Let me tell you about the time I nearly gave myself a
headache trying to read 50 books in one year.
It was January. I had just seen another one of those
posts. You know the ones. Bill Gates reads 50 books a year. Warren Buffett
spends five to six hours a day reading and recommends 500 pages daily. Elon
Musk learned rocket science from books. The caption was always the same: “No
excuses. Read or stay broke.”
I screenshot it. I set a reading goal on my notes app. I
calculated how many pages per day I would need. I was ready to join the
billionaire book club.
By March, I had finished three books and felt like a
failure.
Here is what I wish someone had told me before I turned
reading into another impossible standard. The billionaire reading meme is not
entirely wrong. Reading is valuable. Successful people do read a lot. But the
meme is also not entirely right. In fact, in ways that matter for ordinary
Nigerians with full-time jobs, limited budgets, and realistic schedules, the
meme is dangerously misleading.
Let me explain what the meme gets right, what it gets
wrong, and why you should ignore the number entirely.
What the Meme Gets Right: Yes, Rich People Read
Let us give credit where it is due. The meme is not
pulling facts out of thin air.
Bill Gates has
publicly stated that he reads roughly 50 books a year, or about one book per
week. Warren Buffett
reportedly spends five to six hours a day reading, including five newspapers
and 500 pages of corporate reports. Mark Zuckerberg once
set a challenge to read one book every two weeks. When asked how he learned to
build rockets for SpaceX, Elon Musk famously
replied, "I read books".
According to a JPMorgan report
cited by Fortune, reading is the most commonly cited behaviour tied to
long-term success among a survey of more than 100 billionaires with a combined
net worth exceeding $500 billion.
A survey of top 5% corporate performers across multiple industries found that they read an
average of 43.2 books per year, with 63% reading 35 books or more. The average
businessperson, by contrast, reads only about 2.4 books per year.
So yes. The data shows a clear pattern. People who
achieve extraordinary success tend to be serious readers. Reading exposes you
to new ideas, sharpens your thinking, and expands your understanding of the
world. Research has shown that higher reading skills improve long-term
prospects, lead to higher incomes, and contribute to better decision-making.
But here is where the meme starts to fall apart.
The Hidden Ingredient the Meme Never Mentions: Time
Let me ask you a question. How many hours a week do you
have to read for pleasure?
If you are a Nigerian student preparing for WAEC or JAMB,
your answer is probably close to zero. If you are a young professional working
in Lagos, spending three to four hours daily in traffic, your answer is also
close to zero. If you are a parent juggling work, childcare, and household
responsibilities, your answer is zero.
Now let me tell you about Warren Buffett’s schedule. He
does not commute. He does not cook. He does not chase children. He has staff
for almost everything that distracts ordinary people from reading. When he says
he spends five to six hours a day reading, he is not sacrificing sleep or
family time. He is doing what his wealth has allowed him to do: outsource
everything else.
The meme presents reading as a matter of discipline. Just
try harder, it implies. But the real difference between Bill Gates and the
average Nigerian is not willpower. It is structural advantage. Gates can afford
to retreat to a secluded cabin for “Think Weeks” with a stack of books and a
notebook. Can you?
The average working professional in South Korea reads
about 4.5 books per year. The average American reads about 12 books per year.
In Nigeria, estimates suggest approximately 3 books per person per year. These
numbers are not evidence of laziness. They are evidence of lives filled with
work, commuting, family obligations, and economic stress.
A 2023 survey by the African Polling Institute found that 62% of Nigerian workers felt overwhelmed
weekly. Only 7% had access to workplace mental health resources. When you are
in survival mode, reading 50 books a year is not a goal. It is a fantasy.
The meme does not mention this. It just tells you to try
harder.
More Books Does Not Mean More Learning
Here is another thing the meme never tells you. Reading
fast is not the same as reading well.
The billionaire meme often comes with implied advice:
read faster, read more, consume more books. But research shows a
clear trade-off between reading speed and information retention. The faster you
read, the less you remember.
A psychology professor once tested two speed readers who
claimed to read over 100,000 words per minute. After finishing a college-level
textbook in mere minutes, they took a comprehension test and performed
terribly. The professor’s conclusion:
“The only noteworthy skill exhibited was a remarkable dexterity in
page-turning."
Decades of cognitive science research have confirmed that speed reading does not work. The
human eye cannot take in whole blocks of words at a glance with full
comprehension. Silencing your inner reading voice, which speed reading programs
encourage, comes at the expense of understanding because sounds are key to
language.
Reading is not a race. A single book read slowly, with
reflection and note-taking, is worth ten books skimmed and forgotten. Bill
Gates himself takes notes in the margins of his books because the habit helps
him concentrate better, especially with non-fiction. He reads 50 books a year,
but he reads them carefully, not frantically.
The meme turns reading into a performance metric. How
many have you read? It asks. But the question that actually matters is: How
much have you learned?
The Nigerian Reality: Reading Is a Privilege, Not Just a Choice
Let me bring this closer to home.
For a Nigerian earning the minimum wage of ₦70,000 per
month, a single novel costing ₦15,000 to ₦20,000 represents a significant
portion of disposable income. A Kindle Paperwhite priced at ₦389,000 is not a
reading device. It is a luxury item. As we have documented in our previous post
on why buying a Kindle in Nigeria might be a terrible investment, the numbers simply do not make sense for most readers.
The billionaire meme assumes universal access to books.
It assumes you can afford to buy whatever you want to read. It assumes you have
a quiet space, reliable electricity, and uninterrupted time. None of these
things can be taken for granted in Nigeria.
A child in a rural community whose nearest public library
is 100 kilometres away is not reading 50 books a year because she lacks
discipline. She is reading 50 books a year because the system has failed to
provide her with books. As we explored in our article mapping Nigeria's library crisis, the country has approximately 0.15 public libraries per
100,000 people. That is not a reading problem. That is an infrastructure
problem.
The meme individualises a structural issue. It turns a
systemic failure into a personal failing. And that is not just inaccurate. It
is cruel.
The Hidden Message: Hustle Culture Disguised as Self-Improvement
The billionaire reading meme belongs to a larger family
of internet content that I have come to recognise as hustle culture in a
cardigan.
You have seen its cousins. The “5 AM club”. The “no days
off” posts. The “sleep is for the weak” quotes. The billionaire reading meme is
the same beast, just dressed up with books instead of gym sessions. The message
is identical: you are not successful because you are not working hard enough.
Try harder. Read more. Grind more.
A 2025 study on hustle culture and pacesetting leadership found that this relentless pressure
leads to increased work-life conflict, psychological strain, and reduced
autonomy. In Nigeria, this harmful culture is particularly prevalent due to job
insecurity. With unemployment high, people feel pressured to overperform and
constantly prove their worth to avoid being replaced.
The meme does not tell you that 50 books a year is
unsustainable for most people. It does not tell you that rest is productive. It
does not tell you that reading four deeply engaged books a year is better than
skimming forty you will not remember.
What the meme really sells is anxiety. It makes you feel
behind. It makes you feel like everyone else is reading more, achieving more,
becoming more. And that feeling of inadequacy keeps you scrolling, keeps you
consuming, keeps you trapped in a cycle of comparison that benefits no one
except the algorithm pushing the next post.
I am not saying reading is unimportant. I am saying that
the way the meme frames reading is toxic.
What Actually Works: Read Slower, Reflect More, Ignore the
Number
So what should you do instead of chasing 50 books a year?
Let me offer a different model. It is less glamorous than
the billionaire meme, but it works. I know because I have been using it since
my failed 50-book experiment, and I finish more books now than I did when I was
obsessing over quantity.
One book, properly absorbed
Stop counting. Seriously. Delete the reading tracker if
you have one. The number of books you finish is not a measure of your worth or
your intelligence. One book read thoughtfully, with notes, with reflection,
with application to your life, is infinitely more valuable than ten books
rushed through to hit a target.
The five-hour rule, Nigerian edition
Benjamin Franklin created a habit of reading for one hour each weekday, accumulating five hours of learning per week. You do not need five hours. You need consistency.
Fifteen minutes daily is over ninety hours of reading per year. That is enough
for ten to fifteen books annually, depending on length. The key is not the
duration. The key is the regularity.
Reading what you actually enjoy
The meme implies that you should read serious,
educational, business-focused books. Gates reads mostly non-fiction on public
health, engineering, business, and science. That works for him. It might not
work for you. Reading fiction, poetry, thrillers, or romance is not a waste of
time. Reading anything at all is what builds the habit. The best book to read
is the one you cannot put down.
Taking notes
The most successful readers do not just read. They
engage. They underline. They write in the margins. They summarise key ideas in
their own words. This transforms reading from passive consumption to active
learning. You will remember more from one book you take notes on than from five
you do not.
Rereading
Here is something the meme never mentions. The
mere-exposure effect can trick you into thinking you understand a book simply
because you have seen it before. Familiarity is not comprehension. Rereading a
great book reveals layers you missed the first time. Some books demand to be
read twice.
Counter-Arguments: But What If I Actually Want to Read a Lot?
Let me address the objection that is probably forming in
your mind.
Some people genuinely can read 50 books a year. I know
people who do. They read fast, they retain well, and they enjoy the process.
The problem is not the existence of high-volume readers. The problem is
presenting their habit as a universal standard.
Reading 50 books a year requires either a job that
includes reading, very low external demands on your time, or a reading speed
that is genuinely above average. For most people, none of these conditions
apply. A 2016 study on top 5% corporate performers found they read an average of 43.2 books per year, but
those performers were selected precisely because they had unusual discipline
and likely jobs that allowed for reading time.
There is also a difference between reading for work and
reading for leisure. Warren Buffett’s daily reading includes corporate reports
and financial documents that are directly relevant to his job. That is not the
same as reading a novel for pleasure. Both are reading, but one is professional
maintenance and the other is personal enrichment. The meme conflates them.
If you want to read more, read more. Set a goal that
challenges you without breaking you. But do not let a number on a screen make
you feel inadequate. The only person you should compare yourself to is the
person you were last month.
The Best Readers Are Not the Fastest
Let me tell you how my 50-book year ended.
I did not finish 50 books. I finished twelve. But I
remembered them. I took notes on three of them. I still think about passages
from two of them, years later. One of them changed how I think about money.
Another one gave me a phrase I use almost weekly.
If I had focused on hitting the number, I would have
rushed through all twelve, remembered nothing, and felt like a failure anyway.
The billionaire reading meme is not entirely wrong.
Reading is a superpower. Successful people do read. But the meme is dangerous
because it turns reading into a competition you cannot win. It ignores the
structural advantages of billionaires. It confuses quantity with quality. It
weaponises a healthy habit into a source of anxiety.
Here is my challenge to you. Ignore the number. Pick one
book you actually want to read. Read it slowly. Take notes if that helps. Talk
about it with a friend. Then pick another one.
Do not count. Just read.
And the next time someone posts that meme about
billionaires reading 50 books a year, send them a link to this article. Because
the only thing worse than not reading is turning reading into another reason to
feel like you are failing.
Let us talk. What is the last book you actually finished,
and what did you learn from it? Not how many books you read last year. Just
one. Drop the title in the comments. Share this with a friend who needs
permission to read at their own pace.
Also read our pillar article on the real reasons Nigerians read less than Kenyans or Ghanaians.