Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award 2023

“The Harvard professor and advocate of the need for ‘psychological safety’ and speak-up work cultures draws on her and others’ research to lay out how to learn to fail better and take smarter risks. ‘Most of us go out of our way to avoid experiencing failure,’ she writes, ‘robbing ourselves of adventure, accomplishment, and even love.’” – Andrew Hill, senior business writer at the FT

Shortlisted: “[The book] presents an insider’s take on generative AI, synthetic biology and quantum computing. Working with Michael Bhaskar, Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, now part of Google, warns of the dangers of sleepwalking into catastrophe. The coming wave of change must be contained, the authors argue, and they lay out the tools necessary to navigate ‘the tortuous route forward.’” – AH

Shortlisted: "[The book] describes in closely reported detail how the entrepreneur rose to become one of the most influential forces in electric vehicle manufacture, social media and space exploration. Musk’s book was released only last week and was not on the original longlist of 15. The judges exercised their rarely-used right to call in the title for consideration and add it directly to the shortlist." – AH

Shortlisted: “Kara investigates the human rights abuses that taint the mining of cobalt, an essential raw material for the rechargeable batteries in our laptops, phones and electric cars. His inquiry takes him deep into the cobalt-mining communities of the Democratic Republic of Congo.” – AH

Shortlisted: “Conway explores the origins and uses of other minerals in Material World: A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future, which underlines the world’s reliance on six key materials: sand (used for concrete), salt (for fertiliser), iron (and steel), copper (for electrical wires), oil and lithium. Sky News’s economics editor travels the globe and describes in vivid detail how the materials he studies have come to make up ‘the bedrock of our lives today.’” – AH

Shortlisted: “Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner draw on the former’s comprehensive studies of the fate of megaprojects — most of which run over time and over budget — in How Big Things Get Done, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration. Their book draws some of the lessons of failures, from the Sydney Opera House to many Olympic Games, and applies the lessons to more humdrum project management challenges.” – AH

Longlisted: “One of a quartet of books that examine tensions caused by the rapid advance of technology. Johnson and Acemoglu (co-author of 2012 finalist Why Nations Fail) examine the history of technology breakthroughs and their socio-economic consequences, concluding that if the benefits are going to be shared, such advances have to be carefully managed.” – AH

Longlisted: “Ton, an MIT professor, offers some evidence-based suggestions about how to reverse the vicious cycle that makes bad jobs worse... Ton and her Good Jobs Institute have tested a system that moves away from punishingly short-term contracts and low wages in a successful effort to reduce staff turnover, raise productivity, delight customers and make workers happier.” – AH

Longlisted: “Unscripted, by James Stewart and Rachel Abrams is the no-holds-barred tale of the brutal succession battle that broke out over media mogul Sumner Redstone’s empire. Stewart (a finalist in the inaugural FT book award in 2005 for DisneyWar) and Abrams tell a tale of sex, power and late-life obsession.” – AH

Longlisted: “The dangers posed to the environment are at the forefront of Simon Sharpe’s Five Times Faster. Sharpe is a former UK civil servant working on climate policy, whose title refers to the need to decarbonise the world economy about five times faster this decade than what was managed in the past two decades to meet global warming targets. He lays out pragmatic ways in which scientists, economists and diplomats could help.” – AH