Business Ebooks

“An inspiring blueprint to overcome challenges—and thrive” (Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO of Thrive Global), on how to turn other’s and your own doubt into rocket fuel to achieve your dreams, from entrepreneur, CEO, and healthcare investor Surbhi Sarna. The very qualities that make you an outlier are, in fact, your strengths. Or so Surbhi Sarna discovered after a teenage cancer scare inspired her to reimagine healthcare, founding a medical start-up to detect early ovarian cancer. In Without a Doubt, she shares how she proved the doubters wrong. As a young, brown woman without a medical degree or Ivy-league or Silicon Valley contacts—and who had felt different throughout her life—she was often overlooked and underrated. Undeterred, Sarna used the naysayers as ammunition to help her surpass expectations—and achieve her dreams. Without a Doubt is her powerful story of becoming a leader without an MBA, networking without a network, and raising funds when she didn't know a single venture capitalist, teaching you how to do the same. Sarna led an all-star team to develop a life-saving medical device, sold her business for $275 million, and became a partner at Y Combinator, one of the most successful venture firms in the world. Using her own experience, she shows you how to face setbacks, not let impossible standards get in the way, lead empathetically, empower others to think differently, and how to convince the right people to help you accomplish your goals. Without a Doubt reveals that your power lies in recognizing the qualities that make you different and leveraging them to pursue your dreams.

From John Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley, an intimate personal memoir and riveting business story, recounting how he helped grow the company from 300 to 50,000 employees over four decades, transformed a notoriously competitive culture into a successful and collaborative one, and lead the company through the 2008 financial crisis. During his thirty-four-year tenure at Morgan Stanley, John Mack’s goal was to build the strongest and most productive team on Wall Street. His ability to motivate his employees to do their best work, especially in times of crisis, was fostered by his willingness to slash through bureaucracy and stand up to powerful interests. A forceful personality, one journalist said Mack was “described as ‘charismatic’ so regularly that it could be part of his name.” In Up Close and All In, Mack traces his personal journey from a one-stoplight North Carolina mill town to a fortieth-floor corner office on Wall Street—and shares the life lessons he learned along the way. He developed a titanium-strength stomach for risk, stress, and competition while landing accounts early in his career, as investment banks fought like wolfpacks to take advantage of new deregulation, fielding business raids, booms, and busts. As he rose through the ranks, he never forgot where he came from, relying on his instincts, doing what was right, and listening to his people on the front lines. This culture of trust and collaboration helped Morgan Stanley anticipate future trends before other firms, adapt quickly, and achieve record profits. This gripping memoir includes both humbling lows—like when Mack made the difficult decision to leave Morgan Stanley in 2001—and exhilarating highs—such as when he made an eleventh-hour agreement with the Japanese bank Mitsubishi to save the company during the 2008 financial crisis, having refused to give in when top regulators pressured him to sell the firm for $2 per share. With humor and honesty, Mack shares advice on both business and life: how to create a culture of team players, how to keep perspective during crises, how to make difficult decisions when all eyes are on you, and more. From a singular man who’s as unafraid to cry publicly as he is to anger some of the most powerful people in the world, this is an indispensable guide to living and leading well.

“Filled with top-notch research, practical insight, and stories from the most inspiring women in business, Julia Boorstin lays out a new, inclusive vision for leadership and our world at large.” —Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive “A must-read for all leaders as they consider the future of work.” —Eve Rodsky, New York Times bestselling author of Fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space A groundbreaking, deeply reported work from CNBC’s Julia Boorstin that reveals the key commonalities and characteristics that help top female leaders thrive as they innovate, grow businesses, and navigate crises—an essential resource for anyone in the workplace. Julia Boorstin was thirteen when her mother told her that, by the time she grew up, women could be just as powerful as men, “captains of industry, running the biggest companies!” A decade later, working at a top business publication and seeing the dearth of women in positions of leadership, Boorstin assumed her mom had been wrong. But over the following two decades as a TV reporter and creator of CNBC’s Disruptor 50 franchise, interviewing, and studying thousands of executives, she realized that a gender-equity utopia shouldn’t be a pipe dream. Yes, women faced massive social and institutional headwinds, and struggled with double standards and what psychologists call “pattern matching.” Yet those who thrived, Boorstin found, shared key commonalities that made them uniquely equipped to lead, grow businesses, and navigate crises. They were highly adaptive to change, deeply empathetic in their management style, and much more likely to integrate diverse points of view into their business strategies, filling voids that their male counterparts had overlooked for generations. By utilizing those strengths, they had invented new business models, disrupted industries, and made massive profits along the way. Now, in When Women Lead, Boorstin brings together the stories of over sixty of those female CEOs and leaders, and dozens of new studies. Her combination of narrative and research reveals how once-underestimated characteristics, from vulnerability and gratitude to divergent thinking, can be vital superpowers—and that anyone can work these approaches to their advantage. Featuring new interviews with Katrina Lake, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jenn Hyman, Whitney Wolfe Herd, Lena Waithe, Shivani Siroya, Julia Collins, and more, When Women Lead is a radical blueprint for the future of business, and our world at large.

The Financial Times Business Book of the Year, this epic account of the decades-long battle to control one of the world’s most critical resources—microchip technology—with the United States and China increasingly in fierce competition is “pulse quickening…a nonfiction thriller” (The New York Times). You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing. Now, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more on chips than any other product, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America’s military superiority and economic prosperity. Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the US became dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems. America’s victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. Until recently, China had been catching up, aligning its chip-building ambitions with military modernization. Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War is “an essential and engrossing landmark study" (London Times).

Steve Case, New York Times bestselling author of The Third Wave and cofounder of America Online shows how entrepreneurs across the country are building groundbreaking companies, renewing communities, and creating new jobs—reimagining the American landscape “and [giving] us hope for America’s future” (Ken Burns). In 2014, Steve Case launched Revolution’s Rise of the Rest, an initiative to accelerate the growth of tech startups across the country. Rise of the Rest is based on a simple idea: cities can be renewed and rise again if they develop a vibrant startup culture. A visionary entrepreneur himself, Case believes that great entrepreneurs can be found anywhere, and can thrive with the proper support and investment. In fact, they’re key to the American DNA. After all, America itself was a startup. It struggled to get going and almost didn’t make it. Today it’s the leader of the free world, in part because it has the world’s largest economy—a testament to several generations of pioneering entrepreneurs. But America needs help keeping its promises, as it is harder today for innovators who live outside the major tech hubs. For most of the past decade, seventy-five percent of venture capital has gone to just three states—California, New York, and Massachusetts—while the forty-seven states making up the rest of the country have been forced to share the remaining twenty-five percent. And it’s even harder for some people no matter where they live. Less than ten percent of venture capital currently goes to female founders, and less than one percent to Black founders. Since new companies—startups—are responsible for net new job creation, it is essential that entrepreneurs everywhere have the opportunity to start and scale companies. Rise of the Rest is about leveling the playing field for everybody, and in the process creating opportunity and jobs for the people and places that have been left behind. This book tells that story and provides a hopeful perspective on the future of America. In The Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream, Case takes readers on an exhilarating journey into the startup communities that are transforming cities nationwide. Rise of the Rest’s signature road trips, on a big red tour bus, have created significant local and national buzz and spotlighted communities large and small that have committed to a new tech-enabled future. Along the way, Case introduces readers to dozens of entrepreneurs whose inspirational stories of struggle and achievement match the most iconic examples of American invention. To date, Case has traveled to forty-three cities on his Rise of the Rest bus tour and has been featured on 60 Minutes, and in The New York Times, USA TODAY, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal. With dedicated venture funds, backed by an iconic group of investors, executives, and entrepreneurs including Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Meg Whitman, John Doerr, Sara Blakely, and Ray Dalio, Rise of the Rest also invests in the most promising high-growth startups located anywhere in the US outside of Silicon Valley, New York City, and Boston. The fund has invested in more than 175 companies across more than eighty cities, including: Phoenix, Chattanooga, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Louisville, Baltimore, Columbus, St. Louis, Green Bay, Madison, Buffalo, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Miami, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Indianapolis, New Orleans, and dozens of others.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A master class on investing featuring conversations with the biggest names in finance, from the legendary cofounder of The Carlyle Group, David M. Rubenstein. 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. -How did Stan Druckenmiller short the British pound in one trade for a profit of $1 billion dollars? -What made Sam Zell the smartest, toughest investor the world of real estate has ever seen? -How did Mike Novogratz make $250 million off crypto in one year? -How did Larry Fink build BlackRock from scratch into a firm that manages more than $10 trillion? -How did Mary Callahan Erdoes rise to the top of J.P. Morgan’s wealth management division to manage more than $4 trillion for individuals and families all over the world? -How did Seth Klarman perfect value investing to consistently deliver net returns of nearly 20 percent? With unprecedented access to global leaders in finance, Rubenstein has assembled the most authoritative book of its kind. How to Invest reveals the thinking of the most successful investors in the world, many of whom rarely speak publicly. Whether you’re brand-new to investing or a seasoned professional, this book will transform the way you approach investing forever.

The gripping biography of Jay Gould, the greatest 19th-century robber barons, whose brilliance, greed, and bare-knuckled tactics made him richer than Rockefeller and led Wall Street to institute its first financial reforms. Had Jay Gould put his name on a university or concert hall, he would undoubtedly have been a household name today. The son of a poor farmer whose early life was marked by tragedy, Gould saw money as the means to give his family a better life…even if, to do so, he had to pull a fast one on everyone else. After entering Wall Street at the age of twenty-four, he quickly became notorious when he paralyzed the economy and nearly toppled President Ulysses S. Grant in the Black Friday market collapse of 1869 in an attempt to corner the market on gold—an event that remains among the darkest days in Wall Street history. Through clever financial maneuvers, he gained control over one of every six miles of the country’s rapidly expanding network for railroad tracks—coming close to creating the first truly transcontinental railroad and making himself one of the richest men in America. American Rascal shows Gould’s complex, quirky character. He was at once praised for his brilliance by Rockefeller and Vanderbilt and condemned for forever destroying American business values by Mark Twain. He lived a colorful life, trading jokes with Thomas Edison, figuring Thomas Nast’s best sketches, paying Boss Tweed’s bail, and commuting to work in a 200-foot yacht. Gould thrived in an expanding, industrial economy in which authorities tolerated inside trading and stock price manipulation because they believed regulation would stifle progress. But by taking these practices to new levels, Gould showed how unbridled capitalism was, in fact, dangerous for the American economy. This eye-opening history explores Gould’s audacious exploitation of economic freedom triggered the first public demands for financial reform—a call that still resonates today.

A “riveting and powerful” (Gretchen Carlson, cofounder of Lift Our Voices) insider’s account on Wall Street where greed coupled with misogyny and discrimination enforces a culture of exclusion in the upper echelons of Goldman Sachs. Jamie Fiore Higgins became one of the few women at the highest ranks of Goldman Sachs. Spurred on by the obligation she felt to her working-class immigrant family, she rose through the ranks and saw it all: out-of-control, lavish parties flowing with never-ending drinks; affairs flouted in the office; rampant drug use; and most pervasively, a discriminatory culture that seemed designed to hold back the few women and people of color employed at the company. Despite Goldman Sachs having the right talking points and statistics, Fiore Higgins soon realized that these provided a veneer to cover up what she found to be an abusive culture. Her account is one filled with shocking stories of harassment and jaw-dropping tales of exclusionary behavior: when she was told she only got promoted because she is a woman; when her coworkers mooed at her after she pumped for her fourth child, defying the superior who had advised her not to breastfeed; or when a male boss used a racial epithet in front of her, other colleagues, and clients without any repercussions. Bully Market sounds the alarm on the culture of finance and corporate America, while offering clear, actionable ideas for creating a fairer workplace. Both a revealing, extraordinary look at the industry and a top Wall Streeter’s explosive personal story, Bully Market is an essential account of one woman’s experience in a flawed system that speaks to the challenge and urgency for change.

How to make more creative, flexible, and impactful decisions with both/and thinking. Based on the authors' own pioneering research on decision-making and paradox. Great, never-before-told stories from people who’ve embraced and/or thinking—i.e, from execs at Lego and IBM to a sixth-generation islander from Fogo who created a popular tourist spot at the end of the world. A bounty of science-backed tools, tricks, and mental models for embracing both/and thinking and applying it at work and at life. Audience: General business readers who want to enhance their decision-making skills. Leaders and managers who are tasked with making tough decisions on a daily-basis. Innovators, creatives, and entrepreneurs.

New York Times Bestseller New York Times reporter and “Corner Office” columnist David Gelles reveals legendary GE CEO Jack Welch to be the root of all that’s wrong with capitalism today and offers advice on how we might right those wrongs. In 1981, Jack Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO. He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE into the most valuable company in the world. But Welch’s achievements didn’t stem from some greater intelligence or business prowess. Rather, they were the result of a sustained effort to push GE’s stock price ever higher, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and innovation. In this captivating, revelatory book, David Gelles argues that Welch single-handedly ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day. Gelles chronicles Welch’s campaign to vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs in a bid to boost profits, eviscerating the country’s manufacturing base, and destabilizing the middle class. Welch’s obsession with downsizing—he eliminated 10% of employees every year—fundamentally altered GE and inspired generations of imitators who have employed his strategies at other companies around the globe. In his day, Welch was corporate America’s leading proponent of mergers and acquisitions, using deals to gobble up competitors and giving rise to an economy that is more concentrated and less dynamic. And Welch pioneered the dark arts of “financialization,” transforming GE from an admired industrial manufacturer into what was effectively an unregulated bank. The finance business was hugely profitable in the short term and helped Welch keep GE’s stock price ticking up. But ultimately, financialization undermined GE and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies. Gelles shows how Welch’s celebrated emphasis on increasing shareholder value by any means necessary (layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, acquisitions, and buybacks, to name but a few tactics) became the norm in American business generally. He demonstrates how that approach has led to the greatest socioeconomic inequality since the Great Depression and harmed many of the very companies that have embraced it. And he shows how a generation of Welch acolytes radically transformed companies like Boeing, Home Depot, Kraft Heinz, and more. Finally, Gelles chronicles the change that is now afoot in corporate America, highlighting companies and leaders who have abandoned Welchism and are proving that it is still possible to excel in the business world without destroying livelihoods, gutting communities, and spurning regulation.