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What 16 Successful People Read In The Morning
Staying informed is a constant struggle for most of us, let alone people with high-profile, high-pressure jobs. There's usually not time to leisurely read a favorite paper over coffee.
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Yet catching up on news is an important part of what's often a very early morning for many of the world's most successful people.
Now we would like everyone to read Business Insider in the morning (or the afternoon), but it turns out some very important people have their own favorite sources of news.
The billionaire investor tells CNBC he reads the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the New York Times, USA Today, the Omaha World-Herald, and the American Banker in the mornings. That's a hefty list to get through.
The Virgin America CEO told the AP that he wakes up at 4:15 a.m. on the West Coast to send emails and call people on the East Coast. Then he heads to the gym, hops on an exercise bike, listens to Dallas sports radio, and reads his daily papers, which include the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, and Financial Times.
The Microsoft co-founder gets a daily news digest with a wide array of topics, and he gets alerts for stories on Berkshire Hathaway, where he sits on the board of directors. Gates also reads the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Economist cover-to-cover, according to an interview with Fox Business.
Girouard, CEO of Upstart and former president of Google Enterprise, told Business Insider that he's a big fan of Winston Churchill's speeches. He's currently reading "Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches." For news, he scrolls through the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
"I typically read the Wall Street Journal, from the center section out," the General Electric CEO told Fast Company. "Then I'll go to the Financial Times and scan the FTIndex and the second section. I'll read the New York Times business page and throw the rest away. I look at USA Today, the sports section first, business page second, and life third. I'll turn to Page Six of the New York Post and then a little bit on business."
When Fox Business asked the Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman and right-hand man to Warren Buffett what he likes to read in the morning, Munger kept it simple. "The Economist," he said.
The California Lieutenant Governor told The Wire that he starts by rotating through the morning shows at 7 a.m., then moves to his iPad to read Playbook, the Sacramento Bee, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times. Finally, he moves on to the news app Flipboard, through which he checks sites like Mashable and AllThingsD.
The President of the United States told Rolling Stone he begins his day with the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He's a devoted reader of the Times' columnists, and also likes Andrew Sullivan, the New Yorker, and The Atlantic.
The Buzzfeed founder and CEO wakes up around 8:30 a.m. and heads into the office with the sports or business section of the New York Times, he tells The Wire. He also takes New York magazine; subscriptions to the New Yorker and Economist fell by the wayside after he had twins.
Still, like many younger leaders, the principle way he discovers information is through Twitter and Facebook.
The former PepsiCo CEO gets up promptly at 5:30 a.m. and heads downstairs with a stack of newspapers, Starwinar.com reports. He goes through the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times, as well as the Dallas Morning News.
In 2006, the Starbucks CEO told CNNMoney that he gets up between 5 and 5:30 a.m., makes coffee, and then picks up three newspapers: the Seattle Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. The habit must work, because he's stuck with it for more than two decades.
The FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief shared his election-year reading habits with The Wire.
He starts with Twitter, Memeorandum, and Real Clear Politics before his coffee. He might hit the snooze button if nothing is breaking. Later come blogs like The Atlantic, Marginal Revolution, and Andrew Sullivan.
The Fox News host tells AdWeek that he starts his day with the websites of The New York Post or New York Times. After that comes The Daily Beast, SportsGrid, and sometimes Buzzfeed. Then comes sites relevant to whatever is being covered that day, including lots of local newspapers.
It's a constant struggle to keep from being overwhelmed, he says. "If media were food, I would be obese," Smith says.
Todd, NBC's Chief White House Correspondent, is up between 4:30 and 5 every morning, he tells AdWeek, and after catching up with dispatches and email updates, goes on Twitter to catch major news stories from local newspapers.
"Twitter is the 21st century wire," Todd says. "I remember the first time I got access to the [Associated Press] 50-state wire in 1992, and at that time, there was nothing like it. Now Twitter is the same way. I’ve made my own powerful, worldwide newswire on politics and international affairs."
He also reads the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times on his iPad.
Sixty-three, to be precise. The Huffington Post reports that Whitehill, the founder of Entrepreneur Week, spends the first part of his day reading 40 pages in whatever his current book is, scanning through 63 RSS feeds, and perusing the Wall Street Journal.
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