History of specific companies / corporate history Books

Book SynopsisJames Rubin and Barie Carmichael provide a roadmap for businesses to rebuild trust and find their voice. Reset offers case studies of reputations lost and found, suggesting fundamental strategies to mitigate risk and build the corporate brand. This book is a guide to navigating the pitfalls and taking advantage of the opportunities of the new era.Trade ReviewReset hits the nail on the head with the increasingly self-evident idea that corporations must embrace the inherent risks in their business model when it is out of sync with prevailing public sentiment voiced by key stakeholders. The prescription is for corporate communication practitioners to close the gap, that is, to thoroughly know and clearly tell the story of what it does. -- Tim P. McMahon, Creighton University Heider College of BusinessTable of ContentsForewordEditor's NoteIntroduction1. The Business Trust–Expectations Gap2. Closing the Gap in the New Social Landscape3. Inherent Negatives: Managing Risk and Reputation4. Corporate Character5. The New Corporate Branding6. Reputation Lost and Found7. Resetting the Sweet SpotNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisHow social media is changing the corporate worldTrade ReviewWill twenty-first-century social media technologies finally liberate organizations from stifling bureaucratic hierarchies? After spending ten months closely observing a software firm, Catherine J. Turco, one of sociology's brightest young stars, surprises with fascinating and nuanced answers. Brimming with vivid examples, The Conversational Firm will not only shape scholarly debate but also engage general readers interested in corporate life. -- Viviana A. Zelizer, author of Economic Lives The Conversational Firm opens a new chapter in the study of workplace democracy by analyzing how social media enable a new balance between workers' autonomy and productivity in high-tech corporate settings. With a particularly keen ethnographic eye, the author reveals a brave new world in which some of the bars of the bureaucratic iron cage are pried open while others remain in place for the pursuit of corporate goals. While millennials gain a more personalized and empowering work environment in the bargain, business leaders gain fuller access to their inner thoughts and creativity. This book will have a lasting impact on the study of corporate cultures and new organizational forms. -- Michele Lamont, author of The Dignity of Working Men With The Conversational Firm, Turco uses the role of social media to challenge our fundamental assumptions about how modern organizations function. In this masterful work, she uncovers a new way of organizing where openness and hierarchy complement, rather than contradict one another. I'm putting this book next to my copies of Weber, Barnard, and Chandler. -- Damon Phillips, Columbia Business School In The Conversational Firm, Turco argues that organizations can transcend bureaucracy, but still they are held in check by certain workplace demands for reproduction and stability. These checks seem to prevent the organization from becoming complete anarchy. Yet perhaps just as important, The Conversational Firm is a rich and delightful organizational ethnography of how work is being transformed in the era of social media. -- Brayden King, Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University With a book that is as readable as it is wise, Turco makes a powerful case for the depth of insight that can only come from the best ethnographies-and is unavailable from the 'big data' analyses currently in vogue. Practitioners and scholars alike will come away with their understanding of firm hierarchy, culture, and communication transformed and enriched. -- Ezra Zuckerman Sivan, MIT Sloan School of Management [A] well-written, insightful ethnographic study. -- Theodore Kinni Strategy + BusinessTable of ContentsPreface Introduction 1. The Social Revolution 2. Open Communication 3. Open Control 4. Openness Controls 5. Open Culture 6. A Conversation About Bureaucracy 7. Conversational Spaces 8. The Conversational Firm: Implications for Theory 9. The Future of the Conversational Firm Methodological Appendix Acknowledgments Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisHow active boards ensure the life of a company.Trade ReviewFar too many corporate directors have failed to honor their responsibility to manage the corporations they serve for the benefit of the firm's shareholders. In this powerful and articulate book, attorney and board consultant Ira M. Millstein aims to drive a stake into director passivity, and create a new model for the activist director. It is a grand and important vision. -- John C. Bogle, founder and former CEO, The Vanguard Group For more than half a century, Ira Millstein has been a leading authority on corporate governance. His new book, The Activist Director, provides a probing analysis of corporate governance, an inside the boardroom view, and is sure to serve as an essential guide to directors in today's transforming environment. -- Joseph Perella, cofounder and chairman, Perella Weinberg Partners No one has more experience with corporate boards, and insights into what makes them work, than Ira Millstein. The Activist Director reveals the good, the bad, and the ugly from some of the biggest management failures-and successes-in recent history. -- Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and former mayor of New York City The Activist Director is a must-read. By examining real-world examples based on his firsthand experience counseling boards, Ira Millstein offers unique and imaginative solutions to the problems corporations face in today's rapidly changing global marketplace. -- Richard Parsons, former chairman and CEO, Time Warner, Inc. For more than six decades, Ira Millstein has had an important seat in the boardrooms at some of our world's most iconic corporations. The Activist Director is a fascinating and must-read book for anyone associated with a for-profit or not-for-profit board. -- Sanford I. Weill, chairman emeritus, Citigroup Millstein offers pragmatic suggestions for recruiting activist directors to the boardroom to secure the future of the corporation. Value Walk [The Activist Director] takes readers into the boardrooms of several of the greatest catastrophes and success stories of America's best-known corporations... Mr. Millstein offers pragmatic suggestions for recruiting activist directors to the boardroom to secure the future of the corporation. Metropolitan Corporate CounselTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. A Mess That Can't Be Fixed? 2. The Board-Centric Imperative 3. Revolt in the Boardroom: The Story of General Motors 4. General Motors as Catalyst 5. Drexel: The Most Feared Firm on Wall Street 6. Dead Broke: New York City's 1970s Fiscal Crisis 7. Lights Out: The Con Ed Blackout 8. Shedding Light on Shadow Government 9. Planned Parenthood: A Corporate Governance Success Story Conclusion: In Search of the Activist Director Author's Note Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewNo one has more experience with corporate boards, and insights into what makes them work, than Ira Millstein. The Activist Director reveals the good, the bad, and the ugly from some of the biggest management failures—and successes—in recent history. -- Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and former mayor of New York CityFar too many corporate directors have failed to honor their responsibility to manage the corporations they serve for the benefit of the firm's shareholders. In this powerful and articulate book, attorney and board consultant Ira M. Millstein aims to drive a stake into director passivity and create a new model for the activist director. It is a grand and important vision. -- John C. Bogle, founder and former CEO, The Vanguard GroupFor more than six decades, Ira Millstein has had an important seat in the boardrooms at some of our world's most iconic corporations. The Activist Director is a fascinating and must-read book for anyone associated with a for-profit or not-for-profit board. -- Sanford I. Weill, chairman emeritus, Citigroup Inc.The Activist Director is a must-read. By examining real-world examples based on his firsthand experience counseling boards, Ira Millstein offers unique and imaginative solutions to the problems corporations face in today's rapidly changing global marketplace. -- Richard Parsons, former chairman and CEO, Time Warner Inc.For more than half a century, Ira Millstein has been a leading authority on corporate governance. His new book, The Activist Director, provides a probing analysis of corporate governance, an inside the boardroom view, and is sure to serve as an essential guide to directors in today's transforming environment. -- Joseph Perella, cofounder and chairman, Perella Weinberg PartnersMillstein offers pragmatic suggestions for recruiting activist directors to the boardroom to secure the future of the corporation. * Value Walk *[The Activist Director] takes readers into the boardrooms of several of the greatest catastrophes and success stories of America's best-known corporations. . . . Mr. Millstein offers pragmatic suggestions for recruiting activist directors to the boardroom to secure the future of the corporation. * Metropolitan Corporate Counsel *Millstein’s vast history gives weight to his comments and his relating of concrete events with the likes of General Motors and ConEd as well as the city and state of New York lends authority to his recommendations. * Library Journal *[The Activist Director] provides a detailed list of directors’ obligations and gives concrete advice on how to hire directors who will ensure long-term success . . . [It offers] interesting insights for students and researchers, as well as for practitioners in the field of corporate governance. -- Felix von Meyerinck * Financial Markets and Portfolio Management *If you want to understand how today's practices developed and why they need to develop further Millstein's book is perfect. * Investing by the Books *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. A Mess That Can't Be Fixed? 2. The Board-Centric Imperative 3. Revolt in the Boardroom: The Story of General Motors 4. General Motors as Catalyst 5. Drexel: The Most Feared Firm on Wall Street 6. Dead Broke: New York City's 1970s Fiscal Crisis 7. Lights Out: The Con Ed Blackout 8. Shedding Light on Shadow Government 9. Planned Parenthood: A Corporate Governance Success Story Conclusion: In Search of the Activist Director Author's Note Acknowledgments

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Book Synopsis''Levy portrays a tech company where no one is taking responsibility for what it has unleashed'' Financial Times''This fascinating book reveals the imperial ambitions of Facebook''s founder'' James Marriott, Sunday Times''The inside story of how Facebook went from idealism to scandal'' Laurence Dodds, TelegraphToday, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from the simple website Zuckerberg''s first built from his dorm room in his Sophomore year. It has grown into a tech giant, the largest social media platform and one of the biggest companies in the world, with a valuation of more than $576 billion and almost 3 billion users. There is no denying the power and omnipresence of Facebook in daily life. And in light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing fake news accounts, the handling of its users'' personal data and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO, never has the company been more central to the national conversation. Based on years of exclusive reporting and interviews with Facebook''s key executives and employees, including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Steven Levy''s sweeping narrative digs deep into the whole story of the company that has changed the world and reaped the consequences.Trade ReviewThis absorbing book will inspire important conversations about big tech and privacy in the twenty-first century * Booklist *This fascinating book reveals the imperial ambitions of Facebook's founder * James Marriott, The Sunday Times *A tour de force of access journalism * Natasha Singer, The New York Times *Steven Levy is the founding guru of technology journalism * Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store and The Upstarts *Levy's narrative is richly detailed, thanks to interviews with Facebookers past and present...His account of Zuckerberg's abbreviated Harvard tenure and Facebook's early years feel fresh, with plenty of colour that reminds you the HBO show Silicon Valley did not have to reach far for its satire * NPR.org *Comprehensive and captivating history * Wall Street Journal *Levy writes with verve... [he] is able to trace the origins of the Cambridge Analytica scheme to Facebook's disregard for the privacy concerns of the first users... He doesn't shy from asking the tough questions * Washington Post *Fresh, up-to-date and insiderish * The Economist *Levy portrays a tech company where no one is taking responsibility for what it has unleashed... The book closes with a recognition that Facebook is bulldozing ahead with new innovations - from Facebook dating to its Libra digital currency project - while Zuckerberg continues to shrug off any ethical queries about his past behaviour * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Vogan's research provides him with ample fodder to engross readers with stories and insights into the world behind their notable shows. . . . Sports fans will enjoy this well-researched and fascinating look at how ESPN has impacted both television and the viewing habits of millions of watchers."--Library Journal"Represents a genuinely original and overdue assessment of perhaps the most significant entity in sports media since the penny press. An exceptional trove of interviews, archival information, and industrial and aesthetic analysis." --Victoria E. Johnson, author of Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity"This smart, lively examination of ESPN's place in American culture and how it continues to consciously work its way in is a trove of research, insight, and fascinating stories."--Robert Lipsyte, New York Times columnist and author of An Accidental Sportswriter"This is to date the most thoroughly researched and well-argued analysis of ESPN."--Aaron Baker, author of Contesting Identities: Sports in American Film"This well-researched book is a gold mine of information about the origin and philosophy of ESPN. Highly recommended."--Choice"In this fascinating history, journalism professor Vogan imbues the network's nascent struggles with a sense of adventure. . . . Sports fans, especially those of the couch-potato variety, will find this account of the life of a TV network as enjoyable as most star biographies."--Booklist

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Book SynopsisOnce a shoestring operation built on plywood sets and Australian rules football, ESPN has evolved into a media colossus. A genius for cross-promotion and its near-mystical rapport with its viewers empower the network to set agendas and create superstars, to curate sports history even as it mainstreams the latest cultural trends. Travis Vogan teams archival research and interviews with an all-star cast to pen the definitive account of how ESPN turned X's and O's into billions of $$$. Vogan's institutional and cultural history focuses on the network since 1998, the year it launched a high-motor effort to craft its brand and grow audiences across media platforms. As he shows, innovative properties like SportsCentury, ESPN The Magazine, and 30 for 30 built the network's cultural caché. This credibility, in turn, propelled ESPN's transformation into an entity that lapped its run-of-the-mill competitors and helped fulfill its self-proclaimed status as the Worldwide Leader in Sports. AmbitiouTrade Review"Vogan's research provides him with ample fodder to engross readers with stories and insights into the world behind their notable shows. . . . Sports fans will enjoy this well-researched and fascinating look at how ESPN has impacted both television and the viewing habits of millions of watchers."--Library Journal"Represents a genuinely original and overdue assessment of perhaps the most significant entity in sports media since the penny press. An exceptional trove of interviews, archival information, and industrial and aesthetic analysis." --Victoria E. Johnson, author of Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity"This smart, lively examination of ESPN's place in American culture and how it continues to consciously work its way in is a trove of research, insight, and fascinating stories."--Robert Lipsyte, New York Times columnist and author of An Accidental Sportswriter"This is to date the most thoroughly researched and well-argued analysis of ESPN."--Aaron Baker, author of Contesting Identities: Sports in American Film"This well-researched book is a gold mine of information about the origin and philosophy of ESPN. Highly recommended."--Choice"In this fascinating history, journalism professor Vogan imbues the network's nascent struggles with a sense of adventure. . . . Sports fans, especially those of the couch-potato variety, will find this account of the life of a TV network as enjoyable as most star biographies."--Booklist

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Book SynopsisBranch Line Empires offers a thorough and captivating analysis of how a changing world turned competition into cooperation between two railroad industry titansthe Pennsylvania and the New York Central railroads.Trade ReviewAn absorbing, well-written account, which will appeal to American history scholars and railroad enthusiasts. . . . Recommended. * Choice *The book is a most welcome and worthy addition to the literature of Pennsylvania's rich railroading heritage. * Pennsylvania Heritage *Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgments1. Switchbacks and Rattlesnakes: The Bellefonte and Snow Shoe Railroad2. Moshannon's Black Gold: The Tyrone and Clearfield Railroad3. The PRR Tightens Its Grip: The Bald Eagle Valley Railroad4. Forever Divided: The Lewisburg and Tyrone Railroad5. Uniting the Branch Lines: The PRR's Tyrone Division6. Breaking the Monopoly: Beech Creek Railroad/New York Central 7. Nittany Valley Short Lines: Bellefonte Central Railroad/Central Railroad of Pennsylvania/Nittany Valley Railroad8. Railroads at High Tide9. The Tide Recedes: Passenger Service10. The Pennsylvania and the New York Central on the Plateau, 1918-196811. Railroading in the Valleys, 1918-196812. Empires Dismantled: Penn Central and BeyondIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Starry-eyed visionaries and hard-headed railroaders populate this beautifully written history of railroading in Big Sky Country. In the face of determined opposition from the Northern Pacific Railway, local entrepreneurs struggled to exploit the resources of southern Montana. While they never reached their intended destination of Yellowstone National Park, they built a rail line that was both an ally and adversary of the powerful NP. With lyrical prose, Robert Schalla provides a masterful account of the determination and perseverance that brought the Montana, Wyoming & Southern to the coalfields that lay at the foothills of the Rockies."—Albert J. Churella, author of The Pennsylvania Railroad"An engrossing, well-written and researched story about an almost forgotten railroad that had big expectations. An important addition to Montana's railroad history."—Jon Axline, Montana Department of Transportation"Montana's industry blosomed after the arrival of the railroads in the 1880s. Precious metal mining, copper production, lumbering, agriculture and transportation quickly expanded utilizing steam power. This required fuel.Until WWII coal was the best option. The state's three transcontintal railroads and the Anaconda company immediately laid claim to large tracts of coal lands. Late into this competitive market came entrepeneur Frank Hall and his Montana, Wyoming and Southern RR scheme to haul coal from the Bear Creek mines. Robert Schalla successfully traces Hall's ongoing struggle. This well researched and detailed new book entitled Black Diamonds from the Treasure State is a great read."—Bill Taylor, co-author of Rails to Gold and Silver, The Montana Central Ry, The NP's Mullan Pass and The Butte Shortline."Schalla relays the riveting true story of the New World Mining District, the early mining pioneers in the Yellowstone and Carbon County areas, who faced multiple hurdles of greed and beguiling to bring coal transportation and economy to the South Central regions of Montana."—Becky Van Horn, Carbon County Historical Preservation Officer"In south central Montana, the decades around the beginning of the twentieth century saw promotion, sometimes leading to operations, of coal and gold mines and railroads intended to reach those mines. This book covers several such plans and enterprises, and in particular focuses on one railroad—the Montana, Wyoming & Southern—built to link a coal mining district to Montana's rail network. The thoroughly researched text covers hopeful promoters, anxious investors, complaining coal mine operators, the often-frustrated connecting Northern Pacific Railway, and enduring employees. Unique for the region among its rolling stock, the MW&S operated a geared Shay locomotive and a self-propelled McKeen passenger car."—Dale Martin, Author of Ties, Rails, and Telegraph Wires: Railroads and Communities in Montana and the West

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Vision Accomplished is delightful. Galligan shows us how this small but feisty railroad survived over the not-so-kind years as the character and personalities of its leaders kept a long-standing company culture intact. Emphasizing how they met the challenge without burying the reader in numbers makes it a page turner. An ideal book for any MBA candidate."—W. C. (Bill) Lyman"With the publication of Vision Accomplished, the KCS story is made eminently readable by no less than Bill Galligan who led its communications team. While the book brings to life its unique personalities, markets and culture, more importantly it makes the company's evolution easier to understand by highlighting underlying themes, my favorites being long term thinking; respect; culture; non-traditional strategy; and lack of false modesty. With KCS' Vision Accomplished as the result of the CPKC merger, the timing is good for this book to inspire others'. Hopefully the quality of their work will be as good as Mr. Galligan's."—Henry Posner III – Chairman, Iowa Interstate Railroad, and Adjunct Professor, Dietrich College of the Humanities, Carnegie Mellon University"Bill Galligan has opened a window on the history of an important railroad that historians and journalists have mostly ignored. His account of how Kansas City Southern survived one crisis after another and then flourished in this century is riveting. Read it and be amazed at what determined people can do."—Fred Frailey – Formerly Special Correspondent and Columnist, Trains magazine and author of Last Train to Texas

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Book SynopsisA history of one of the most influential American companies of the last century.For decades, IBM shaped the way the world did business. IBM products were in every large organization, and IBM corporate culture established a management style that was imitated by companies around the globe. It was “Big Blue, ” an icon. And yet over the years, IBM has gone through both failure and success, surviving flatlining revenue and forced reinvention. The company almost went out of business in the early 1990s, then came back strong with new business strategies and an emphasis on artificial intelligence. In this authoritative, monumental history, James Cortada tells the story of one of the most influential American companies of the last century.Cortada, a historian who worked at IBM for many years, describes IBM's technology breakthroughs, including the development of the punch card (used for automatic tabulation in the 1890 census), the calculation and printing of the

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Book SynopsisThis sweeping and vivid history presents the innovative studio from its initial merger to the enormous success of The Sound of Music, combining film analysis with the interconnected histories of the studio, its executives, and the industry at large.Trade Review...Lev's consistently illuminating book joins the first rank of Hollywood studio histories. Summing up: Highly recommended. * Choice *[Twentieth Century Fox] contributes in redressing the imbalance in American film histories that has skewed them toward the studios' creative activities on the West Coast while ignoring the East Coast financiers that kept the show going and, in many cases, guided Hollywood's politics from behind the scenes. * Journal of Modern Greek Studies *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: The Merger, 1935–1939 Chapter 2: Wartime Prosperity, 1940–1945 Chapter 3: Peak Achievements, 1946–1950 Chapter 4: A Slow Decline, 1951–1960 Chapter 5: Bust and Boom, 1961–1965 Epilogue, 1966–2011 Notes Bibliography Index

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Trade Review“Lewis intertwines several Cold War years of U.S. business history, bureaucratic-administrative history, and strategic intelligence history in a combination that has no precedent for revelatory, engaging, and exciting detail.”—H. Bradford Westerfield, Yale University“By far the most comprehensive and definitive description of the symbiotic relationship between the corporate world and the CIA’s early space-based intelligence collection program. The quality of research is extraordinary.”—William E. Burrows, author of Deep Black and By Any Means Necessary“This fast-paced story reads like a cross between good spy fiction and a business school case study. Rich in detail, it chronicles the reality of government working with the private sector in the national interest, with all the pitfalls and cultural disconnects thrown in.”—Frederick P. Hitz, Princeton University, and former Inspector General, CIA (1990–1998) “Once I started reading Spy Capitalism, I could not put it away. It’s a fascinating study, extremely well told, and it makes a real contribution to our knowledge of the Cold War period.”—Arthur S. Hulnick, Boston University “Jonathan Lewis, co-author of spy legend Richard Bissell’s memoirs, has produced another valuable book on U. S. intelligence. This time he takes us into the shadowland of the CIA’s relations with corporate America. His study of the often uneasy partnership between the ITEK Corporation and the CIA in the construction of early spy satellites is thorough, reliable, and felicitously written.”—Loch Johnson, Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia

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Book SynopsisARS MECHANICA traces the comprehensive history of the Herstal Group, renowned worldwide through its brands FN Herstal, Browning, and Winchester. Almost 130 years of technological innovation and unique know-how has allowed the company to develop, manufacture and commercialize leading quality products

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Book SynopsisSometimes radical yet always applicable, Brick by Brick abounds with real-world lessons for unleashing breakthrough innovation in your organization, using LEGO--which experienced one of the most remarkable business transformations in recent history--as a business model. As LEGO failed to keep pace with the revolutionary changes in kids' lives and began sliding into irrelevance, the company's leaders implemented some of the business world's most widely espoused prescriptions for boosting innovation. Ironically, these changes pushed the iconic toymaker to the brink of bankruptcy, showing that what works in theory can fail spectacularly in the brutally competitive global economy. It took a new LEGO management team--faced with the growing rage for electronic toys, few barriers to entry, and ultra-demanding consumers (ten-year old boys)--to reinvent the innovation rule book and transform LEGO into one of the world's most profitable, fastest-growing companies.  Along the way, Brick by Brick reveals how LEGO:- Became truly customer-driven by co-creating with kids as well as its passionate adult fans- Looked beyond products and learned to leverage a full-spectrum approach to innovation- Opened its innovation process by using both the wisdom of crowds and the expertise of elite cliques- Discovered uncontested, blue ocean markets, even as it thrived in brutally competitive red oceans- Gave its world-class design teams enough space to create and direction to deliver built a culture where profitable innovation flourishes Whether you're a senior executive looking to make your company grow, an entrepreneur building a startup from scratch, or a fan who wants to instill some of that LEGO magic in your career, you'll learn how to build your own innovation advantage, brick by brick.

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Book SynopsisCommerce meets conquest in this swashbuckling story of the six merchant-adventurers who built the modern worldIt was an era when monopoly trading companies were the unofficial agents of European expansion, controlling vast numbers of people and huge tracts of land, and taking on governmental and military functions. They managed their territories as business interests, treating their subjects as employees, customers, or competitors. The leaders of these trading enterprises exercised virtually unaccountable, dictatorial political power over millions of people.The merchant kings of the Age of Heroic Commerce were a rogue''s gallery of larger-than-life men who, for a couple hundred years, expanded their far-flung commercial enterprises over a sizable portion of the world. They include Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the violent and autocratic pioneer of the Dutch East India Company; Peter Stuyvesant, the one-legged governor of the Dutch West India Company, whose narrow-minded appr

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Book SynopsisUsing the words of its own people, this intriguing book provides an in-depth look at the incredibly successful airline that changed the rules of the game with a no-frills business model and innovative corporate culture.Trade ReviewLauer, a freelance writer and editor, draws from interviews with leaders, managers, employees, and passengers of Southwest Airlines to provide a discussion of the company from its early days to the present, as well as its unique corporate culture that puts employees first. He also describes the company as a role model for other organizations, its customer service, leadership, people-friendly attitude, and corporate, hiring and training, and employee practices. * Reference & Research Book News *

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Book SynopsisIn 1899, Allie Rowbottom''s great-great-great-uncle bought the patent to Jell-O from its inventor for $450. The sale would turn out to be one of the most profitable business deals in American history and the generations that followed enjoyed immense privilege - but they were also haunted by suicides, cancer, alcoholism and mysterious ailments.More than 100 years after that deal was struck, Allie''s mother Mary was diagnosed with the same incurable cancer, a disease that had also claimed her own mother''s life. Determined to combat what she had come to consider the Jell-O curse and her looming mortality, Mary began obsessively researching her family''s past, determined to understand the origins of her illness and the impact on her life of Jell-O and the traditional American values the company championed. Before she died in 2015, Mary began to send Allie boxes of her research and notes, in the hope that her daughter might write what she could not. JELL-O GIRLS is the liberatio

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Book Synopsis'An explosive new book' Daily Mail '[A] careful, comprehensive interrogation of every major Facebook scandal. An Ugly Truth provides the kind of satisfaction you might get if you hired a private investigator to track a cheating spouse: it confirms your worst suspicions and then gives you all the dates and details you need to cut through the company's spin' New York Times __________________________________________ Award-winning New York Times reporters Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang unveil the tech story of our times in this riveting, behind-the-scenes expose that offers the definitive account of Facebook's fall from grace. Once one of Silicon Valley's greatest success stories, for the past five years Facebook has been under constant fire, roiled by controversies and crises. It turns out that while the tech giant was connecting the world, they were also mishandling users' data, allowing the spread of fake news, and the amplification of dangerous, polarising hate speech. In a period of Trade Review[Frenkel and Kang] have produced the ultimate takedown via careful, comprehensive interrogation of every major Facebook scandal. An Ugly Truth provides the kind of satisfaction you might get if you hired a private investigator to track a cheating spouse: it confirms your worst suspicions and then gives you all the dates and details you need to cut through the company's spin. * New York Times *A comprehensive account . . . drawn from first-hand testimonies. Thoroughly engaging * The Times *An explosive new book * Daily Mail *A detailed dismantling of what happened at the highest levels of the company as it pursued a policy of deny, deflect and obfuscate. * New Statesman *Better sourced than all of its predecessors in the genre . . . makes for gripping as well as depressing reading. One of the book's striking revelations is that there is more anxiety inside the company than we realised. Many Facebook employees have been anguished, frustrated or angry about what their employer has been doing in its relentless quest for growth. Some have tried to alert their superiors to their concerns. But time and again the bad news hasn't persuaded those bosses because they didn't sync with the overriding imperative of endless corporate growth . . . The problem of Facebook is Zuckerberg. And the question posed by this splendid book is: what are we going to do about him? * Observer, Book of the Week *Drawing on more than 1,000 hours of interviews with hundreds of Facebook associates, [Kang and Frenkel's] fly-on-the-wall exposé shows a company that often looks the other way . . . What marks this book out is how it gets under the corporate bonnet, using information from mostly disgruntled former Facebook staff to build a picture of astounding corporate arrogance and irresponsibility. * Sunday Times *The definitive history of what has happened to the social network since its inception . . . a great read * Times Radio *Impeccably researched through interviews with the company's present and former employees, investors and even enemies, [An Ugly Truth] examines how the social network is used to spread disinformation and its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential victory. * Sunday Times, Business Books of the Year *

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Book SynopsisA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WALL STREET JOURNAL #1 Best-selling Business Book Based on the highly acclaimed NPR podcast, How I Built This with Guy Raz, this book offers priceless insights and inspiration from the world’s top entrepreneurs on how to start, launch, and build a successful venture.Great ideas often come from a simple spark: A soccer player on the New Zealand national team notices all the unused wool his country produces and figures out a way to turn them into shoes (Allbirds). A former Buddhist monk decides the very best way to spread his mindfulness teachings is by launching an app (Headspace). A sandwich cart vendor finds a way to reuse leftover pita bread and turns it into a multimillion-dollar business (Stacy’s Pita Chips).Award-winning journalist and NPR host Guy Raz has interviewed more than two-hundred highly successful entrepreneurs to uncover amazing true stories like these. In How

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Book SynopsisThe world''s largest company, Wal-Mart Stores, has revenues higher than the GDP of all but twenty-five of the world''s countries. Its employees outnumber the populations of almost a hundred nations. The world''s largest asset manager, a secretive New York company called Black Rock, controls assets greater than the national reserves of any country on the planet. A private philanthropy, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, spends as much worldwide on health care as the World Health Organization. The rise of private power may be the most important and least understood trend of our time. David Rothkopf provides a fresh, timely look at how we have reached a point where thousands of companies have greater power than all but a handful of states. Beginning with the story of an inquisitive Swedish goat wandering off from his master and inadvertently triggering the birth of the oldest company still in existence, Power, Inc. follows the rise and fall of kings and empir

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Book Synopsis The definitive, bestselling account of the company that changed the way we work and live, updated for the twentieth anniversary of Google’s founding with analysis of its most recent bold moves to redefine the world—and its even more ambitious plans for the future.Moscow-born Sergey Brin and Midwest-born Larry Page dropped out of graduate school at Stanford University to, as they said, “change the world” through a powerful search engine that would organize every bit of information on the Web for free. The Google Story takes you deep inside the company’s wild ride from an idea that struggled for funding in 1998 to a firm that today rakes in billions in profits. Based on scrupulous research and extraordinary access to Google, this fast-moving narrative reveals how an unorthodox management style and a culture of innovation enabled a search-engine giant to shake up Madison Avenue, clash with governments that accuse it of

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Book SynopsisThe question of whether our ideas are our own or our employer’s set off the greatest toy war of our time.Trade Review"At its core, You Don’t Own Me is an exploration of a relatively dry topic: the intellectual property regime. Yet in the hands of Lobel… this case study in who should benefit from an employee’s creativity becomes something of a page-turner." -- Financial Times"You Don’t Own Me is an extended case study that’s fascinating and consequential thanks to Lobel’s storytelling skill. Through her descriptions of flamboyant personalities and outrageous corporate scheming, she elevates the story of a protracted legal case into a page-turner that holds up a lipstick-pink mirror to both American consumer culture and corporate misbehaviour." -- Times Higher Education"In a crisp, conversational style, Lobel plots the twists and turns of the unfolding court cases. […] Lobel tells a vivid tale of corporate war." -- Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisThe story of how a new generation of tech-savvy franchise owners is reshaping every aspect of professional sportsTrade Review"Fascinating... Schoenfeld is a canny storyteller, and his portraits of the big beasts (and the almost-rans) are vivid." -- Chris Stoel-Walker - New Scientist"[Game of Edges is] a panoramic, intercontinental tour of sports’ newest battlegrounds: the executive suites perched high above the playing fields and the data rooms buried beneath them, where true success is measured not in wins but dollars. Buoyed" -- Ben Reiter, The New York Times best-selling author of Astroball"A superb storyteller, Bruce Schoenfeld is the master of finding—and then explaining—the secret dynamics of sports. Exquisitely readable and expertly reported, Game of Edges is a joy—though it ought to come with a warning label: fans will never view sports the same way again." -- L. Jon Wertheim, 60 Minutes correspondent and coauthor of Scorecasting"Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Game of Edges delivers a sweeping look at one of the most significant developments in worldwide sports: the new generation of investors fueling the stratospheric rise in the value of pro sports franchises. Bruce Schoenfeld has written a story rich in detail, taking readers into the boardrooms and brainstorming sessions of the teams they love. To read this book is to understand the intriguing dynamics of global sports as they exist today, while peering into their fascinating but uncertain future." -- Christine Brennan, USA Today columnist and best-selling author of Inside Edge

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Book SynopsisFrom famously humble origins, Amazon has grown to become one of the most successful businesses in history. In its effort to provide its trademark fast and convenient Prime delivery, the company built a vast worldwide network of fulfillment centers and warehouses. Unsustainable looks inside the company's warehouses to reveal that the rise of Amazon is only made possible by the exploitation of workers' labor and communities' resources. Juliann Emmons Allison and Ellen Reese expose the real-world repercussions of these pernicious strategies through a chilling case study of the socioeconomic and environmental harms associated with the largely unchecked growth of warehousing in Inland Southern California, one of the nation's largest logistics hubs, where Amazon is the largest private-sector employer. Tracing the rise of grassroots resistance to the warehouse industry by workers and communities across this region, the country, and the globe, Unsustainable provides fresh insight into one of tTrade Review"The book develops a broad and insightful analysis of the human and environmental costs that flow from Amazon’s virtually unchecked domination of local communities, low-wage labor markets, and the workers whose labor it exploits." * Social Forces *

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Book SynopsisWhat can you learn from a Silicon Valley legend and a pantheon of iconic leaders? The key to scaling a successful business isn''t talent, network or strategy. It''s an entrepreneurial mindset - and that mindset can be cultivated.Behind the scenes in Silicon Valley, Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn, investor at Greylock) is a sought-after advisor to heads of companies and heads of state. On his podcast Masters of Scale, he sits down with an all-star list of visionary founders and leaders, digging into the surprising strategies that power their growth. In this book, he draws on their most riveting, revealing stories - as well his own experience as a founder and investor - to distil the counterintuitive secrets behind the most extraordinary success stories of our times.Here, Hoffman teams up with Masters of Scale''s executive producers to offer a rare window into the entrepreneurial mind. They share surprising, never-before-told stories from leaderTrade ReviewMasters Of Scale is about more than scaling. At its core, it's a book about how wildly successful people have noticed what others haven't, what they did with those ideas and what they learned along the way despite various setbacks. It's also about how curiosity, perseverance, humility and risk have helped turn seemingly impossible ideas into lucrative businesses. * Forbes *A book to take with you into battle as you build a company or a career. It's full of enjoyable stories, but the killer feature is the sharp insights Reid draws out - specific, memorable, actionable mindsets. -- Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO, NetflixWhether you're at a startup or working to drive change within a large organization, the business principles in this book will help you deploy your strategy with creativity, integrity and realism. -- Satya Nadella, CEO, MicrosoftReid Hoffman has a talent for getting right to the heart of a business case and turning it into an unforgettable lesson. If you're scaling a company - or if you just love a well-told story - this is a book to savour. -- Bob Iger, executive chair, Walt Disney Co.To lead with vision and heart, start by listening and learning from others. Using stories to teach lessons, this book is full of solid (and sometimes surprising!) advice that will help accelerate your journey. -- Angela Ahrendts, former CEO, Burberry, and former head of Apple Retail

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Book SynopsisDeeply Responsible Business profiles corporate leaders of the past two centuries who made social missions vital to their businesses. Geoffrey Jones explores the characters and motivations of fourteen such leaders and compares their deep social and environmental commitments to the lukewarm “corporate social responsibility” of today.Trade ReviewOutstanding…Jones challenges head-on the notion that for-profit leaders have never be virtuous while chasing the bottom line…This is a timely and insightful read. -- Larry Gennari * Boston Business Journal *Deeply Responsible Business is a valuable catalog of notable efforts over the past two centuries by profit-seeking businesses to also pursue the common good. -- Kevin J. Delaney * Charter Works *Jones subverts received wisdom about the logic of business and capitalism. He makes a strong case for reimagining capitalism and posits that the first step in this process is to reconceptualize business and its social purpose. -- Badrinath Rao * Wire India *For the last fifty years, Milton Friedman’s idea that businesses should overwhelmingly focus on shareholders has prevailed, and our culture and laws have aligned so closely to this thinking that people have come to believe it is the natural way of doing business. This is why Jones’s book is so important and powerful. It explodes Friedman’s idea and shows how—throughout history, the world over, and in many ways—it is actually more natural for entrepreneurs to have a purpose and mission. -- Christopher Marquis, author of Better Business: How the B Corp Movement Is Remaking CapitalismGeoffrey Jones’s outstanding book provides a compelling and readable account of the long and rich history of businesses that conceived of their place in society as profitably benefiting their customers, workers, owners, communities, countries, and planet. Some might think this a new—or even controversial—idea, but its roots are deep and global. Being deeply responsible offers many benefits—but equally many challenges. Jones shows how firms navigated their conflicting responsibilities. Not only business leaders but also leaders in other sectors, will benefit from these insights, which are painfully relevant in our age. -- Peter Tufano, Saïd Business School, University of OxfordA fascinating and important contribution. Jones profiles companies whose leaders, in one form or another, have promoted responsible business. He records their deep commitment to embedding humane values in their businesses and captures their considerable challenges and failures. In some cases, virtue signaling was not borne out by virtuous practices. The book argues that the presumption that responsible business is good business is simply not the case. Those who behave ethically are undermined by those who do not. Coordinated efforts across multiple companies are more likely to succeed, but ultimately it is government that must lay down the terms on which business needs to act. Insightful and informative. -- Colin Mayer, author of Prosperity: Better Business Makes the Greater Good

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Book SynopsisEli Black was the immigrant rabbi-turned-CEO who transformed the notoriously corrupt United Fruit into a model of ethical business. Then he died by suicide. How did it all go wrong? Matt Garcia traces Black’s own descent into corruption and despair—the unraveling, and the deliberate forgetting, of one of America’s most enigmatic business leaders.Trade ReviewAn engaging chronicle of an idealistic but flawed businessman as well as a dissection of the postwar merger craze with no small relevance to today. -- Roger Lowenstein * Wall Street Journal *Eli and the Octopus focuses on one individual to tell a story that is emblematic of an era. In this story, readers learn about Eli Black, but we learn more about migration, divisions within American Judaism, meatpacking, lettuce transportation, unions, sunglasses production, and mergers and conglomerates. -- Courtney J. Campbell * History Today *Garcia’s portrayal of Black is sympathetic and somewhat rueful, finding pathos in the disconnect between Garcia’s ‘good intentions’ and the inevitability that the ‘imperatives of turning a profit and serving investors’ would outweigh ‘any virtuous impulse.’ The result is a plaintive study of the challenges of trying to change a system from within. * Publishers Weekly *Eli and the Octopus is a deeply informed study of one of the most enigmatic figures to arise in the Mad Men era of merger mania and conglomerate-building. Beyond its inherent tragedy, this story adds richly to our understanding of how corporate America became what it is today. -- Diana B. Henriques, author of The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of TrustPiecing together the Shakespearean saga of rabbi-turned-business tycoon Eli Black, Matt Garcia offers a compelling, cautionary tale on the limits of corporate social responsibility. The unvarnished—but not unsympathetic—portrait is a history with great current relevance. -- Miriam Pawel, author of The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A BiographyA gripping story worth telling. In this deeply researched book, Garcia weaves together American Jewish history, American business history, and American labor history, all through the many lives of a remarkable and ultimately tragic individual. -- Hasia R. Diner, author of Julius Rosenwald: Repairing the WorldA marvelous book that embodies the inherent tension between our religious and ethical senses and the compromised and corrupt business of our daily lives. Eli Black's rise and fall is but an exaggerated illumination of the human condition. -- Nelson Lichtenstein, author of State of the Union: A Century of American LaborIn this riveting tale of United Fruit's Eli Black, Garcia walks right into the center of business history, adds union power into the mix, and shows the impossibility of pursuing both corporate profits and social responsibility. Black wanted to believe that his private machinations were for the public good, in keeping with his Jewish faith. But meatpacking workers in the Midwest, the United Farm Workers in California, and banana workers in Honduras—all of which Garcia links in a seamless narrative—paid the price for Black's market-driven policies. Eli and the Octopus is a powerful and cautionary tale of the true nature of corporate strategy, however well-meaning the outrageously wealthy who pursue it. -- Dana Frank, author of The Long Honduran NightA revelatory exploration of Eli Black and his struggle to remake modern business into a vehicle for positive social change. In a moment of growing inequality and corporate power, Eli and the Octopus could not be more timely or more important. -- Karl Jacoby, author of The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire

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Book SynopsisTells the story of the political mobilization of American business in the 1970s and 1980s. This title traces the rise and ultimate fragmentation of a broad-based effort to unify the business community and promote a fiscally conservative, antiregulatory, and market-oriented policy agenda to Congress and the country at large.Trade Review"Waterhouse's Lobbying America is an intricate, well-woven history of the efforts by business to influence U.S. politics. Waterhouse tells the story of how the business community came to lobby with an increasingly unified voice against a background of societal change, shifting cultural values, and an increasingly global economy... Immediately of interest to political scientists and historians, this engaging history of business, politics, and societal change will find a wider audience among readers interested in national politics."--Choice "Lobbying America is a deeply researched, persuasively argued study that makes important contributions to our understanding of the relationship of business and politics."--Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, Journal of American History "The era explored by Waterhouse is rich with complex details. Managing such complexity is a monumental task. Ultimately, Waterhouse succeeds in convincing the reader that corporate lobbyists working on 'small details and short-term benefits' supplanted lobbyists focused on 'big-ticket ideological issues.'"--Scott H. Ainsworth, Economic History Review "[Waterhouses's] focus on business lobbying is perceptive and elegantly written and Waterhouse has made an important contribution to the literature on business and politics in the twentieth century."--Gregory L. Schneider, American Historical ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: American Business, American Politics 1 Chapter 1: From Consensus to a Crisis of Confidence 14 Chapter 2: A New Life for Old Lobbies 46 Chapter 3: The Birth of the Business Roundtable 76 Chapter 4: Business, Labor, and the Politics of Inflation 106 Chapter 5: The Producer versus the Consumer 140 Chapter 6: Uncertain Victory: Big Business and the Politics of Regulatory Reform 174 Chapter 7: A Tale of Two Tax Cuts 201 Chapter 8: Every Man His Own Lobbyist 229 Epilogue: American Politics, American Business 255 Abbreviations 265 Notes 267 Bibliography 311 Index 325

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