Billion Dollar Lessons
What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last Twenty-five Years
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $25.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Jim Bond
About this listen
In Billion Dollar Lessons, Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui draw on research into more than 750 business failures to reveal the misguided tactics that mire companies over and over. There are thousands of books about successful companies, but virtually none about the lessons to be learned from those that crash and burn.
Billion Dollar Lessons provides proven methods that managers, boards, and even investors can adopt to avoid making the same mistakes. It draws on vivid examples to help you thoroughly assess potentially disastrous strategies before they bring your company down.
Think of Billion Dollar Lessons as the flip side of Good to Great, but just as eye opening and essential as that business classic. Billion Dollar Lessons will keep you from going from good to gone.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
The Outsiders
- Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
- By: William N. Thorndike
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Outsiders, you'll learn the traits and methods striking for their consistency and relentless rationality that helped these unique leaders achieve such exceptional performance. Humble, unassuming, and often frugal, these "outsiders" shunned Wall Street and the press, and shied away from the hottest new management trends. Instead, they shared specific traits that put them and the companies they led on winning trajectories: a laser-sharp focus on per share value as opposed to earnings or sales growth; an exceptional talent for allocating capital and human resources; and the belief that cash flow, not reported earnings, determines a company's long-term value.
-
-
Great summary of the 8 CEOs, lessons to learn from
- By Jason S on 09-04-19
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Number Go Up
- Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall
- By: Zeke Faux
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2021 cryptocurrency went mainstream. Giant investment funds were buying it, celebrities like Tom Brady endorsed it, and TV ads hailed it as the future of money. Hardly anyone knew how it worked—but why bother with the particulars when everyone was making a fortune from Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, or some other bizarrely named “digital asset”? As he observed this frenzy, investigative reporter Zeke Faux had a nagging question: Was it all just a confidence game of epic proportions? What started as curiosity—with a dash of FOMO—would morph into a two-year globe-spanning quest.
-
-
Phenomenal story
- By Michael on 10-05-23
By: Zeke Faux
-
Clear Thinking
- Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results
- By: Shane Parrish
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Shane Parrish
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You might believe you’re thinking clearly in the moments that matter most. But in all likelihood, when the pressure is on, you won’t be thinking at all. And your subsequent actions will inevitably move you further from the results you ultimately seek—love, belonging, success, wealth, victory. According to Farnam Street founder Shane Parrish, we must get better at recognizing these opportunities for what they are, and deploying our cognitive ability in order to achieve the life we want.
-
-
It Feels Like a Classic - Seven Habits Good
- By Tyler L on 11-02-23
By: Shane Parrish
-
The Fund
- Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend
- By: Rob Copeland
- Narrated by: Rob Copeland, Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ray Dalio does not want you to listen to this audiobook. Late last year, when the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund on the planet, announced that he was stepping down from the company he started out of his apartment nearly 50 years ago, the news made headlines around the world. Dalio cultivated an aura of international admiration and fame thanks to his company’s eye-popping success, coupled with a mystique he encouraged with frequent media appearances, celebrity hobnobbing, and his bestselling book, Principles.
-
-
Best finance book I've read in years
- By Aaron on 12-16-23
By: Rob Copeland
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
The Outsiders
- Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
- By: William N. Thorndike
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Outsiders, you'll learn the traits and methods striking for their consistency and relentless rationality that helped these unique leaders achieve such exceptional performance. Humble, unassuming, and often frugal, these "outsiders" shunned Wall Street and the press, and shied away from the hottest new management trends. Instead, they shared specific traits that put them and the companies they led on winning trajectories: a laser-sharp focus on per share value as opposed to earnings or sales growth; an exceptional talent for allocating capital and human resources; and the belief that cash flow, not reported earnings, determines a company's long-term value.
-
-
Great summary of the 8 CEOs, lessons to learn from
- By Jason S on 09-04-19
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Number Go Up
- Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall
- By: Zeke Faux
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2021 cryptocurrency went mainstream. Giant investment funds were buying it, celebrities like Tom Brady endorsed it, and TV ads hailed it as the future of money. Hardly anyone knew how it worked—but why bother with the particulars when everyone was making a fortune from Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, or some other bizarrely named “digital asset”? As he observed this frenzy, investigative reporter Zeke Faux had a nagging question: Was it all just a confidence game of epic proportions? What started as curiosity—with a dash of FOMO—would morph into a two-year globe-spanning quest.
-
-
Phenomenal story
- By Michael on 10-05-23
By: Zeke Faux
-
Clear Thinking
- Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results
- By: Shane Parrish
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Shane Parrish
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You might believe you’re thinking clearly in the moments that matter most. But in all likelihood, when the pressure is on, you won’t be thinking at all. And your subsequent actions will inevitably move you further from the results you ultimately seek—love, belonging, success, wealth, victory. According to Farnam Street founder Shane Parrish, we must get better at recognizing these opportunities for what they are, and deploying our cognitive ability in order to achieve the life we want.
-
-
It Feels Like a Classic - Seven Habits Good
- By Tyler L on 11-02-23
By: Shane Parrish
-
The Fund
- Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend
- By: Rob Copeland
- Narrated by: Rob Copeland, Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ray Dalio does not want you to listen to this audiobook. Late last year, when the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund on the planet, announced that he was stepping down from the company he started out of his apartment nearly 50 years ago, the news made headlines around the world. Dalio cultivated an aura of international admiration and fame thanks to his company’s eye-popping success, coupled with a mystique he encouraged with frequent media appearances, celebrity hobnobbing, and his bestselling book, Principles.
-
-
Best finance book I've read in years
- By Aaron on 12-16-23
By: Rob Copeland
-
Playing to Win
- How Strategy Really Works
- By: Roger L. Martin, A.G. Lafley
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Playing to Win, a noted Wall Street Journal and Washington Post best seller, outlines the strategic approach Lafley, in close partnership with strategic adviser Roger Martin, used to double P&G’s sales, quadruple its profits, and increase its market value by more than $100 billion when Lafley was first CEO (he led the company from 2000 to 2009). The book shows leaders in any type of organization how to guide everyday actions with larger strategic goals built around the clear, essential elements that determine business successwhere to play and how to win.
-
-
The P&G Story
- By lniles on 04-14-15
By: Roger L. Martin, and others
-
How to Invest
- By: David M. Rubenstein
- Narrated by: David M. Rubenstein, Ray Dalio, Marc Andreessen, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What do the most successful investors have in common? David M. Rubenstein, cofounder of one of the world’s largest investment firms, has spent years interviewing the greatest investors in the world to discover the time-tested principles, hard-earned wisdom, and indispensable tools that guide their practice. Rubenstein, who has spent more than three decades in the hypercompetitive world of private equity, now distills everything he’s learned about the art and craft of investing, from venture capital, real estate, private equity, hedge funds, to crypto, endowments, SPACs, ESG, and more.
-
-
Only get the audio book
- By Joe on 09-26-22
-
Charlie Munger
- The Complete Investor
- By: Tren Griffin
- Narrated by: Fred Stella
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway's visionary vice chairman and Warren Buffett's indispensable financial partner, has outperformed market indexes again and again, and he believes any investor can do the same. His notion of "elementary, worldly wisdom" - a set of interdisciplinary mental models involving economics, business, psychology, ethics, and management - allows him to keep his emotions out of his investments and avoid the common pitfalls of bad judgment.
-
-
Good, but... one major annoyance
- By Joseph R. Compton on 02-26-16
By: Tren Griffin
-
The Power Law
- Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future
- By: Sebastian Mallaby
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Innovations rarely come from “experts.” Elon Musk was not an “electric car person” before he started Tesla. When it comes to improbable innovations, a legendary tech VC told Sebastian Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. It is the nature of the venture-capital game that most attempts at discovery fail, but a very few succeed at such a scale that they more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives the VC business, all of Silicon Valley, the wider tech sector, and, by extension, the world.
-
-
An Excellent Modern History Book
- By BikerDave on 05-06-24
-
More Money Than God
- Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite
- By: Sebastian Mallaby
- Narrated by: Alan Nebelthau
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Paul Volker Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington Post journalist Sebastian Mallaby has garnered New York Times Editor’s Choice and Notable Book honors for his enthralling nonfiction. Bolstered by Mallaby’s unprecedented access to the industry, More Money Than God tells the inside story of hedge funds, from their origins in the 1960s and 1970s to their role in the financial crisis of 2007–2009.
-
-
Valiant effort but lacking analytic horsepower...
- By ND on 01-10-11
-
The Rational Optimist
- How Prosperity Evolves
- By: Matt Ridley
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Life is getting better at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before.
-
-
Personal
- By Robert F. Jones on 09-15-17
By: Matt Ridley
-
The Great Mental Models
- General Thinking Concepts
- By: Shane Parrish
- Narrated by: Shane Parrish
- Length: 3 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts is the first book in The Great Mental Models series designed to upgrade your thinking with the best, most useful and powerful tools so you always have the right one on hand. This volume details nine of the most versatile all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making, your productivity, and how clearly you see the world.
-
-
A dissapointing debut
- By Peter on 04-14-19
By: Shane Parrish
-
Conspiracy
- A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire's Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire
- By: Ryan Holiday
- Narrated by: Ryan Holiday
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2007, a short blogpost by Gawker Media outed PayPal founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel as gay. Thiel's sexuality had been known to close friends and family, but he didn't consider himself a public figure, and believed the information was private. This post would be the casus belli for a meticulously plotted conspiracy that would end nearly a decade later with a $140 million dollar judgment against Gawker and its bankruptcy. Only later would the world learn that Gawker's demise was not incidental - it had been masterminded by Thiel.
-
-
I almost couldn’t make it through...
- By Grant Hall on 04-06-18
By: Ryan Holiday
-
Money Men
- A Hot Startup, A Billion Dollar Fraud, A Fight for the Truth
- By: Dan McCrum
- Narrated by: Dan McCrum
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When investigative journalist Dan McCrum first came across Wirecard, the hot new tech company that looked poised to challenge Silicon Valley, it all looked a little too good to be true: offices were sprouting up all over the world, and they were reporting runaway growth. In the space of a few short years, the company had come from nowhere to overtake industry giants like Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank on the stock market. As McCrum began to dig deeper, he encountered a story stranger and more compelling than he could have imagined.
-
-
Interesting book but…
- By Rock Climber on 06-11-23
By: Dan McCrum
-
Where the Money Is
- Value Investing in the Digital Age
- By: Adam Seessel
- Narrated by: Gibson Frazier
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Technological change is reshaping the economy in a way not witnessed since Henry Ford introduced the assembly line. A little more than ten years ago, only two of the ten most valuable publicly traded companies in the world were digital enterprises—today, they comprise eight of the top ten. Investors around the world are struggling to understand the Digital Age and how they can use the stock market to profit from it.
-
-
The best breakdown of Value 3.0 Investing
- By Tremayne on 11-24-22
By: Adam Seessel
-
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy
- The Difference and Why It Matters
- By: Richard Rumelt
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to - and approach for - overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy”.
-
-
Good but thin
- By G. London on 01-04-20
By: Richard Rumelt
-
Double Your Profits
- In Six Months or Less
- By: Bob Fifer
- Narrated by: Bob Fifer
- Length: 2 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the nations' foremost financial consultants shares 78 proven ways to cut costs dramatically, send productivity through the roof, and, in just six months, double profits.
-
-
Hypocrisy
- By T on 12-02-23
By: Bob Fifer
Related to this topic
-
The Lords of Strategy
- The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World
- By: Walter Kiechel III
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine running a business without a strategy. It would be akin to driving blindfolded, to building a house without a blueprint. The concept of strategy changed all that, paving the way for the creation of the modern corporate world. The Lords of Strategy provides listeners with a deeper understanding of the world they compete in, and a sharper eye for what works — and what doesn’t — when forging strategy.
-
-
Super Book of Narrow Interest
- By Roy on 08-23-10
-
Competition Demystified
- A Radically Simplified Approach to Business Strategy
- By: Judd Kahn, Bruce C. Greenwald
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bruce Greenwald, one of the nation's leading business professors, presents a new and simplified approach to strategy that cuts through much of the fog that has surrounded the subject. Based on his hugely popular course at Columbia Business School, Greenwald and his co-author, Judd Kahn, offer an easy-to-follow method for understanding the competitive structure of your industry and developing an appropriate strategy for your specific position.
-
-
Prof, we need the figures/graphs that’s in the the book
- By sid on 12-25-20
By: Judd Kahn, and others
-
Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?
- Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround
- By: Louis V. Gerstner Jr.
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1990, IBM had its most profitable year ever. By 1993, the company was on a watch list for extinction, victimized by its own lumbering size, an insular corporate culture, and the PC era IBM had itself helped invent.
-
-
Moderate Start, Picks up FAST!
- By Art H on 02-08-05
-
Attacker's Advantage
- Turning Uncertainty into Breakthrough Opportunities
- By: Ram Charan
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Attacker's Advantage, Charan reveals the upside of uncertainty for those leaders who are nimbly positioned to anticipate the catalysts of disruption and embrace change. He updates and adapts the principles of his previous best sellers to address the current turbulent business environment, cutting through the veil of complexity to concentrate on the new customer needs and expectations and providing the tools for corporate leaders to take their companies to a higher level.
-
-
Fantastic book - volume lower than usual
- By James Gajewski on 06-14-15
By: Ram Charan
-
The Firm
- The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business
- By: Duff McDonald
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A behind-the-scenes, revelatory history of McKinsey & Company, America's most influential and controversial business consulting firm, told by one of the nation's leading financial journalists. In The Firm, Duff McDonald uncovers how these high-powered, high-priced business savants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological shifts. With unrivaled access to company documents and current and former employees, McDonald reveals the inner workings of what just might be the most influential private organization in America.
-
-
Warning: Non consultants should avoid
- By R. Jaeger on 11-04-13
By: Duff McDonald
-
The Strategist
- Be the Leader Your Business Needs
- By: Cynthia Montgomery
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on an acclaimed professor's legendary strategy course at Harvard Business School, The Strategist offers a radically new perspective on a leader's most vital role. "Are you a strategist?" That's the first question Cynthia Montgomery asks the business owners and senior executives from all over the world who participate in her highly regarded executive education course. It's not a question they anticipate, but by the time the program ends, they cannot imagine leading their companies to success without being - and living the role of - a strategist.
-
-
Slow going with an odd narrative tone
- By Benson Bumpkin on 08-06-12
-
The Lords of Strategy
- The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World
- By: Walter Kiechel III
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine running a business without a strategy. It would be akin to driving blindfolded, to building a house without a blueprint. The concept of strategy changed all that, paving the way for the creation of the modern corporate world. The Lords of Strategy provides listeners with a deeper understanding of the world they compete in, and a sharper eye for what works — and what doesn’t — when forging strategy.
-
-
Super Book of Narrow Interest
- By Roy on 08-23-10
-
Competition Demystified
- A Radically Simplified Approach to Business Strategy
- By: Judd Kahn, Bruce C. Greenwald
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bruce Greenwald, one of the nation's leading business professors, presents a new and simplified approach to strategy that cuts through much of the fog that has surrounded the subject. Based on his hugely popular course at Columbia Business School, Greenwald and his co-author, Judd Kahn, offer an easy-to-follow method for understanding the competitive structure of your industry and developing an appropriate strategy for your specific position.
-
-
Prof, we need the figures/graphs that’s in the the book
- By sid on 12-25-20
By: Judd Kahn, and others
-
Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?
- Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround
- By: Louis V. Gerstner Jr.
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1990, IBM had its most profitable year ever. By 1993, the company was on a watch list for extinction, victimized by its own lumbering size, an insular corporate culture, and the PC era IBM had itself helped invent.
-
-
Moderate Start, Picks up FAST!
- By Art H on 02-08-05
-
Attacker's Advantage
- Turning Uncertainty into Breakthrough Opportunities
- By: Ram Charan
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Attacker's Advantage, Charan reveals the upside of uncertainty for those leaders who are nimbly positioned to anticipate the catalysts of disruption and embrace change. He updates and adapts the principles of his previous best sellers to address the current turbulent business environment, cutting through the veil of complexity to concentrate on the new customer needs and expectations and providing the tools for corporate leaders to take their companies to a higher level.
-
-
Fantastic book - volume lower than usual
- By James Gajewski on 06-14-15
By: Ram Charan
-
The Firm
- The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business
- By: Duff McDonald
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A behind-the-scenes, revelatory history of McKinsey & Company, America's most influential and controversial business consulting firm, told by one of the nation's leading financial journalists. In The Firm, Duff McDonald uncovers how these high-powered, high-priced business savants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological shifts. With unrivaled access to company documents and current and former employees, McDonald reveals the inner workings of what just might be the most influential private organization in America.
-
-
Warning: Non consultants should avoid
- By R. Jaeger on 11-04-13
By: Duff McDonald
-
The Strategist
- Be the Leader Your Business Needs
- By: Cynthia Montgomery
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on an acclaimed professor's legendary strategy course at Harvard Business School, The Strategist offers a radically new perspective on a leader's most vital role. "Are you a strategist?" That's the first question Cynthia Montgomery asks the business owners and senior executives from all over the world who participate in her highly regarded executive education course. It's not a question they anticipate, but by the time the program ends, they cannot imagine leading their companies to success without being - and living the role of - a strategist.
-
-
Slow going with an odd narrative tone
- By Benson Bumpkin on 08-06-12
-
The Halo Effect
- ...and the 8 Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers
- By: Phil Rosenzweig
- Narrated by: Jim Manchester
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Much of our business thinking is shaped by delusions that distort our understanding of the real reasons for a company's performance. The most pervasive delusion is the Halo Effect. When a company's sales and profits are up, people often conclude that it has a brilliant strategy, a visionary leader, capable employees, and a superb corporate culture. When performance falters, they conclude the opposite. In fact, little may have changed.
-
-
slow start
- By michael on 01-03-10
By: Phil Rosenzweig
-
Finish Big
- How Great Entrepreneurs Exit Their Companies on Top
- By: Bo Burlingham
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When pioneering business journalist and Inc. magazine editor at large Bo Burlingham wrote Small Giants, it became an instant classic for its original take on a common business problem - how to handle the pressure to grow. Now Burlingham is back to tackle an even more common problem - how to exit your company well. Sooner or later, all entrepreneurs leave their businesses and all businesses get sold, given away, or liquidated.
-
-
Begin with the end in mind
- By D. Hartzell on 02-05-15
By: Bo Burlingham
-
The Self-Made Billionaire Effect
- How Extreme Producers Create Massive Value
- By: John Sviokla, Mitch Cohen
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine what Atari might have achieved if Steve Jobs had stayed there to develop the first massmarket personal computer. Or what Steve Case might have done for PepsiCo if he hadn't left for a gaming start-up that eventually became AOL. What if Salomon Brothers had kept Michael Bloomberg, or Bear Stearns had exploited the inventive ideas of Stephen Ross? Scores of top-tier entrepreneurs worked for established corporations before they struck out on their own and became self-made billionaires.
-
-
Waste of time!
- By Anonymous User on 05-30-20
By: John Sviokla, and others
-
Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick
- People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds
- By: Chris Bradley, Martin Hirt, Sven Smit
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To make these big moves happen for your company, you’re going to have to break through inertia, gamesmanship, and risk aversion. You’re going to have to mitigate human biases and manage group dynamics. Eight practical shifts can help you do this, and unlock bigger, bolder, better strategies. This is not another by-the-book approach to strategy. It’s not another trudge through frameworks or small-scale case studies promising a secret formula for success. It’s an irreverent, fact-driven, and humorous take on the real world of strategic decision making.
-
-
Ok beginning, superb finish
- By Rancher on 01-01-21
By: Chris Bradley, and others
-
Machine, Platform, Crowd
- Harnessing Our Digital Future
- By: Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Second Machine Age, Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson predicted some of the far-reaching effects of digital technologies on our lives and businesses. Now they’ve written a guide to help listeners make the most of our collective future. Machine | Platform | Crowd outlines the opportunities and challenges inherent in the science fiction technologies that have come to life in recent years, like self-driving cars and 3D printers, online platforms for renting outfits and scheduling workouts, or crowd-sourced medical research and financial instruments.
-
-
Both How AND Why for Techies
- By Dan Collins on 08-11-17
By: Erik Brynjolfsson, and others
-
Car Guys vs. Bean Counters
- The Battle for the Soul of American Business
- By: Bob Lutz
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2001, General Motors hired Bob Lutz out of retirement with a mandate to save the company by making great cars again. He launched a war against penny pinching, office politics, turf wars, and risk avoidance. After declaring bankruptcy during the recession of 2008, GM is back on track thanks to its embrace of Lutz's philosophy. When Lutz got into the auto business in the early sixties, CEOs knew that if you captured the public's imagination with great cars, the money would follow.
-
-
Opinionated and one-sided
- By Michael Parks on 06-23-11
By: Bob Lutz
-
Angel Investing
- The Gust Guide to Making Money and Having Fun Investing in Startups
- By: David S. Rose
- Narrated by: David S. Rose
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From building your reputation as a smart investor, to negotiating fair deals, adding value to your portfolio companies and helping them implement smart exit strategies, David provides both the fundamental strategies and the specific tools you need to take full advantage of this rapidly growing asset class.
-
-
Very enlightening
- By Keith L. on 04-06-15
By: David S. Rose
-
Winning with Data
- Transform Your Culture, Empower Your People, and Shape the Future
- By: Tomasz Tunguz, Frank Bien
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winning with Data explores the cultural changes big data brings to business, and shows you how to adapt your organization to leverage data to maximum effect. Authors Tomasz Tunguz and Frank Bien draw on extensive background in big data, business intelligence, and business strategy to provide a blueprint for companies looking to move head-on into the data wave. Instrumentation is discussed in detail, but the core of the change is in the culture.
-
-
Content marketing
- By Adam Winn on 12-22-16
By: Tomasz Tunguz, and others
-
What to Do When Machines Do Everything
- How to Get Ahead in a World of AI, Algorithms, Bots, and Big Data
- By: Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig, Ben Pring
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What to Do When Machines Do Everything is a guidebook to succeeding in the next generation of the digital economy. When systems running on artificial intelligence can drive our cars, diagnose medical patients, and manage our finances more effectively than humans, it raises profound questions on the future of work and how companies compete.
-
-
Assumes that machine learning will grow very slow
- By Nathan Burnham on 05-06-17
By: Malcolm Frank, and others
-
The Supply Chain Revolution
- Innovative Sourcing and Logistics for a Fiercely Competitive World
- By: Suman Sarkar
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When CEOs think about the supply chain, it's usually to cut costs. But the smartest leaders see supply chain and sourcing for what they can be: hidden tools for outperforming the competition. Steve Jobs, upon returning to Apple in 1997, focused on transforming the supply chain. He hired Tim Cook - and the company sped up the development of new products, getting them into consumers' hands faster. The rest is history.
-
-
informative but dry
- By Justin on 01-01-18
By: Suman Sarkar
-
The Wide Lens
- A New Strategy for Innovation
- By: Ron Adner
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How can great companies do everything right - identify real customer needs, deliver excellent innovations, beat their competitors to market - and still fail? The sad truth is that many companies fail because they focus too intensely on their own innovations, and then neglect the innovation ecosystems on which their success depends. In our increasingly interdependent world, winning requires more than just delivering on your own promises. It means ensuring that a host of partners - some visible, some hidden - deliver on their promises, too.
-
-
Great book
- By Kindle Customer on 12-25-21
By: Ron Adner
-
The House of Dimon
- How JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon Rose to the Top of the Financial World
- By: Patricia Crisafulli
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jamie Dimon is Wall Street's biggest player. Following the 11h-hour rescue of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan, his profile has reached stratospheric levels. And while the deals and decisions he's made have usually turned out to be the right ones, his journey to the top of the financial world has been anything but easy. Now, in The House of Dimon, business writer Patricia Crisafulli goes behind the scenes to recount the amazing events that have shaped Dimon's career.
-
-
Intriguing
- By Jean on 08-28-16
What listeners say about Billion Dollar Lessons
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mark
- 06-26-20
Very informative! Great book!
The book is extremely informative. What I liked about it the most was that it was more about failures than successes.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cynthia
- 05-05-14
Predictions are Hard - Especially about the Future
Think "Predictions are Hard - Especially about the Future" is is a Yogi Berra quote? Actually, it's first (but disputably) attributed to Nobel-prize winning physicist Niels Bohr (1885 - 1965) used by authors Paul B. Carroll, Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui in their 2009 business and economics book, "Billion-Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years."
"Billion-Dollar Lessons" is a compendium of MBA-level case studies of abject, huge failures - like Kodak"s failure to recognize digital technology and cameras would make its products and services as obsolete as the Pony Express. Rather than adapt to a new reality, Kodak convinced itself that the threat wasn't real - and its shareholders suffered. This book discusses the individual psychological factors and group think that caused Kodak, collectively, to let itself be pushed off the proverbial cliff.
This book relies heavily on quotes from Berkshire-Hathaway's Warren Buffet. The quotes are anecdotally on point, but could have taken it much further. For example, in Part I, the authors discuss how the benefits and cost savings of synergy, or adjacent acquisition, only work about 1/3 of the time. (Translation for the NOT prematurely grey: When I was in undergraduate B-school in the 1980's, the terms were. 'vertical integration' or 'horizontal integration', and the success rate was about the same). Berkshire- Hathaway's holdings run independently of each other, and Carroll and Mui don't contrast Buffet's success with the many failures the authors found late in the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st. Sure, Helzberg Diamonds might be romantic - but they aren't selling See's Candy.
A more apt Bohr quote, given the topic, is "An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field."
As quoted by Edward Teller, in Dr. Edward Teller's Magnificent Obsession by Robert Coughlan, in LIFE magazine (6 September 1954), p. 62.
The narration - well, as much as I am fascinated by the topic, and as well organized as the book is - was a sure fire way to put me to sleep in 15 minutes or less. I know, because I use the Audible timer, and invariably had to rewind to where I drifted off.
[If this review helped, please press YES. Thanks!]
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
17 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sami
- 10-30-14
Great lessons to learn
This is surely one of the memorable books I have read. The analysis goes into different levels and tracks real lessons from these misfortunes. Although I would argue that some of the assumptions for losses were too simplified, I find it interesting and logical reasons that surely assist in the fall of these companies.
A great read for the business minded and not to miss.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dennis Lamkin
- 02-08-20
Great lessons every business owner should learn
Great stories, I’m sure there will be a follow-up
Including Sears, Pier 1, Montgomery Ward and a dozen more. Great read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sam
- 09-21-18
Stories are hard to follow
A lot of stories from the 70’s through the early 2000’s. Couldn’t follow that good.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alex B.
- 06-06-23
Overall just, meh
There was nothing inherently good about this book. It came recommended from a fellow entrepreneur it it definitely missed the mark for me. The reader seemed unenthusiastic the entire time which made a difficult read even worse.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!