Why Reading is the One Career Habit That Billionaires Like Musk and Buffett Never Skip

In a world obsessed with productivity hacks and AI tools, the most powerful career habit might be the oldest one. Reading books. Jon McNeill, former president of Tesla and later COO of Lyft, has worked alongside some of the world's most successful executives. After years at the top, he says one habit consistently separates high performers from everyone else. Reading.

"Reading is probably the single most important thing you can do," McNeill told Fortune. He observed that the most successful people he encountered read constantly and eventually built a 90-minute daily reading habit of his own.

The pattern extends well beyond McNeill's circle. Warren Buffett famously spends up to 80% of his day reading and once told an investment class at Columbia University that knowledge builds like compound interest. Elon Musk taught himself rocket science largely through books. Bill Gates reads roughly 50 books a year. Mark Zuckerberg once challenged himself to finish a new book every two weeks.

A 2025 JPMorgan survey of more than 100 billionaires confirmed what many already suspected. Reading ranks as the single most common habit shared across the world's wealthiest people.For McNeill, reading is not just about knowledge. It builds curiosity. And curiosity opens doors. He credits a simple question he asked Musk at their first meeting in 2015 with landing him the Tesla role. That question came from a mind trained to stay curious.

His advice to young professionals navigating an increasingly AI-driven job market is direct. Do not panic. Build habits that create long-term value. Read every day. Ask better questions. Stay curious.

In a noisy world full of shortcuts, the leaders who read are still the ones who last.