This inspirational autobiography tells the remarkable story behind James Dyson and his most successful invention to date: the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner. With little or no support, Dyson endured years of personal struggle and financial crisis before his unswerving optimism and self-belief won him spectacular success. This is a story of personal and business triumph over the established multinational companies that tried to halt his progress.

    At first just the wacky idea of cofounders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb has disrupted the $500 billion hotel industry, and its $30 billion valuation is now larger than that of Hilton and close to that of Marriott. Airbnb is beloved by the millions of members in its “host” community and the travelers they shelter every night. And yet, even as the company has blazed such an unexpected path, this is the first book solely dedicated to the phenomenon of Airbnb.Fortune editor Leigh Gallagher explores the success of Airbnb along with the more controversial side of its story. Regulators want to curb its rapid expansion; hotel industry leaders wrestle with the disruption it has caused them; and residents and customers alike struggle with the unintended consequences of opening up private homes for public consumption. This is also the first in‑depth study of Airbnb's leader, Brian Chesky, the quirky and curious young CEO, as he steers the company into new markets and increasingly uncharted waters.

    Others have broken rules, missed deadlines, failed to live up to commitments, or just plain behaved badly—and nobody steps up to the issue. Or they do, but do a lousy job and create a whole new set of problems. Accountability suffers and new problems spring up. New research demonstrates that these disappointments aren't just irritating, they're costly—sapping organizational performance by twenty to fifty percent and accounting for up to ninety percent of divorces.Crucial Confrontations teaches skills drawn from 10,000 hours of real-life observations to increase confidence in facing issues like:- An employee speaks to you in an insulting tone that crosses the line between sarcasm and insubordination. Now what?- Your boss just committed you to a deadline you know you can't meet—and not-so-subtly hinted he doesn't want to hear complaints about it.- Your son walks through the door sporting colorful new body art that raises your blood pressure by forty points. Speak now, pay later.- An accountant wonders how to step up to a client who is violating the law. Can you spell unemployment?- Family members fret over how to tell granddad that he should no longer drive his car. This is going to get ugly.- A nurse worries about what to say to an abusive physician. She quickly remembers "how things work around here" and decides not to say anything.Everyone knows how to run for cover, or if adequately provoked, step up to these confrontations in a way that causes a real ruckus. That we have down pat. Crucial Confrontations teaches you how to deal with violated expectations in a way that solves the problem at hand, and doesn't harm the relationship—and in fact, even strengthens it.Crucial Confrontations borrows from twenty years of research involving two groups. More than 25,000 people helped the authors identify those who were most influential during crucial confrontations. They spent 10,000 hours watching these people, documented what they saw, and then trained and tested with more than 300,000 people. Second, they measured the impact of crucial confrontations improvements on organizational and team performance—the results were immediate and sustainable: twenty to fifty percent improvements in measurable performance.

    It gives you simple, yet effective techniques for creating relentless demand and endless leads. It includes more than 200 proven marketing strategies for attracting new clients, earning more referrals, and building profitable, long-lasting professional relationships. If you want to take your service business to the next level, start here and "Book Yourself Solid.

    They employ what psychologists call "lateral thinking: to rethink convention and break "rules" that aren't rules.These are not shortcuts, which produce often dubious short-term gains, but ethical "smartcuts" that eliminate unnecessary effort and yield sustainable momentum. In Smartcuts, Snow shatters common wisdom about success, revealing how conventions like "paying dues" prevent progress, why kids shouldn't learn times tables, and how, paradoxically, it's easier to build a huge business than a small one.From SpaceX to The Cuban Revolution, from Ferrari to Skrillex, Smartcuts is a narrative adventure that busts old myths about success and shows how innovators and icons do the incredible by working smarter—and how perhaps the rest of us can, too.

    His blog has garnered a devoted following of millions of readers who have come to rely on him to help them run their businesses. A lifelong rap fan, Horowitz amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs and tells it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, from cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.His advice is grounded in anecdotes from his own hard-earned rise—from cofounding the early cloud service provider Loudcloud to building the phenomenally successful Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm, both with fellow tech superstar Marc Andreessen (inventor of Mosaic, the Internet's first popular Web browser). This is no polished victory lap; he analyzes issues with no easy answers through his trials, includingdemoting (or firing) a loyal friend;whether you should incorporate titles and promotions, and how to handle them;if it's OK to hire people from your friend's company;how to manage your own psychology, while the whole company is relying on you;what to do when smart people are bad employees;why Andreessen Horowitz prefers founder CEOs, and how to become one;whether you should sell your company, and how to do it.Filled with Horowitz's trademark humor and straight talk, and drawing from his personal and often humbling experiences, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures.

    It has long been a business article of faith that great companies, by definition, constantly focus on maximizing their revenues year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, a growing number of undeniably great compabnies have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Veteran journalist Bo Burlingham takes us deep inside fourteen of these remarkable comapnies that have chosen to march to their own drummer. He shows the leaders of these small giants recognized the full range of choices they had about the type of company they could create and made the choice to pursue greateness by placing other goals ahead of getting as big as possible as fast as possible. And he shows how we can all benefit by questioning the conventional definitions of business success."

    A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political sideshow derails the national news cycle and destroys a candidate. Some product or celebrity zooms from total obscurity to viral sensation. What you don't know is that someone is responsible for all this. Usually, someone like me.I'm a media manipulator. In a world where blogs control and distort the news, my job is to control blogs--as much as any one person can. In today's culture... 1) Blogs like "Gawker," "Buzzfeed" and the "Huffington Post" drive the media agenda. 2) Bloggers are slaves to money, technology, and deadlines. 3) Manipulators wield these levers to shape everything you read, see and watch--online and off.Why am I giving away these secrets? Because I'm tired of a world where blogs take indirect bribes, marketers help write the news, reckless journalists spread lies, and no one is accountable for any of it. I'm pulling back the curtain because I don't want anyone else to get blindsided. I'm going to explain exactly how the media "really" works. What you choose to do with this information is up to you.

    With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the 21st century; what it means to countries, companies, communities and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt.

    McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley.McCord advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don’t fit the company’s emerging needs, and motivating with challenging work, not promises, perks, and bonus plans. McCord argues that the old standbys of corporate HR―annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs―often end up being a colossal waste of time and resources. Her road-tested advice, offered with humor and irreverence, provides readers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability.Powerful will change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.

    The story follows Nancy, the newly anointed CEO of America's Favorite Soup Company. She has been brought in to reinvigorate the brand and bring success back to a company that has lost its flavor and profit and has fallen on hard times. Fatefully, while eating lunch at a local soup shop, Nancy discovers the key ingredients to unite, engage, and inspire her team and create a culture of greatness.From the bestselling author of The Energy Bus, The No Complaining Rule, and Training CampFind out how culture drives behavior, behavior drives habits, and habits deliver results Create relationships that are the foundation upon which successful careers and winning teams are built Features quick takeaways you can use to invest in your people, build trust, create unity, and enhance engagement A turnaround tale like few others, Soup will inspire you to work in your own company to unleash the passion that delivers superior results.

    But this book is different from all the others.Becoming Steve Jobs takes on and breaks down the existing myth and stereotypes about Steve Jobs. The conventional, one-dimensional view of Jobs is that he was half-genius, half-jerk from youth, an irascible and selfish leader who slighted friends and family alike. Becoming Steve Jobs answers the central question about the life and career of the Apple cofounder and CEO: How did a young man so reckless and arrogant that he was exiled from the company he founded become the most effective visionary business leader of our time, ultimately transforming the daily life of billions of people?Drawing on incredible and sometimes exclusive access, Schlender and Tetzeli tell a different story of a real human being who wrestled with his failings and learned to maximize his strengths over time. Their rich, compelling narrative is filled with stories never told before from the people who knew Jobs best, and who decided to open up to the authors, including his family, former inner circle executives, and top people at Apple, Pixar and Disney, most notably Tim Cook, Jony Ive, Eddy Cue, Ed Catmull, John Lasseter, Robert Iger and many others. In addition, Brent knew Jobs personally for 25 years and draws upon his many interviews with him, on and off the record, in writing the book. He and Rick humanize the man and explain, rather than simply describe, his behavior. Along the way, the book provides rich context about the technology revolution we all have lived through, and the ways in which Jobs changed our world.Schlender and Tetzeli make clear that Jobs's astounding success at Apple was far more complicated than simply picking the right products: he became more patient, he learned to trust his inner circle, and discovered the importance of growing the company incrementally rather than only shooting for dazzling game-changing products.A rich and revealing account that will change the way we view Jobs, Becoming Steve Jobs shows us how one of the most colorful and compelling figures of our times was able to combine his unchanging, relentless passion with a more mature management style to create one of the most valuable and beloved companies on the planet.

    And with so many surveys reporting that employees are unhappy and not working up to their full potential, engagement is a second serious and costly issue. The latest edition of this Wall Street Journal bestseller offers twenty-six simple strategies—from A to Z—that managers can use to address their employees’ real concerns and keep them engaged. The fifth edition has been revised and updated throughout and includes many more international examples, reflecting the fact that Love ’Em or Lose ’Em is available in twenty-two languages, from Albanian and Arabic to Thai and Turkish. Its message is truly one that spans continents and cultures.

    From the launch of Amazon’s third-party seller program to their foray into enterprise services, he witnessed it all—the amazing successes, the little-known failures, and the experiments whose outcomes are still in doubt.In The Amazon Way, Rossman introduces readers to the unique corporate culture of the world’s largest Internet retailer, with a focus on the fourteen leadership principles that have guided and shaped its decisions and its distinctive leadership culture. Peppered with humorous and enlightening firsthand anecdotes from the author’s career at Amazon, this revealing business guide is also filled with the valuable lessons that have served Jeff Bezos’s “everything store” so well—providing expert advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, CEOs, and investors alike.

    It is one of the fastest growing companies in history, an essential part of the social life not only of teenagers but hundreds of millions of adults worldwide. As Facebook spreads around the globe, it creates surprising effects—even becoming instrumental in political protests from Colombia to Iran. Veteran technology reporter David Kirkpatrick had the full cooperation of Facebook’s key executives in researching this fascinating history of the company and its impact on our lives. Kirkpatrick tells us how Facebook was created, why it has flourished, and where it is going next. He chronicles its successes and missteps, and gives readers the most complete assessment anywhere of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the central figure in the company’s remarkable ascent. This is the Facebook story that can be found nowhere else. How did a nineteen-year-old Harvard student create a company that has transformed the Internet and how did he grow it to its current enormous size? Kirkpatrick shows how Zuckerberg steadfastly refused to compromise his vision, insistently focusing on growth over profits and preaching that Facebook must dominate (his word) communication on the Internet. In the process, he and a small group of key executives have created a company that has changed social life in the United States and elsewhere, a company that has become a ubiquitous presence in marketing, altering politics, business, and even our sense of our own identity. This is the Facebook Effect.