Michael Saylor shared a 953-hour reading curriculum outlining the ideas that shaped his views on leadership, markets, technology, and Bitcoin, giving followers a roadmap to the intellectual framework behind his long-term investment philosophy.
Key Takeaways
Michael Saylor published a 38-work curriculum requiring up to 953 hours of reading.The program spans history, economics, technology, war, and concludes with Bitcoin.The curriculum includes Saylor’s own book, The Mobile Wave, alongside works from prominent historians and economists.Drawing on his education, technology career, and work with Bitcoin, the Strategy executive chairman connected those experiences to the curriculum’s framework. The reading list prepares leaders to oversee institutions, markets, energy systems, communication networks, artificial intelligence, and monetary protocols.
Saylor wrote:
“Human prosperity is not produced by good intentions alone. It emerges when scientific understanding, engineering, energy, capital, markets, property rights, and effective institutions work together.”
His authority for assembling the reading list rests partly on a career combining technology, corporate leadership, authorship, and Bitcoin advocacy.
A Reading Plan Lasting up to 31 MonthsTitled “Upgrade the World,” the curriculum estimates readers will spend between 755 and 953 hours completing the program, or roughly 13 to 31 months depending on daily reading time. The project aims to develop leadership judgment through the study of history, economics, institutions, energy, technology, and monetary systems before major choices influence millions of people.
Saylor clarified:
“The point is to acquire several thousand years of accumulated experience before making decisions capable of affecting millions of people.”
The program divides its 38 works across eight themes, with civilizational history receiving the largest time commitment at an estimated 294 to 359 hours. Human action, liberty, and political power account for another 189 to 239 hours.
History and Economics Lead the CurriculumRather than focusing exclusively on Bitcoin, the curriculum begins with broad studies of civilization and leadership. Its selections include Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, John Keegan’s A History of Warfare, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Incerto series, and several works by economist Murray Rothbard.
The reading list also features Ron Chernow’s biographies of John D. Rockefeller and the Morgan banking dynasty, Daniel Yergin’s history of the oil industry, and David Deutsch’s work on scientific progress.
His own 2012 book, The Mobile Wave, joins the collection as a test of how accurately it anticipated mobile computing’s impact and whether its analytical methods withstand later scrutiny.
Bitcoin Caps the Reading ListThe Strategy executive chairman added:
“To understand Bitcoin fully, one must understand what it protects, what it replaces, what it consumes, what it coordinates, and which forms of power it constrains.”
He characterized the reading list as a foundation for further study, emphasizing that its purpose is to strengthen judgment before leaders make decisions capable of affecting millions of people.
Readers Are Encouraged to Challenge the AuthorsCritical reading remains central to the program, which asks participants to compare competing perspectives without treating any author as a final authority.
Each work invites examination of what its framework reveals, where its reasoning simplifies reality, and which choices would shift if its core arguments proved correct.
The curriculum ultimately functions as Saylor’s proposed foundation for leadership judgment, with Bitcoin appearing only after readers examine the historical, economic, technological, and institutional systems surrounding it.
