The Firm
The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business
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Narrated by:
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Tom Weiner
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By:
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Duff McDonald
About this listen
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.
Founded in 1926, McKinsey & Company has become one of the world's leading management consulting firms, helping to invent American business and shaping its course for decades. Ushering in the age of American industrial dominance, McKinsey remapped the power structure in the White House, helped create the bar code, revolutionized business schools, and introduced the idea of budgeting as a management tool.
McKinsey consultants have created the corporate behaviors that shaped our world - reinventing our idea of American capitalism and exporting it across the globe.
At the same time, however, McKinsey can also be associated with a list of striking failures. Its consultants were on the scene when General Motors drove itself into the ground, and they played a critical role in building the bomb known as Enron. Yet they are rarely blamed for the failures - at least not publicly.
McKinsey employees are trusted and distrusted , loved and despised. And far from prying eyes, they are doing behind-the-scenes work for the most powerful people in the world. In The Firm, star financial journalist Duff McDonald uncovers how these high-powered, high-priced business savants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological shifts to the biggest and best American organizations. 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.
©2013 Duff McDonald (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Finding the right venture capitalist to back your start-up is a challenge. Even if you manage to get backing, you want your VC to be a partner, not some dictator who will undermine your vision and take control of your life's work. Jeffrey Bussgang is one of a very few people who have played on both sides of this high-stakes game. Now he draws on his unique perspective to offer high-level insights, colorful stories, and practical advice. He reveals how to get noticed, perfect a pitch, and negotiate a partnership that works for everyone.
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slow in beginning but gets really good
- By Diana on 04-11-19
By: Jeffrey Bussgang
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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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Overhaul
- 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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Inside Drucker's Brain
- By: Jeffrey A. Krames
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In late 2003, Peter Drucker invited Jeffrey Krames to his home in Claremont, California, for a rare interview. The 94-year-old Drucker who had amassed an unprecedented body of published work, comprised of many hundreds of thousands of pages, spent a full day sharing his insights from a lifetime of management consulting and writing. This resulting audiobook is a simple guide that distills the essential wisdom from Drucker's considerable body of work.
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Learn From the Master
- By morton on 10-24-08
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Good for the Money
- My Fight to Pay Back America
- By: Bob Benmosche
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2009, at the peak of the financial crisis, AIG - the American insurance behemoth - was sinking fast. It was the peg upon which the nation hung its ire and resentment during the financial crisis: the pinnacle of Wall Street arrogance and greed. When Bob Benmosche climbed aboard as CEO, it was widely assumed that he would go down with his ship. In mere months, he turned things around, pulling AIG from the brink of financial collapse and restoring its profitability.
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Worthwhile, informative, and just short of inspiring
- By Preston on 11-17-21
By: Bob Benmosche
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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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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
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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
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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.
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slow start
- By michael on 01-03-10
By: Phil Rosenzweig
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Crash Course
- The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster
- By: Paul Ingrassia
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In Crash Course, Ingrassia answers the big questions: Was Detroit's self-destruction inevitable? What were the key turning points? Why did Japanese automakers manage American workers better than the American companies themselves? Ingrassia also describes dysfunctional corporate cultures (even as GM's market share plunged, the company continued business as usual) and Detroit's perverse system of "inverse layoffs" (which allowed union members to invoke seniority to avoid work).
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Contemporary History at Its Best
- By Roy on 04-19-10
By: Paul Ingrassia
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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
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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.
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Waste of time!
- By Anonymous User on 05-30-20
By: John Sviokla, and others
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Plutocrats
- The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
- By: Chrystia Freeland
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
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There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but in the last few decades what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Alarmingly, the greatest income gap is not between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, but within the wealthiest 1 percent of our nation-as the merely wealthy are left behind by the rapidly expanding fortunes of the new global super-rich. Forget the 1 percent; Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at break-neck speed.
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Good Storytelling but ... analysis is "eh'
- By Susan on 11-04-12
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What listeners say about The Firm
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Matthew J. McMahon
- 08-02-21
Must read for all consultants
This book was an amazing history of not just McKinsey but the consulting industry. It made me understand my work at another form that was named in the book much better. At least the theory of what they’re trying to accomplish or emulate.
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- Daniel
- 06-05-18
pretty fair, a little biased.
The author presents a few fair and balanced point although I believe the overall message can still be seen as biased. While not overbearingly in support of Mckinsey, the book has an ever so slight pro-Mckinsey tint. Definitely a must read for any consultant or those interested.
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- Daniel
- 11-15-21
Good history that focuses on the politics of the firm
I liked the book. Don’t expect it to have loads of scientific research like that of Good to Great. It outlines the history of the firm and helps align your thinking on the firm’s accomplishments and future.
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- Jose
- 05-29-15
The McKinsey Scam Explained
You bring in some dumb as dog-shit consultants that have zero experience, they tell you to fire your accounting, IT, and engineering departments. They tell you to move this activity to the 3rd-world. You then have a bunch of dumb as dog-shit cheap labor drones with fake credentials in your company.
In the 2000s you could literally watch McKinsey in action destroying companies. Limited innovation, except for more cheap IT innovation and cost cutting. At the expense of true excellence.
Thanks McKinsey
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mark Twain
- 04-17-21
Detailed but dry
Would recommend if you want to know the comprehensive full story of the firm. Would not if you're looking for anything riveting.
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- Alex
- 05-06-21
Captivating
It is a little on the negative side, but that is the beauty of this book, a lot of historical information that you would not find in other sources. Regardless of mistakes, successes, impact and rumors my respect for the firm increased.
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- Scott Goodman
- 07-04-23
decent book
it was interesting hearing about the consulting industry. sometimes it was a little bit of a teeth pull
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- R. Dillon
- 11-05-14
Good story, but difficult performance
How could the performance have been better?
This was my biggest issue - the narrator read this like it was a History Channel documentary on space travel. Way over-performed, but not in an engaging way. Very little personality came through.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Reader
- 08-06-18
An insider perspective of management consulting
As a former consultant reading the history of my industry is interesting, and McKinsey is the first among the "white-glove" consulting firms. This book covers everything from the start of the firm in the 30s to it's *recent* (circa 2012) controversies w/ one of it's senior partners being involved in insider trading. Probably mostly of interests to other professionals in this field or adjacent areas, but people interested in the history of US capitalism should also read as well.
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- vlad
- 08-08-22
insightful
Props to the author for not just doing a simple timeline of the firm, but also discussing implications of the rise of mckinsey and other consulting firms.
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