Follow the reading habits of a local million-dollar tech startup founder

Casey Marquette, having run IT security and related programs and departments for Fortune 100 companies, doesn’t have the kind of resume that looks like he would need to start from scratch, driving across the country in a van. 

Yet that’s what he did, in 2022, with some heady success in building what’s now a nearly $8 million AI-infused tech employee recruitment business. Along the way, Marquette, who lives on Anna Maria Island, has refined and enhanced what he says is his No. 1 leadership technique: reading leadership books. Leadership books are the only books he reads, he says, and he does it often. His list of all-time favorites include best sellers by leadership gurus like John Maxwell and Jack Canfield. 

“No matter what you want to be in life, someone has already done it and been great at it,” Marquette says. “You just need to read about it.”