication, she combines practical, action-based advice to help give managers the confidence they need to lead a team. Drawing on personal anecdotes and using comedic illustrations, the book not only caters for managers with fast-growing teams, but those who are simply curious about management practices. The text explores key concepts such as how to tell a great manager from an average manager and when you should look past an “awkward” interview and hire a candidate anyway.

Instagram’s co-founder Mike Krieger has praised the book, saying “I wish I’d had this book when I started managing a team at Instagram.”

How to Steal Fire

By Stephen Bayley & Roger Mavity

If you’re one of those people who is all talk but no action, How to Steal Fire is one for you. Written by two people who “spent their careers doing more than just talk about it”, this book questions everything people think they know about creativity and how it influences our lives, from how we dress to the buildings we call home.

Applied Empathy

By Michael Ventura

“Empathy is not about being nice. It’s not about pity or sympathy either.” That is the thinking of Michael Ventura who takes inspiration from his experience at Google, Nike, the United Nations and the Obama Administration, for his new book which illustrates how empathy – the ability to see the world through someone else’s eyes – might be what your business needs to innovate, grow and connect. The publication also explores strategies to help businesses make lasting connections and evolve internally as well as externally.