From robo-wars to mindfulness: What Bill Gates is reading to understand modern technology

Like most successful people, Bill Gates is an avid reader.

The tech billionaire pours through 50 books a year, choosing mostly nonfiction books that teach him something new, he said in a 2016 interview with the New York Times.

This year, Gates took a special interest in books about technology to help him curate MIT Technology Review's 10 breakthrough technologies of 2019. The philanthropist chose which gadgets or inventions will have the most impact on society. The tech ranged from cancer vaccines to robot hands to a lab-grown burger.

"Reading is my favorite way to learn about a new subject — whether it's global health, quantum computing, or world history," Gates told the MIT Technology Review.

Here are Bill Gates' top 10 books about technology in 2019:

1.Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark

2. Should We Eat Meat? by Vaclav Smil

3. I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong

4. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

5. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

6. Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

7. Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker

8. Sustainable Energy — Without the Hot Air by David MacKay

9. Energy Myths and Realities by Vaclav Smil

10. The Most Powerful Idea in the World by William Rosen