# Stolen From Books

> The best idea from the best business books. Watch the story in 50 seconds. Try the idea in one minute. Get the book if you want it all. Each idea names its book and its author. The site is in English, free, with no account.

## For AI agents and developers

Everything is public and read-only. No key.

- [API](https://stolenfrombooks.com/developers): [ideas](https://stolenfrombooks.com/api/ideas.json) and [ranked books](https://stolenfrombooks.com/api/books.json) as JSON, index at [/api/index.json](https://stolenfrombooks.com/api/index.json)
- [Machine-readable catalogue](https://stolenfrombooks.com/.well-known/api-catalog) (RFC 9727)
- [llms-full.txt](https://stolenfrombooks.com/llms-full.txt): every idea and every book in plain text

## Ideas

- [A crowd heard how to get rich. Then they did this.](https://stolenfrombooks.com/the-speech-nobody-followed): Knowing how to get rich is easy, but doing it is the hard half: small, everyday spending leaks your money away like a hole in a ship. From "The Way to Wealth" by Benjamin Franklin.
- [5 bricks pulled a crowd of 500 (Barnum's trick)](https://stolenfrombooks.com/five-bricks-five-hundred-people): People cannot walk past a mystery. Give them something odd to wonder about, and they will follow it, and even pay, to find the answer. From "Struggles and Triumphs" by P. T. Barnum.
- [Put all your eggs in one basket (a steel king's rule)](https://stolenfrombooks.com/all-your-eggs-in-one-basket): Don't spread yourself over many things. Put your best effort into one thing you control, keep a close eye on it, and keep making it better. From "Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie" by Andrew Carnegie.
- [The tiny leak that empties your piggy bank](https://stolenfrombooks.com/the-hole-in-your-piggy-bank): Earning money is only half the game: tiny, 'it's nothing' purchases quietly drain everything, so keeping money matters as much as making it. From "The Way to Wealth" by Benjamin Franklin.
- [Your mom is lying about your business idea](https://stolenfrombooks.com/your-mom-is-lying-to-you): People lie to be nice, so ask about what they did in the past, not about your idea. From "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick.

## Pages

- [Best books](https://stolenfrombooks.com/shelf): 47 business and money books, ranked, each with its best idea in one line
- [About](https://stolenfrombooks.com/about): how it works, book links, privacy