Facebook: The Inside Story


Steven Levy - 2020
    And now renowned tech writer Steven Levy delivers the definitive history of one of America's most powerful and controversial companies: Facebook.In his sophomore year of college, Mark Zuckerberg created a simple website to serve as a campus social network. The site caught on like wildfire, and soon students nationwide were on Facebook.Today, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from Zuckerberg's first, modest iteration. It has grown into a tech giant, the largest social media platform and one of the most gargantuan companies in the world, with a valuation of more than $576 billion and almost 3 billion users, including those on its fully owned subsidiaries, Instagram and WhatsApp. There is no denying the power and omnipresence of Facebook in American daily life. And in light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing "fake news" accounts, the handling of its users' personal data, and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO, never has the company been more central to the national conversation.Based on hundreds of interviews inside and outside the company, Levy's sweeping narrative digs deep into the whole story of the company that has changed the world and reaped the consequences.

Jack: Straight from the Gut


Jack Welch - 2001
    "Congratulations, Mr. Chairman", said Reg. It was a defining moment for American business. So begins the story of a self-made man and a self-described rebel who thrived in one of the most volatile and economically robust eras in U.S. history, while managing to maintain a unique leadership style. In what is the most anticipated book on business management for our time, Jack Welch surveys the landscape of his career running one of the world's largest and most successful corporations.

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish


Rashmi Bansal - 2008
    They are diverse in age, in outlook and the industries they made a mark in. But they have one thing in common: they believed in the power of their dreams. This book seeks to inspire young graduates to look beyond placements and salaries. To believe in their dreams.

Saying No to Jugaad: The Making of Bigbasket


T.N. Hari - 2019
    

TITAN: Inside India’s Most Successful Consumer Brand


Vinay Kamath - 2018
    The brand they created – at first against tremendous odds and restrictive norms – injected freshness into the market and in retail spaces through its cutting-edge marketing strategy and empathetic advertising. Not only did the new watchmakers on the block transform watches from being utilitarian objects to fashion statements, but it also systematically ventured into areas untapped by corporate entities with its brands Titan, Tanishq, Titan Eyeplus, Skinn and Taneira, and established itself as a winner across multiple verticals. Titan: Inside India’s Most Successful Consumer Brand takes readers from boardrooms to back rooms to reveal how a quintessential Indian brand from the house of the Tatas, not known till then for its success in the consumer goods market, reached such remarkable heights. It is a tale of innovation and fortitude, of thinking outside the box and staying the course, of obsession with detail and the courage to acknowledge failure. A story that will inspire every reader, here is the inside account of what continues to make Titan tick.

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire


James Wallace - 1992
    Part entrepreneur, part enfant terrible, Gates has become the most powerful -- and feared -- player in the computer industry, and arguably the richest man in America. In Hard Drive, investigative reporters Wallace and Erickson follow Gates from his days as an unkempt thirteen-year-old computer hacker to his present-day status as a ruthless billionaire CEO. More than simply a "revenge of the nerds" story though, this is a balanced analysis of a business triumph, and a stunningly driven personality. The authors have spoken to everyone who knows anything about Bill Gates and Microsoft -- from childhood friends to employees and business rivals who reveal the heights, and limits, of his wizardry. From Gates's singular accomplishments to his equally extraordinary brattiness, arrogance, and hostility (the atmosphere is so intense at Microsoft that stressed-out programmers have been known to ease the tension of their eighty-hour workweeks by exploding homemade bombs), this is a uniquely revealing glimpse of the person who has emerged as the undisputed king of a notoriously brutal industry.

The Making of Hero: Four Brothers, Two Wheels and a Revolution that Shaped India


Sunil K. Munjal - 2020
    

That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea


Marc Randolph - 2019
    Late fees were ubiquitous, video-streaming unheard was of, and widespread DVD adoption seemed about as imminent as flying cars. Indeed, these were the widely accepted laws of the land in 1997, when Marc Randolph had an idea. It was a simple thought—leveraging the internet to rent movies—and was just one of many more and far worse proposals, like personalized baseball bats and a shampoo delivery service, that Randolph would pitch to his business partner, Reed Hastings, on their commute to work each morning.But Hastings was intrigued, and the pair—with Hastings as the primary investor and Randolph as the CEO—founded a company. Now with over 150 million subscribers, Netflix's triumph feels inevitable, but the twenty first century's most disruptive start up began with few believers and calamity at every turn. From having to pitch his own mother on being an early investor, to the motel conference room that served as a first office, to server crashes on launch day, to the now-infamous meeting when Netflix brass pitched Blockbuster to acquire them, Marc Randolph's transformational journey exemplifies how anyone with grit, gut instincts, and determination can change the world—even with an idea that many think will never work.What emerges, though, isn't just the inside story of one of the world's most iconic companies. Full of counter-intuitive concepts and written in binge-worthy prose, it answers some of our most fundamental questions about taking that leap of faith in business or in life: How do you begin? How do you weather disappointment and failure? How do you deal with success? What even is success?From idea generation to team building to knowing when it's time to let go, That Will Never Work is not only the ultimate follow-your-dreams parable, but also one of the most dramatic and insightful entrepreneurial stories of our time.

Big Billion Startup: The Untold Flipkart Story


Mihir Dalal - 2019
    Established in October 2007, Flipkart began as an online bookstore and soon came to be known for its ‘customer obsession’. As the startup’s reputation grew, so did its value, with venture capitalists in India and abroad lining up to invest heavily in the company that stood for bold ambition, unabashed consumerism and the virtues of technology.Investigative journalist Mihir Dalal recounts the astounding story of how the Bansals built Flipkart into a multi-billion-dollar powerhouse in the span of a few years and made internet entrepreneurship a desirable occupation. But it is also a story of big money, power and hubris, as both business and interpersonal complexities weakened the founders’ control over their creation and forced them to sell out to a retailer whose dominance they had once dreamt of emulating. Flipkart’s auction involved some of the corporate world’s biggest names, from Jeff Bezos, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai to Masayoshi Son and Doug McMillon, an ironic testimony to the strength of what the Bansals had forged.Based on extraordinary research, extensive interviews and deep access to key characters in the Flipkart story, Big Billion Startup is the riveting and revealing account of how Sachin and Binny Bansal built and sold India’s largest internet company.

Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business


Mark Robichaux - 2002
    For more than twenty-five years, Malone has dominated the cable television industry, shaping the world of entertainment and communications, first with his cable company TCI and later with Liberty Media. Written with Malone's unprecedented cooperation, the engaging narrative brings this controversial capitalist and businessman to life. Cable Cowboy is at once a penetrating portrait of Malone's complex persona, and a captivating history of the cable TV industry. Told in a lively style with exclusive details, the book shows how an unassuming copper strand started as a backwoods antenna service and became the digital nervous system of the U.S., an evolution that gave U.S. consumers the fastest route to the Internet. Cable Cowboy reveals the forces that propelled this pioneer to such great heights, and captures the immovable conviction and quicksilver mind that have defined John Malone throughout his career.

iCon: Steve Jobs, the Greatest Second Act in the History of Business


Jeffrey S. Young - 2005
    Drawing on a wide range of sources, Jeffrey Young and William Simon provide new perspectives on the legendary creation of Apple, detail Jobs's meteoric rise, and the devastating plunge that left him not only out of Apple, but out of the computer-making business entirely. This unflinching and completely unauthorized portrait reveals both sides of Jobs's role in the remarkable rise of the Pixar animation studio, also re-creates the acrimony between Jobs and Disney's Michael Eisner, and examines Jobs's dramatic his rise from the ashes with his recapture of Apple. The authors examine the takeover and Jobs's reinvention of the company with the popular iMac and his transformation of the industry with the revolutionary iPod. iCon is must reading for anyone who wants to understand how the modern digital age has been formed, shaped, and refined by the most influential figure of the age-a master of three industries: movies, music, and computers.

Direct from Dell: Strategies that Revolutionized an Industry


Michael Dell - 1999
    In the backseat were three personal computers. Today, he is the chairman and CEO of Dell Computer Corporation, a $30 billion company and the second largest manufacturer and marketer of computers in the world. Founded on a deceptively simple premise-to deliver high-performance computer systems directly to the end user-Dell Computer is the envy of its competition. It has consistently grown at two to three times the industry rate, its stock went up more than 90,000 percent in the last decade, and Dell is now selling more than $35 million worth of systems per day over "In Direct from Dell," you will learn why it's better for any business starting out to have too little capital rather than too muchwhy your people pose a greater threat to the health of your business than your competitionhow you can exploit your competition's weakness by exposing its greatest strengthhow intergrating your business virtually can make the difference between being quick -and being deadand much more

The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King


Rich Cohen - 2012
    When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between, he worked as a fruit peddler, a banana hauler, a dockside hustler, and a plantation owner. He battled and conquered the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof that America is the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures. In Latin America, when people shouted “Yankee, go home!” it was men like Zemurray they had in mind.            Rich Cohen’s brilliant historical profile The Fish That Ate the Whale unveils Zemurray as a hidden kingmaker and capitalist revolutionary, driven by an indomitable will to succeed. Known as El Amigo, the Gringo, or simply Z, the Banana Man lived one of the great untold stories of the last hundred years. Starting with nothing but a cart of freckled bananas, he built a sprawling empire of banana cowboys, mercenary soldiers, Honduran peasants, CIA agents, and American statesmen. From hustling on the docks of New Orleans to overthrowing Central American governments, from feuding with Huey Long to working with the Dulles brothers, Zemurray emerges as an unforgettable figure, connected to the birth of modern American diplomacy, public relations, business, and war—a monumental life that reads like a parable of the American dream.

Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built


Duncan Clark - 2016
    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 and the gatekeeper to hundreds of millions of middle class consumers.Duncan Clark first met Jack in 1999 in the small apartment where Jack founded Alibaba. Granted unprecedented access to a wealth of new material including exclusive interviews, Clark draws on his own experience as an early advisor to Alibaba and two decades in China chronicling the Internet’s impact on the country to create an authoritative, compelling narrative account of Alibaba’s rise.How did Jack overcome his humble origins and early failures to achieve massive success with Alibaba? How did he outsmart rival entrepreneurs from China and Silicon Valley? Can Alibaba maintain its 80% market share? As it forges ahead into finance and entertainment, are there limits to Alibaba’s ambitions?  How does the Chinese government view its rise?  Will Alibaba expand further overseas, including in the U.S.?Clark tells Alibaba’s tale in the context of China’s momentous economic and social changes, illuminating an unlikely corporate titan as never before.

Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis


Paranjoy Guha Thakurta - 2014
    While many reasons have been attributed to the split in the powerful Indian business family, the Ambanis, this book argues that the battle between the Ambani brothers was largely about wresting control over reserves of natural gas that are below the ocean bed along the basin of the two greatest rivers of southern India.With painstaking research, a meticulous perusal of press reports, as well as a few surprising exclusives, Gas Wars highlights cases of crony capitalism that allowed the Reliance group to blatantly exploit loopholes which were consciously retained in the system to benefit it. Even as the book tells the story of how the country’s largest corporate conglomerate has benefited from the way government policies are structured, it lays bare the alarming facts of a natural disaster waiting to happen due to the ruthless exploitation of the country's natural resources in order to swell the fortunes of a few.