Download or read book Business Adventures written by John Brooks and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-05-14 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The best business book I've ever read.' Bill Gates, Wall Street Journal 'The Michael Lewis of his day.' New York Times What do the $350 million Ford Motor Company disaster known as the Edsel, the fast and incredible rise of Xerox, and the unbelievable scandals at General Electric and Texas Gulf Sulphur have in common? Each is an example of how an iconic company was defined by a particular moment of fame or notoriety. These notable and fascinating accounts are as relevant today to understanding the intricacies of corporate life as they were when the events happened. Stories about Wall Street are infused with drama and adventure and reveal the machinations and volatile nature of the world of finance. John Brooks's insightful reportage is so full of personality and critical detail that whether he is looking at the astounding market crash of 1962, the collapse of a well-known brokerage firm, or the bold attempt by American bankers to save the British pound, one gets the sense that history really does repeat itself. This business classic written by longtime New Yorker contributor John Brooks is an insightful and engaging look into corporate and financial life in America.
Download or read book A Brief History of Entrepreneurship written by Joe Carlen and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brief History of Entrepreneurship charts how the pursuit of profit by private individuals has been a prime mover in revolutionizing civilization. Entrepreneurs often butt up against processes, technologies, social conventions, and even laws. So they circumvent, innovate, and violate to obtain what they want. This creative destruction has brought about overland and overseas trade, colonization, and a host of revolutionary technologies—from caffeinated beverages to the personal computer—that have transformed society. Consulting rich archival sources, including some that have never before been translated, Carlen maps the course of human history through nine episodes when entrepreneurship reshaped our world. Highlighting the most colorful characters of each era, he discusses Mesopotamian merchants' creation of the urban market economy; Phoenician merchant-sailors intercontinental trade, which came to connect Africa, Asia, and Europe; Chinese tea traders' invention of paper money; the colonization of the Americas; and the current "flattening" of the world's economic playing field. Yet the pursuit of profit hasn't always moved us forward. From slavery to organized crime, Carlen explores how entrepreneurship can sometimes work at the expense of others. He also discusses the new entrepreneurs who, through the nascent space tourism industry, are leading humanity to a multiplanetary future. By exploring all sides of this legacy, Carlen brings much-needed detail to the role of entrepreneurship in revolutionizing civilization.
Download or read book The Second Best Business Book Ever Written written by Tom Marks and published by Greenleaf Book Group. This book was released on 2024-07-16 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Honesty in thought leadership matters. And so does seeing the light. Honesty, in its purest form, is a key characteristic of all thought leaders, so I’m going to hit you with the truth. Many business books today are written for the purpose of winning more business for an author, or acquiring new speaking gigs, and anyone who fits into that camp is A-OK with me. It’s a smart move. But after more than four decades in sales and marketing, I’m beyond those goals. Frankly, it feels great that I’m not anchored to those intentions anymore. I have only one intent in The Second-Best Business Book Ever Written, and that’s to teach the ins and outs of thought leadership to as many people as possible because that’s how corporations, and the individuals who run them, succeed. There’s a process to becoming a thought leader; it’s methodical, detailed, and rewarding. After all, where’s the amusement in being a price-chopper? Or even a technology leader where the tenure is as short as my nephew’s attention span? The greatest thought leaders started sharing their thinking 2,500 years ago through the teachings of my four favorites: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aspasia. I’m going to travel with you down the thought leadership road, known as the Via Egnatia, from the foothills that rise above Athens to the skyscrapers that tower above Madison Avenue. And along the way, I’m going to show you how I did it for Fortune 500 companies, and for small and midsize businesses, with a few wild detours along the way. By all accounts, the Green Bay Packers future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers was born with a rock-solid throwing arm and an annoying chip on his shoulder. I’m no Rodgers fan; after all, I was born and raised in inner-city Chicago and have been a Bears fan since birth, but I recognize greatness, and Aaron Rodgers is a great football player. Some of his other qualities? Not so much. But these aren’t lessons about tackle football. They’re insights about leadership; about what happens off the football field, and on a more important playing field; about greatness in sales, marketing, and business; and about thought leadership, the single most important differentiator in the business playbook. Or, as Plato not so recently said, obviously unaware of Aaron Rodgers’s famous retreat into darkness, “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” I’d like to shed some light on what’s required in business, but frequently misunderstood. What every salesperson needs to know, but doesn’t always know how to achieve it. And what every marketing expert wishes they had in their bag of tricks. To simply say that thought leadership is an essential part of the disciplines of market leaders is like saying a stick is an essential part of a Popsicle. Well, it is, assuming you’re not interested in taste, color, packaging, name, price, quality, and the beat goes on. Tom Marks survived forty-seven years in the advertising business and has lived to write about it. He’s the founder of TMA+Peritus, one of the leading marketing, thought leadership, and corporate ethics firms in North America and has won more than sixty-five American Advertising Awards for his writing. He spent many years on the professional speakers circuit and survived that, too. His thought leadership workshops for Fortune 500 companies have brought him national acclaim and has made him a favorite among the nation’s CEOs.
Download or read book Entrepreneurs Who Changed History written by DK and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 963 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether titans of industry, influential business leaders, or creators of history's most recognizable brands, these entrepreneurs had the vision, innovation, and ruthless determination to make their marks on our society in indelible ways. Boldly illustrated and comprehensive in its scope and depth, Entrepreneurs Who Changed History profiles more than 90 industry leaders across the world and throughout the ages - from the enterprising bankers of the medieval world and the merchants of an empire to the titans of industry and the geniuses of Silicon Valley. Combining accessible text with specially-commissioned illustrated portraits in a range of bold artwork styles, photographs, and infographics, entries showcase each individual in a fresh, visual way. The towering personalities behind some of history's most recognizable brands and companies - their ruthlessness, tenacity, creativity, and sheer grit - are all brought to vivid life. Profiling the kings and queens of commerce and trade, Entrepreneurs Who Changed History features the familiar faces of Vanderbilt and Rockefeller, Ford and Ferrari, Gates and Zuckerberg, alongside lesser-known figures such as the enterprising women of colonial America, the emancipated enslaved people who became millionaires against all odds, and the individuals powering today's emerging economies.
Download or read book The History of Black Business in America written by Juliet E. K. Walker and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2009 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this wide-ranging study Stephen Foster explores Puritanism in England and America from its roots in the Elizabethan era to the end of the seventeenth century. Focusing on Puritanism as a cultural and political phenomenon as well as a religious movement, Foster addresses parallel developments on both sides of the Atlantic and firmly embeds New England Puritanism within its English context. He provides not only an elaborate critque of current interpretations of Puritan ideology but also an original and insightful portrayal of its dynamism. According to Foster, Puritanism represented a loose and incomplete alliance of progressive Protestants, lay and clerical, aristocratic and humble, who never decided whether they were the vanguard or the remnant. Indeed, in Foster's analysis, changes in New England Puritanism after the first decades of settlement did not indicate secularization and decline but instead were part of a pattern of change, conflict, and accomodation that had begun in England. He views the Puritans' own claims of declension as partisan propositions in an internal controversy as old as the Puritan movement itself. The result of these stresses and adaptations, he argues, was continued vitality in American Puritanism during the second half of the seventeenth century. Foster draws insights from a broad range of souces in England and America, including sermons, diaries, spiritual autobiographies, and colony, town, and court records. Moreover, his presentation of the history of the English and American Puritan movements in tandem brings out the fatal flaws of the former as well as the modest but essential strengths of the latter.
Download or read book The Founder s Dilemmas written by Noam Wasserman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-04 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Founder's Dilemmas examines how early decisions by entrepreneurs can make or break a startup and its team. Drawing on a decade of research, including quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders as well as inside stories of founders like Evan Williams of Twitter and Tim Westergren of Pandora, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them.
Download or read book Why Startups Fail written by Tom Eisenmann and published by Currency. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.
Download or read book Advice from the Top written by Business Marketing Association and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn Essential B2B Marketing Strategies and Techniques In today's ultra-competitive business landscape, mastering innovative B2B marketing skills is a must. Whether you own a small business or oversee a large marketing department, Advice From The Top will provide you with an abundance of information from marketing experts who will teach you: - Proven strategies for developing more effective marketing programs - Powerful ideas for creating dynamic content - Specific guidelines for executing marketing plans - Time-tested formulas for measuring success - And much more " Wow, what a terrific, broad collection of B2B marketing insight. I love hearing the diverse voices, from academia to corporate board room, sharing the most interesting facets of marketing, all of which are pertinent to my daily job as a CMO." Katherine Button Bell, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Emerson " If you're looking for a wide range of B2B marketing wisdom, this book is a must-have from pros. A shining example of the intellectual property our BMA members have and are willing to share." Al Maag, Chief Communications Officer, Avnet, and President of BMA Phoenix BMA Colorado is a 13-time national BMA Chapter of the Year award winner. www.bmacolorado.org
Download or read book Good to Great written by Jim Collins and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2001-10-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Challenge Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The Study For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great? The Standards Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. The Comparisons The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't. The Findings The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include: Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence. A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap. “Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.” Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?
Download or read book American Enterprise written by Andy Serwer and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to be an American? What are American ideas and values? American Enterprise, the companion book to a major exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, aims to answer these questions about the American experience through an exploration of its economic and commercial history. It argues that by looking at the intersection of capitalism and democracy, we can see where we as a nation have come from and where we might be going in the future. Richly illustrated with images of objects from the museum’s collections, American Enterprise includes a 1794 dollar coin, Alexander Graham Bell’s 1876 telephone, a brass cash register from Marshall Fields, Sam Walton’s cap, and many other goods and services that have shaped American culture. Historical and contemporary advertisements are also featured, emphasizing the evolution of the relationship between producers and consumers over time. Interspersed in the historical narrative are essays from today’s industry leaders—including Sheila Bair, Adam Davidson, Bill Ford, Sally Greenberg, Fisk Johnson, Hank Paulson, Richard Trumka, and Pat Woertz—that pose provocative questions about the state of contemporary American business and society. American Enterprise is a multi-faceted survey of the nation’s business heritage and corresponding social effects that is fundamental to an understanding of the lives of the American people, the history of the United States, and the nation’s role in global affairs.
Download or read book Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead written by David Meerman Scott and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-08-02 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Grateful Dead-rock legends, marketing pioneers The Grateful Dead broke almost every rule in the music industry book. They encouraged their fans to record shows and trade tapes; they built a mailing list and sold concert tickets directly to fans; and they built their business model on live concerts, not album sales. By cultivating a dedicated, active community, collaborating with their audience to co-create the Deadhead lifestyle, and giving away "freemium" content, the Dead pioneered many social media and inbound marketing concepts successfully used by businesses across all industries today. Written by marketing gurus and lifelong Deadheads David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead gives you key innovations from the Dead's approach you can apply to your business. Find out how to make your fans equal partners in your journey, "lose control" to win, create passionate loyalty, and experience the kind of marketing gains that will not fade away!
Download or read book Out Where the West Begins written by Philip F. Anschutz and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1800 and 1920, an extraordinary cast of bold innovators and entrepreneurs—individuals such as Cyrus McCormick, Brigham Young, Henry Wells and James Fargo, Fred Harvey, Levi Strauss, Adolph Coors, J. P. Morgan, and Buffalo Bill Cody—helped lay the groundwork for what we now call the American West. They were people of imagination and courage, adept at maneuvering the rapids of change, alert to opportunity, persistent in their missions. They had big ideas they were not afraid to test. They stitched the country together with the first transcontinental railroad, invented the Model A and built the roads it traveled on, raised cities and supplied them with water and electricity, established banks for immigrant populations, entertained the world with film and showmanship, and created a new form of western hospitality for early travelers. Not all were ideal role models. Most, however, once they had made their fortunes, shared them in the form of cultural institutions, charities, libraries, parks, and other amenities that continue to enrich lives in the West today. Out Where the West Begins profiles some fifty of these individuals, tracing the arcs of their lives, exploring their backgrounds and motivations, identifying their contributions, and analyzing the strategies they developed to succeed in their chosen fields.
Download or read book Hybrid Workplace The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review written by Harvard Business Review and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reinvent your organization for the hybrid age. Hybrid work is here to stay—but what will it look like at your company? If your organization is holding on to inflexible, pre-pandemic policies about where—and when—your people work, it may be risking a mass exodus of talent. Designing a hybrid workplace that furthers your business goals while staying true to your culture requires balancing experimentation with rigorous planning. Hybrid Workplace: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will help you adopt the best technological, cultural, and new management practices to seize the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of the hybrid age. Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind? Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues—blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more—each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas—and prepare you and your company for the future.
Download or read book The 100 Best Business Books of All Time written by Jack Covert and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-08-02 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thousands of business books are published every year— Here are the best of the best After years of reading, evaluating, and selling business books, Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten are among the most respected experts on the category. Now they have chosen and reviewed the one hundred best business titles of all time—the ones that deliver the biggest payoff for today’s busy readers. The 100 Best Business Books of All Time puts each book in context so that readers can quickly find solutions to the problems they face, such as how best to spend The First 90 Days in a new job or how to take their company from Good to Great. Many of the choices are surprising—you’ll find reviews of Moneyball and Orbiting the Giant Hairball, but not Jack Welch’s memoir. At the end of each review, Jack and Todd direct readers to other books both inside and outside The 100 Best. And sprinkled throughout are sidebars taking the reader beyond business books, suggesting movies, novels, and even children’s books that offer equally relevant insights. This guide will appeal to anyone, from entry-level to CEO, who wants to cut through the clutter and discover the brilliant books that are truly worth their investment of time and money.
Download or read book Leading Change written by John P. Kotter and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the ill-fated dot-com bubble to unprecedented merger and acquisition activity to scandal, greed, and, ultimately, recession -- we've learned that widespread and difficult change is no longer the exception. By outlining the process organizations have used to achieve transformational goals and by identifying where and how even top performers derail during the change process, Kotter provides a practical resource for leaders and managers charged with making change initiatives work.
Download or read book Super Boom written by Jeffrey A. Hirsch and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-03-10 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prosper from the profitable opportunities of the next financial market super boom In 1976, Yale Hirsch predicted a fifteen-year super boom—a move in the stock market of 500% or more. His forecast proved accurate as the market rose and continued upward, eventually posting growth over 1,000% just before the tech crash in 2000. In Super Boom, Jeffrey Hirsch, President of the Hirsch Organization and Editor in Chief of the Stock Trader's Almanac, unveils the next market expansion. Building on his father's research from 1976, Hirsch has discovered that meteoric rises in stock indices are due to specific catalysts predominantly outside of the financial markets. History has a way of repeating itself, especially in the financial markets. The American economy, and subsequently the world economy, has always existed in a cycle of boom and bust: gold, grain, oil, technology, and most recently, real estate, have all bubbled and popped. The key to investing profitably is spotting macroeconomic historical trends and positioning to reap the benefits. Step-by-step, Hirsch puts together the pieces of this puzzle by revealing the central drivers of a super boom. Examines how new cultural paradigm-shifting technologies, as well as peace between major wars, could fuel a super boom Discusses how the massive injection of money by the government, in response to the global financial crisis and the Great Recession, as well as wartime spending, will eventually create an inflationary environment The data and research found here is based on historical information and the boom-and-bust cycle of the past century As markets and economies struggle over the next several years, remember to keep your eye on the future and get ready for the coming super boom and the next 500% move in the market. With this book as your guide, you'll benefit from the insights that only Jeffrey Hirsch can provide.
Download or read book A Business History of India written by Tirthankar Roy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-05 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, private investment has led to an economic resurgence in India. But this is not the first time the region has witnessed impressive business growth. There have been many similar stories over the past 300 years. India's economic history shows that capital was relatively expensive. How, then, did capitalism flourish in the region? How did companies and entrepreneurs deal with the shortage of key resources? Has there been a common pattern in responses to these issues over the centuries? Through detailed case studies of firms, entrepreneurs, and business commodities, Tirthankar Roy answers these questions. Roy bridges the approaches of business and economic history, illustrating the development of a distinctive regional capitalism. On each occasion of growth, connections with the global economy helped firms and entrepreneurs better manage risks. Making these deep connections between India's economic past and present shows why history matters in its remaking of capitalism today.
