Best Company Histories
Vance spent over 40 hours in conversation with Musk and interviewed close to 300 people to tell the tumultuous stories of Musk's world-changing companies: PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX and SolarCity, and to characterize a man who has renewed American industry and sparked new levels of innovation while making plenty of enemies along the way. "Ashlee Vance's new book, 'Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future,' is a tremendous look into arguably the world's most important entrepreneur. Vance paints an unforgettable picture of Musk's unique personality, insatiable drive and ability to thrive through hardship." "Vance's lively book yields all manner of fascinating insights about Musk's companies, his vision, and his personal life." - Whitney Tilson Founder, Kase Capital Management There are few industrialists in history who could match Elon Musk's relentless drive and ingenious vision. A modern alloy of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs, Musk is the man behind PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and SolarCity, each of which has sent shock waves throughout American business and industry. More than any other executive today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as a science fiction fantasy. In this lively, investigative account, veteran technology journalist Ashlee Vance offers an unprecedented look into the remarkable life and times of Silicon Valley's most audacious businessman. Written with exclusive access to Musk, his family, and his friends, the book traces his journey from his difficult upbringing in South Africa to his ascent to the pinnacle of the global business world. In 1992, Elon Musk arrived in the United States as a ferociously driven immigrant bent on realizing his wildest dreams. After being forced out of PayPal, fending off a life-threatening case of malaria, and dealing with the death of his infant son, Musk abandoned Silicon Valley for Los Angeles. At a time when many American companies are more interested in chasing easy money than in taking bold risks on radical new technology, Musk stands out as the only businessman with enough dynamism and vision to tackle--and even revolutionize--three industries at once. Vance makes the case that Musk's success heralds a return to the original ambition and invention that made America an economic and intellectual powerhouse.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"2 pages in, I decided I was in this for the long haul and sat on the floor, right there in the middle of the store. Because as you experience the story, as you see the challenges Musk went through to reach the pinnacle he's at today, the question nags at you. Musk isn't soft-spoken, or easy on his employees, or a man who kicks his legs up on his desk and snoozes while his companies mill around him. Vance shows how Musk is both the CEO and an employee of his companies, simultaneously the teacher and student. Vance takes you deep into the details, from Musk's childhood and lineage in South Africa, all the way to Canada and the United States, where the bulk of the story unfolds. When Musk looks at big businesses, he sees unmovable behemoths that refuse to change their methodologies. So we follow Musk's journey from his small start-ups, Zip2 and X.com, and move into his larger, more permanent ventures, namely SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Did you know SpaceX tested these rockets on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and would fix problems they encountered in a matter of days, as compared to months by standard companies? I'm going to reread this book in a few weeks (probably after the scheduled June 19th third Falcon 9 landing attempt, this time on solid ground, as opposed to a barge). Anyone who wants a ridiculously thorough insight into Elon Musk's life and companies should read this book. This is an incredibly inspiring book, a important look into a game-changing business strategy, and a valuable lesson to the world."
"I loved the insight into Musk and how he operates, and you get a very broad and complete picture of Musk as a driven visionary that is absolutely set on delivering some of the most aspirational goals of any human in history. You also get some great insight into the overall ecosystem around Musk - his companies (SpaceX and Tesla primarily), relationships with other companies and gov entities, as well as the important people around him."
"Solid, well researched book about Musk's early life, early companies (Zip2 and PayPal), and current companies (Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity). Throughout the book, Vance doesn't just let a startling assertion or quote stand still, he researches events to give the reader a balanced view of what transpired."
How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? 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. 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. Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. -- Harry C. Edwards In what Collins terms a prequel to the bestseller Built to Last he wrote with Jerry Porras, this worthwhile effort explores the way good organizations can be turned into ones that produce great, sustained results. After establishing a definition of a good-to-great transition that involves a 10-year fallow period followed by 15 years of increased profits, Collins's crew combed through every company that has made the Fortune 500 (approximately 1,400) and found 11 that met their criteria, including Walgreens, Kimberly Clark and Circuit City.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Finally, a book from Jim Collins on Good to Great for Social Sectors which should be read by everybody working in social enterprises and organization, who are not operating as businesses and companies in their field, but who want to contribute their very best in the interest of people's rights and wellbeing around the world."
"Yet the proof is in the results that these level 5 leaders have achieved, for example Fannie Mae's CEO David Maxwell who exemplified these qualities and grew the company 3.8 times the general stock market."
"Good to Great is a marvelous description of what makes companies elevate themselves in the minds of their customers and their other constituencies."
"An interesting read, but I'm not sure his conclusions are sound--info is fairly anecdotal and correlational, not causal."
"Practical - because the Great companies' analysis indicates duplicateable concepts and steps which are universal in any field by aspiring Level 5 leaders. Encouraging - Some of the toughest decisions made by Level 5 leaders are being made by leaders aspiring to attain the Level 5 mentality."
"The book is based on a huge amount of research and has great examples to underpin their conclusions."
"Just a great, thorough book."
"This book by Jim Collins was written after Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (Harper Business Essentials) but really should be read first. All in all this was a great book to read as it provided new insight into why companies such as Walgreens performs so well and why Circuit City (during the period of study) experience tremendous growth. The book really emphasized how getting the right people on board in the right place is really important through the Wells Fargo and Bank of America example."
Fast Food Nation points the way but, to resurrect an old fast food slogan, the choice is yours.”— Los Angeles Times. Eric Schlosser’s exposé revealed how the fast food industry has altered the landscape of America, widened the gap between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and transformed food production throughout the world. In a new afterword for this edition, Schlosser discusses the growing interest in local and organic food, the continued exploitation of poor workers by the food industry, and the need to ensure that every American has access to good, healthy, affordable food. “Schlosser shows how the fast food industry conquered both appetite and landscape.”— The New Yorker. In this fascinating sociocultural report, Schlosser digs into the deeper meaning of Burger King, Auggie's, The Chicken Shack, Jack-in-the-Box, Little Caesar's and myriad other examples of fast food in America. Frequently using McDonald's as a template, Schlosser, an Atlantic Monthly correspondent, explains how the development of fast-food restaurants has led to the standardization of American culture, widespread obesity, urban sprawl and more. In a perky, reportorial voice, Adamson tells of the history, economics, day-to-day dealings and broad and often negative cultural implications of franchised burger joints and pizza factories, delivering impressive snippets of information (e.g., two-thirds of America's fast-food restaurant employees are teenagers; Willard Scott posed as the first Ronald McDonald until higher-ups decided Scott was too round to represent a healthy restaurant like McDonald's). According to Schlosser, most visits to fast-food restaurants are the culinary equivalent of "impulse buys," i.e., someone is driving by and pulls over for a Big Mac.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"In some cases (such as the malling and sprawling of the West) the fast food industry has been a catalyst and a symptom of larger economic trends. By tracing the diverse influences of fast food I hope to shed light not only on the workings of an important industry, but also on a distinctively American way of viewing the world." Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful: "The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. "The right pressure applied to the fast food industry in the right way could produce change faster than any act of Congress. The United Students Against Sweatshops and other activist groups have brought widespread attention to the child labor, low wages, and hazardous working conditions in Asian factories that make sneakers for Nike." "Whatever replaces the fast food industry should be regional, diverse, authentic, unpredictable, sustainable, profitable - and humble."
"The book starts off by explaining how the fast food industry came to be the American symbol. Schlosser took many tours through slaughterhouses and interviewed many former employees that have been burned out from the tortuous conditions. Schlosser says that, "Everyday in the United States, roughly 200,000 people are sickened by food borne disease, 900 are hospitalized, and 14 die". His main message presented was how the fast food industry is affecting society. Having more people know about what is really behind the Big Mac and the Whopper will help society understand what they are eating and how it can affect them."
"Even ten years after this was originally written, still incredibly timely."
"Then he gets into other topics - the minimum wage, failed unionizations, the ingredients, marketing that targets children - and your eyes are opened permanently."
"I bought Fast Food Nation through Amazon seller as a used book."
"It offers an amazing insight of the entire meet industry."
Best Retailing Industry
In the New York Times bestseller that the Washington Post called “ Lean In for misfits,” Sophia Amoruso shares how she went from dumpster diving to founding one of the fastest-growing retailers in the world. It’s this kind of honest advice, plus the humorous ups and downs of her rise in online retail, that make the book so appealing.” — Los Angeles Times. “Amoruso teaches the innovative and entrepreneurial among us to play to our strengths, learn from our mistakes, and know when to break a few of the traditional rules.” — Vanity Fair “#GIRLBOSS is more than a book . " #GIRLBOSS is more than a book . Her other books are The Girlboss Workbook and Nasty Galaxy.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It is inspiring to see with will power and nobody telling you no, you truly achieve something... and with spam."
"This was a very easy read and I have a lot of underlines in mine since there are many golden nuggets throughout for anyone who is considering starting their own business."
"What can I say about this book other than it's incredibly inspirational and gives me the feeling that I can go-get-'em."
"Finished this book in one afternoon."
"This is the only fully truthful business book I have read."
"This girl is funny, shares her start-up knowledge in a witty, humorous way."
"+ It truly is inspiring to read about a type of success not born of traditional privilege or ambition - I hope this book gets a lot of other young women out there to kick-start their dreams. Sophia seems to think her company is God's gift to Earth - I found her completely presumptuous both in her evaluation of her own brand equity, and hyperbolic in her descriptions of Nasty Gal as a "huge, explosive success" (I live and work in Silicon Valley, where nonprofits get $20M in funding annually easy and companies grow from 1 to 350 employees in two years - let's have a sense of scale here.). She had some nice words about some coworkers, but she never acknowledges the support her family gave her even as she was essentially a parenting failure, never thanks her customers for driving awareness of her brand, never admits that some of her colleagues are at least part of the reason behind her company's success. + She plays the victim so much but never acknowledges any real failures (and now, hiring someone you thought was right for the role and then having to fire them isn't a failure - it's a rhetorical device used to assert your authority in this book.)."
"Due to the hype, I was expecting better writing and more depth."
Best Hospitality, Travel & Tourism
The bestselling business book from award-winning restauranteur Danny Meyer, of Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, and Shake Shack. In this landmark book, Danny shares the lessons he learned developing the dynamic philosophy he calls Enlightened Hospitality. Book Description In October 1985, at age 27, Danny Meyer, with a good idea and scant experience, opened what would become one of New York City's most revered restaurants--Union Square Cafe. Named one of the most influential New Yorkers of 2006 by New York magazine, Meyer, the founder and co-owner of 11 of Manhattan's most influential restaurants, including Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Tabla, The Modern, Blue Smoke, and Shake Shack, has penned Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality , a business book that reads like food lit and equal part personal memoir. Amazon.com senior editor Brad Thomas Parsons took some time from his daily long-distance day-dreaming of Shake Shack and caught up with the ever-gracious Danny Meyer over e-mail to ask about his new book, the Food Network, his favorite cookbooks, insider tips on dining out, and much more. Initially cautious about expansion, he opened Gramercy Tavern with chef Tom Colicchio three years later, eventually broadening his New York City restaurant empire to 11 establishments including Eleven Madison Park, Tabla, Blue Smoke, Shake Shack and the Modern.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This is one of my all time favorite books - really a wonderful read."
"Danny Meyer is brilliant and shared many valuable insights not only for business dealings, but also for life in general."
"Danny Meyers shows a lot on honesty with his experience some is drawn out on personal situations opposed to a teaching how-to."
"Mr. Meyer's entertaining and educational story of his life in the restaurant business serves as an instructional manual for anyone involved in business and leadership."
"Of all business books I've ever read, this one does more to focus on the one reason I want to be in business: take good care of people."
"Author gives many useful tips on hospitality, how to establish and run a restaurant, how to treat customers, suppliers, community, investors and your own team, how to deal with various difficulties on the road to success and most of this advices come from his own experience."
"Worth reading if you are interested in the culinary field or even just basic business."
"I described to him my hopes for owning my own restaurant one day, and he recommended this book to me."
Best Electrical & Electronics
Use with ARRL s online Exam Review for Ham Radio. Welcome to Amateur Radio. Radio and Signals Fundamentals. Electricity, Components, and Circuits. Propagation, Antennas, and Feed Lines. Amateur Radio Equipment. Communicating With Other Hams. Licensing Regulations. Operating Regulations. Safety. As you complete each chapter of this book, use ARRL's online Exam Review for Ham Radio to help prepare you for exam day. Once you've finished this book, use the online service to take practice exams with the same number and variety of questions that you'll encounter on exam day.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Some of the other books that I see concentrate more on passing the test by learning the test questions than actually teaching the material."
"After the training material, there is an excellent glossary, the complete exam question pool (with correct answers indicated), as well as a supplementary chapter on choosing a ham radio. Excellent graphics -- lots of tables, charts, photographs, and line drawings. As much as I love my e-Ink Kindle, this is the sort of book that is better in paper and in a large format. Table of Contents for the course material -- Radio and Signals Fundamentals; Electricity, Components, and Circuits; Propagation, Antennas, and Feed Lines; Amateur Radio Equipment; Communicating With Other Hams; Licensing Regulations; Operating Regulations; and Safety."
"Even though you could simply memorize the questions from the FCC test bank, you'll be missing out on a great amount of information that's useful to the new ham operator."
"As a test preparation guide and desktop reference, its a good book to own."
"I passed my license after going through the multiple choice questions in the back.."
"I'm new to this HAM radio but am confident that this will be the reference that stays on my shelf as I get my first license level."
"This is a nicely laid out book that takes you through all of the material for the license exam."
"My only issue with the electronic format is that the images could be more readable inline with the text. This results in needing to zoom almost every image, where most of them could be otherwise read inline with the text."
Best Biographies, Diaries & True Accounts in Japanese
サイバラvs高須院長!熟年恋愛を赤裸々に描いた大人気作品「ダーリンは70歳」のスピンオフ本です。破天荒なマンガの内容は真実なのか?西原さんの脚色ではないのか?高須克弥院長のロングインタビュー本が、巨大な資金をバックに襲来します。そして西原さんの描き下ろしマンガ「りえくまちゃんとぼく」も収録。感涙の傑作です!.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Finally available in kindle."
Best Business Systems & Planning
To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, StrengthsFinder, in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book spent more than five years on the bestseller lists and ignited a global conversation, while StrengthsFinder helped millions to discover their top five talents. * The more user-friendly StrengthsFinder 2.0 companion website, with a strengths community area, library of downloadable discussion guides and activities, a strengths screensaver, and a program for creating display cards of your top five themes. In the six years since the release of Now, Discover Your Strengths, more than 2 million people have taken the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment, which means billions of people have not yet had the opportunity. Those who are familiar with the StrengthsFinder assessment know that it is designed to uncover certain key talents -- patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior that can be productively applied. In this interview, Tom Rath, author of StrengthsFinder 2.0, discusses what Gallup scientists have learned since the publication of the first book, what more there is to discover about your talents, and why it's bad to focus on your employees' weaknesses, but simply cruel to ignore them completely. More than two million people have taken the StrengthsFinder assessment, and each month, the number of people learning about their talents goes up. This book helps readers apply strengths theory to any type of role and gives them ideas to help them apply their talents in their daily life. Have you discovered anything new about talents and strengths? We found that if your manager focuses on your strengths, your chances of being actively disengaged go down to one in one hundred. I always thought there were some people who were just destined to be disengaged in their jobs because that was their personality, and no matter how hard managers tried, there wasn't much they could do with some of those people. GMJ: So is that the business case to be made for putting people in roles that play to their strengths? The main business case is that people have a lot more fun and get a lot more done if they're able to spend time in areas where they have some natural talent. Rath: While hundreds of people in our organization continue to research this topic each year, our greatest challenge might be incorporating the new research while making the message even more succinct and applicable to a wider audience. GMJ: The Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment has always categorized talents into thirty-four themes. ABOUT STRENGTHSFINDER. In 1998, the Father of Strengths Psychology, Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D. (1924-2003), along with Tom Rath and a team of scientists at The Gallup Organization, created the online StrengthsFinder assessment. In 2007, building on the initial assessment and language from StrengthsFinder 1.0, Rath and Gallup scientists released a new edition of the assessment, program, and website, dubbed "StrengthsFinder 2.0." Rooted in more than 40 years of research, this assessment has helped millions discover and develop their natural talents.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Each copy includes a scratch off passcode that gives you access to the StrengthsFinder 2.0 test. Knowing these strengths is critical, because they are unchangeable traits that will enable you to succeed to your fullest potential."
"This book definitely lives up to it's hype!"
"This book helped me understand myself and others better."
"A great way to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are."
"A great book and a terrific way to understand how to build better and more engaged teams!"
Best Sustainable Business Development
Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Collins and Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies -- they have an average age of nearly one hundred years and have outperformed the general stock market by a factor of fifteen since 1926 -- and studied each company in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day -- as start-ups, as midsize companies, and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: "What makes the truly exceptional companies different from other companies?" They set out to determine what's special about "visionary" companies--the Disneys, Wal-Marts, and Mercks, companies at the very top of their game that have demonstrated longevity and great brand image. The authors compare 18 "visionary" picks to a control group of "successful-but-second-rank" companies. This book, written by a team from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, compares what the authors have identified as "visionary" companies with selected companies in the same industry. The visionary companies, the authors found out, had a number of common characteristics; for instance, almost all had some type of core ideology that guided the company in times of upheaval and served as a constant bench mark.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I honestly think there are better books out there for this subject matter."
"If you have the good to great I feel all info are just copy paste."
"As a manager in a large company that is trying to reinvent itself, I found many parallels to both the visionary and non-visionary examples."
"This books offers great insights on how some of the most successful organizations had been built."
"30/Jul/2009 Update: One can not read this book in the right context and perspective without reading The Halo Effect: ... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers - so far the best business book I've ever read!"
"One of the classics and very much enjoyed reading."
"This work from team Collins/Porras is a fine book and. a must read for any business savy person or executive. interested in tuning in to some basic and yet essential. precepts on keeping ahead of the inevitable changes. and cycles that consume so many companies and industries."
Best Company Business Profiles
Filled with telling personal anecdotes and high adventure, with narratives from the CIA and from Air Force pilots who flew the many classified, risky missions, this book is a riveting portrait of the most spectacular aviation triumphs of the twentieth century. Under its presiding genius, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, the Skunk Works produced America's first jet fighter, the world's most successful spy plane (U-2), the first three-times-the-speed-of-sound surveillance aircraft and the F-117A stealth fighter. In an entertaining style, the authors describe Johnson's tyrannical managerial style, his thorny but productive relationship with the Air Force and the stealth-technology breakthrough that revolutionized military aviation. He has much to say about the Defense Department bureaucracy and warns, "Everyone in the defense industry knows that bureaucratic regulations, controls, and paperwork are at critical mass... and... in danger of destroying the entire system."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Reading about the amazing things that were being engineered at Skunk Works back when they didn't have the luxury of computers to do their modeling for them. Highly recommend it if you have any interest in aviation, especially top secret military aviation."
"Although this book was written some time ago, it is still a great story, especially when the Stealth Bomber flew right over my neighborhood!"
"I loaned out the 1st two and never got them back - and it is one of the best I have ever read with regard to the development of the spy and stealth planes by the Lockheed Advanced Development Division."
"An well written book with excellent attention to detail."
"Seriously, during the Cold War, our government knew a lot about our spy planes, the USSR government knew a lot about our spy planes, but American citizens knew virtually nothing."
"It was a very good book that I came away with an insight of how the skunk works operated."
"You see the numerous personalities and the power struggles that go on constantly to make progress and balance the delicate negotiations and major daunting constructions that were involved."
"Ben Rich and Leo Janos gave us a glimpse into many of the most secretive and historically significant breakthroughs of the Cold War era."
Best Labor Policy
Fast Food Nation points the way but, to resurrect an old fast food slogan, the choice is yours.”— Los Angeles Times. Eric Schlosser’s exposé revealed how the fast food industry has altered the landscape of America, widened the gap between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and transformed food production throughout the world. In a new afterword for this edition, Schlosser discusses the growing interest in local and organic food, the continued exploitation of poor workers by the food industry, and the need to ensure that every American has access to good, healthy, affordable food. “Schlosser shows how the fast food industry conquered both appetite and landscape.”— The New Yorker. In this fascinating sociocultural report, Schlosser digs into the deeper meaning of Burger King, Auggie's, The Chicken Shack, Jack-in-the-Box, Little Caesar's and myriad other examples of fast food in America. Frequently using McDonald's as a template, Schlosser, an Atlantic Monthly correspondent, explains how the development of fast-food restaurants has led to the standardization of American culture, widespread obesity, urban sprawl and more. In a perky, reportorial voice, Adamson tells of the history, economics, day-to-day dealings and broad and often negative cultural implications of franchised burger joints and pizza factories, delivering impressive snippets of information (e.g., two-thirds of America's fast-food restaurant employees are teenagers; Willard Scott posed as the first Ronald McDonald until higher-ups decided Scott was too round to represent a healthy restaurant like McDonald's). According to Schlosser, most visits to fast-food restaurants are the culinary equivalent of "impulse buys," i.e., someone is driving by and pulls over for a Big Mac.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"In some cases (such as the malling and sprawling of the West) the fast food industry has been a catalyst and a symptom of larger economic trends. By tracing the diverse influences of fast food I hope to shed light not only on the workings of an important industry, but also on a distinctively American way of viewing the world." Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful: "The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. "The right pressure applied to the fast food industry in the right way could produce change faster than any act of Congress. The United Students Against Sweatshops and other activist groups have brought widespread attention to the child labor, low wages, and hazardous working conditions in Asian factories that make sneakers for Nike." "Whatever replaces the fast food industry should be regional, diverse, authentic, unpredictable, sustainable, profitable - and humble."
"The book starts off by explaining how the fast food industry came to be the American symbol. Schlosser took many tours through slaughterhouses and interviewed many former employees that have been burned out from the tortuous conditions. Schlosser says that, "Everyday in the United States, roughly 200,000 people are sickened by food borne disease, 900 are hospitalized, and 14 die". His main message presented was how the fast food industry is affecting society. Having more people know about what is really behind the Big Mac and the Whopper will help society understand what they are eating and how it can affect them."
"Even ten years after this was originally written, still incredibly timely."
"Then he gets into other topics - the minimum wage, failed unionizations, the ingredients, marketing that targets children - and your eyes are opened permanently."
"I bought Fast Food Nation through Amazon seller as a used book."
"It offers an amazing insight of the entire meet industry."