Charging Ahead
GM, Mary Barra, and the Reinvention of an American Icon
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Narrated by:
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Tee Quillin
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By:
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David Welch
About this listen
Mary Barra’s quest to move GM to a manufacturer of electric cars has captured the attention of automobile aficionados, green-business advocates, and leaders of all types who have to admire Mary’s toughness in moving forward despite the overwhelming obstacles in her path.
A decade ago, no one would have guessed that GM would be the company poised to lead America into the future. At a time when business book listeners seem endlessly fascinated by soaring tech giants like Amazon and Netflix, and ill-fated startups like WeWork and Theranos, why is it important to put the spotlight back on 112-year-old GM? Because Charlie Wilson’s quip from 1952 is still true: What’s good for GM is still good for America, and vice versa. America needs to transition to a new era of clean energy and environmentally sustainable transportation. We also need to adapt to a world with far fewer assembly-line jobs, but far more skilled jobs for people who can design, build, and operate robots and other high-tech machines. GM’s attempt to lead those transitions is as important as it is dramatic.
Equally compelling is the story of GM’s CEO, Mary Barra, who against all odds took the reins at GM in 2014. Since that time, she has attempted to reinvent a century-old company and equip it for the biggest change in transportation since the internal combustion engine replaced the horse. In the process, she has been ripping out GM traditions by the roots—and taking flak from all sides. Her plan is to make GM—the company famed for the gas-burning Corvette, hulking Cadillac Escalade, and carbon-spewing Silverado pickup—purely electric and clean by 2035.
She may not be as wealthy as Jeff Bezos, as brash as Elon Musk, or as powerful as Mark Zuckerberg, but Mary Barra is just as important as any of them. And as one of the most powerful female executives in the world, she is overdue for an in-depth look at her forward-thinking vision, her approach to leadership, and her accomplishments against the odds.
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- An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry
- By: Steven Rattner
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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This first real look inside Team Obama mixes political warfare and big-business shakeups in equal proportions, and comes from a uniquely informed source. Steve Rattner is not just the man brought in by the president to save the auto industry, he is a former New York Times financial reporter who also earned a place among the top tier of Wall Street's most informed investment bankers and corporate experts.
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Overhaul - A Memoir
- By Roy on 12-05-10
By: Steven Rattner
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Autonomy
- The Quest to Build the Driverless Car—and How It Will Reshape Our World
- By: Lawrence D. Burns, Christopher Shulgan
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In Autonomy, former GM executive and current advisor to the Google Self-Driving Car project Lawrence Burns offers a sweeping history of the race to make the driverless car a reality. In the past decade, Silicon Valley companies like Google, Tesla and Uber have positioned themselves to revolutionize the way we move around by developing driverless vehicles while traditional auto companies like General Motors, Ford, and Daimler have been fighting back by partnering by with new tech start-ups.
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Easy listen, non-technical perspective
- By James S. on 09-14-18
By: Lawrence D. Burns, and others
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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
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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.
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Warning: Non consultants should avoid
- By R. Jaeger on 11-04-13
By: Duff McDonald
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The Reinventors
- How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous Change
- By: Jason Jennings
- Narrated by: Jason Jennings
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Eventually every job and every business will become irrelevant. According to Jason Jennings, the past few decades have seen unprecedented shifts: former third-world nations have transformed themselves into high-tech manufacturing powerhouses; technology has democratized business and increased competition in ways never before seen; and customers, used to getting exactly what they want when they want it, are no longer beholden to the corporate giants.
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Good advice
- By Myers on 07-28-18
By: Jason Jennings
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Losing the Signal
- The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
- By: Jacquie McNish, Sean Silcoff
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway.
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Fascinating
- By Gerardo A Dada on 09-05-15
By: Jacquie McNish, and others
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Small Giants
- Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big, 10th Anniversary Edition
- By: Bo Burlingham
- Narrated by: Bo Burlingham, Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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It's an axiom of business that great companies grow their revenues and profits year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, a small number of companies have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Goals like being great at what they do, creating a great place to work, providing great customer service, making great contributions to their communities, and finding great ways to lead their lives. In Small Giants, veteran journalist Bo Burlingham takes us deep inside 14 such remarkable companies.
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fantastic book for small company builders
- By Amazon Customer on 08-01-17
By: Bo Burlingham
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Getting Green Done
- Hard Truths From the Frontlines of Sustainability Revolution
- By: Auden Schendler
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Soccer moms drive Priuses. Sport utility vehicles are going hybrid. Families are using hemp shopping bags. More and more companies are developing "green" buildings. What's more, the business consultants say going green is easy and profitable. In reality, though, many green-leaning businesses, families, and governments are still fiddling with the small stuff while the planet burns. Why?
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Green's Dirty Little Secrets
- By Martin on 07-10-09
By: Auden Schendler
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Glory Lost and Found
- How Delta Climbed from Despair to Dominance in the Post-9/11 Era
- By: Seth Kaplan, Jay Shabat
- Narrated by: Joseph Durika
- Length: 25 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Glory Lost and Found: How Delta Climbed from Despair to Dominance in the Post-9/11 Era tells the story of Delta's dramatic tumble into bankruptcy and how it climbed its way back to pre-eminence despite hurricane-force headwinds: high fuel prices, a hostile takeover bid, relentless competition, economic meltdowns, and geopolitical shocks.
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For Aviation Enthusiasts & the Business Industry
- By Striker on 03-24-17
By: Seth Kaplan, and others
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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
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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.
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Moderate Start, Picks up FAST!
- By Art H on 02-08-05
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Rocket Billionaires
- Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race
- By: Tim Fernholz
- Narrated by: Erin Moon
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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For the larger-than-life personalities now staking their fortunes on the development of rocket ships, the new race to explore space could be a dead end, a lucrative opportunity - or the key to humanity's salvation. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos take center stage in this fast-paced narrative as they attempt to disrupt the space economy, feed their own egos, and maybe even save the world.
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Interesting book; hard to listen to
- By K. Thai on 04-12-18
By: Tim Fernholz
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Alibaba
- The House That Jack Ma Built
- By: Duncan Clark
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In just a decade and a half, Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded Alibaba and built it into one of the world's largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba's $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever. A Rockefeller of his age who is courted by CEOs and presidents around the world, Jack is an icon for China's booming private sector.
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Strange: Best part of story happens "off-screen"
- By Tristan on 09-02-16
By: Duncan Clark