Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street: The New York Times bestseller Bill Gates calls ‘the best business book I’ve ever read’
£0.90
‘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.
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Additional information
| Publisher | 1st edition (22 July 2014), Nicholas Brealey Publishing |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 2189 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 468 pages |
by Gazzarian
There is no doubting the quality of the writing, the intellect and the insight. And the wry throwaway humour kept me engaged. You can actually see traces of modern day satire lurking here. His impartial approach, not to criticise business, or to put it on a pedestal, but to try to understand it and relate it to people’s everyday lives, is engagingly human. But I didn’t finish it feeling that I’d learnt anything profound, it’s a book that might tweak your business life a bit but it’s not going to change it. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to enjoy the read, though.
by Mr Michael M Theis
A good entertaining and well informed read for somebody like myself some generations older than Bill Gates. Grateful for his tip off. Brooks is in a line of remarkable independent finamcial journalists. Long may they survive and keep the flag flying for an eqitable and understanding fact based analisis of economic activity so that the world may end up with an internationally agreed form of taxation to adjust the current immoral inequalities. Only so much can be consumed by any individual – the human stomach is expandable to only a certain limited extent – obesity.
by Paola
Great book
by Jules
A fabulous insight into business and corporate life – in most cases how it used to be done, and should not be anymore.
This is so well written that each story is highly engaging and you get fully immersed right into the subject.
A great read for anyone with any commercial interests at all, looking for some lessons to add to their business acumen – or someone who just loves good stories.
Brilliant.
by ABBEY ADEB’
Some of the tales left my jaws agape. I couldn’t help reaching to other sources and investigating some of the characters further. It will not be hard to find inspiration in some of these players.
On the flip side, there was danger of dropping the book within the first few pages. Hard to get into, but gripping once I started to understand that this wasn’t just a collation of news reportage.
I think the final tale could have done with some shortening – certainly when compared with the prior two or three that seemed disproportionately shorter.
A great book nonetheless.
by Nicholas
Review courtesy of http://www.subtleillumination.com
Any book that is the favourite of both Bill Gates and Warren Buffet is self-recommending, and I feel a little second-rate saying I really liked it as well. Nevermind. Business Adventures is a great book!
What distinguishes Business Adventures from other business books is the quality of the writing. It’s a collection of New Yorker articles by John Brooks from the golden age of print journalism, and it shows. Topics include the rise and fall of Xerox (invented by accident – they just kept adding elements from the periodic table to their ink till they found one that worked, and had no idea why), the Ford Edsel (a brutal failure of a car design for Ford), income tax, cornering a market in order to destroy short sellers (sadly now illegal, which might be why short selling is so popular), the first supermarket (Piggly Wiggly Stores – the owner would become a millionaire and then go bankrupt several times), the manager of the Tennessee Valley Authority, currency crises, and a vast scope of other subjects.
For the quality of the writing, for the quality of the stories, and for the insight, it’s hard to beat. It won’t teach you to be a modern investment banker, but it will teach you about the fundamental concepts businesses and businesspeople need to think about, concepts that can often feel obscured in a haze of electronic trading and hedge funds today. As the real estate crash in the US showed, however, technology and advanced degrees are no substitute for understanding the classical principles of business.
by Ken Eaton
This book is filled with some of the great business stories. Worth a read to learn from history in an engaging storey telling way.
by Stiven Skyrah
I had heard, as I think everyone else has, that Business Adventures was a favourite book of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. I read the ebook, and I understand a print version will be forthcoming in September.
This book makes me feel as though I’m sitting at the knee of my grandfather, listening to wise recollections.
A writer of articles in the 1950’s and 1960, many for the New Yorker, the author intelligently and thoughtfully steps through 12 events, one per chapter.
At first, I thought perhaps I was particularly dense and wasn’t getting the message. What held these stories together? Eventually, I realized that the author is not driving home a point, selling anything, or giving advice. His observations leave room for the reader to consider events, their connections, their parallels to today, the importance of character, and the question of morality in business. It was refreshing not to be told what to think.
I enjoyed the stories of Ford’s Edsel, Piggly Wiggly, Xerox, Goodrich vs Latex.
The chapter on the federal income tax is particularly relevant, given the wide-spread debate about taxes and modern conversations about the 1%.
John Brooks’ perspective is firmly rooted in the past, when the book was written and provides readers opportunity for a sense of omniscience since we can consider ramifications the author himself could not be aware of, at that time.
Details may change. People do not.