Darkness engulfs the Indian subcontinent. The 17th century is destined to be an era of brutal wars, incessant oppression, and physical and spiritual carnage in the name of religion. Shivaji, a warrior and thinker far ahead of his times, rises and renders a rousing dream - respect and dignity for human life, economic equity, and empowerment. Destiny does not favour him; he faces terribile odds - a fallen and defeated populace, the might of the Mughal Empire, and naval supremacy of the Western powers. Thus begins a battle of conflicting ideologies, contrasting belief systems, and sharply different visions of India - a stake is the future of most ancient civilization. Witness the beginnings of the momentous events that will send thunderbolts across centuries, the echoes of which still haunt the subcontinent.

    The "Greatest Business Book of All Time" (Bloomsbury UK), In Search of Excellence has long been a must-have for the boardroom, business school, and bedside table.Based on a study of forty-three of America's best-run companies from a diverse array of business sectors, In Search of Excellence describes eight basic principles of management -- action-stimulating, people-oriented, profit-maximizing practices -- that made these organizations successful.This phenomenal bestseller features a new Authors' Note, and reintroduces these vital principles in an accessible and practical way for today's management reader.

    Doris Christopher’s “keep it simple” approach has a lot to teach anyone who is reaching for the American Dream. Frankly, if I can’t understand a company’s business, I figure their customers must have a pretty hard time figuring it out, too.I would challenge anyone on Wall Street to take $3,000 and do what Doris Christopher has done: build a business from scratch into a world-class organization. But follow the simple steps in this book, and it just might happen. Come see me in Omaha when you’ve put together your own recipe for success; we pay cash and Bershire’s check will clear. In the meantime, read this book. Then, read it again.-- Warren Buffet from the foreword to The Pampered ChefThe Pampered Chef is Doris Christopher’s extraordinary account of how she turned an innovative concept and $3,000 investment into a business with annual sales approaching the billion-dollar mark. It is packed with real-life lessons and inspiring insights for small-business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs.In 1980 Doris Christopher, a former home economist and teacher, was itching to get back into the workforce after an eight-year hiatus as a stay-at-home mom. Drawing on her personal and professional expertise, and determined to make cooking easier and more convenient for families, she started selling high-quality kitchen tools through cooking demonstrations to groups of women in their homes. Today, the company she started in her basement, The Pampered Chef, is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary and has grown into a corporation with tens of thousands of independent kitchen consultants. Now owned by Berkshire Hathaway, The Pampered Chef’s Kitchen Consultants present more than a million Kitchen Shows a year, attended by more than 12 million people.THE PAMPERED CHEF is the story of the vision, energy, hard work, and chutzpah that drove Christopher and her company to the height of success. She describes her early days as a “one-woman show,” chronicles the company’s gradual expansion, its challenges and growing popularity, and the process, offers invaluable advice and sound strategies on how to found and grow a business, including:Hard learned lessons for start-up entrepreneursHow to create a business concept and set your prioritiesKnowing when to expand and when to slow growth so that demand doesn’t overwhelm your operations or suppliesHow to counter the naysayers and deal with adversityToday, as at the company’s founding, achieving a better balance between work and family remains central to The Pampered Chef’s mission. THE PAMPERED CHEF brings Christopher’s recipe for success to women, and men, everywhere.

    It starts in the nineteenth century with Nusserwanji Tata - a middle-class Parsi priest from the village of Navsari in Gujarat, and widely regarded as the Father of Indian Industry - and ends with Ratan Tata - chairman of the Tata Group until 2012. But it is more than just a history of the industrial house; it is an inspiring account of India in the making. It chronicles how each generation of the family invested not only in the expansion of its own business interests but also in nation building. For instance, few know that the first hydel project in the world was conceived and built by the Tatas in India. Nor that some radical labour concepts such as eight-hour work shifts were born in India, at the Tata mill in Nagpur. The National Centre for the Performing Arts, the Tata Cancer Research Centre, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research - the list about the Tatas' contribution to India is a long one. A bestseller in Marathi when it was first published in 2015, this is the only book that tells the complete Tata story over two hundred years.

    When Chambers joined Cisco in 1991, it was a company with 400 employees, a single product, and about $70 million in revenue. When he stepped down as CEO in 2015, he left a $47 billion tech giant that was the backbone of the internet and a leader in areas from cybersecurity to data center convergence. Along the way, he had acquired 180 companies and turned more than 10,000 employees into millionaires. Widely recognized as an innovator, an industry leader, and one of the world's best CEOs, Chambers has outlasted and outmaneuvered practically every rival that ever tried to take Cisco on--Nortel, Lucent, Alcatel, IBM, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard, to name a few. Now Chambers is sharing his unique strategies for winning in a digital world. From his early lessons and struggles with dyslexia in West Virginia to his bold bets and battles with some of the biggest names in tech, Chambers gives readers a playbook on how to act before the market shifts, tap customers for strategy, partner for growth, build teams, and disrupt themselves. He also adapted those lessons to transform government, helping global leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to create new models for growth. As CEO of JC2 Ventures, he's now investing in a new generation of game-changing startups by helping founders become great leaders and scale their companies. Connecting the Dots is destined to become a business classic, providing hard-won insights and critical tools to thrive during the accelerating disruption of the digital age.

    Today's massively scaling startups - which rapidly grow to millions of users and billions in valuation - do not sell a product or service. Instead, they build a platform on which others can create and exchange value.The many manifestations of the platform business model - social media, the peer economy, cryptocurrencies, APIs and developer ecosystems, the Internet of things, crowdsourcing models, and many others - are becoming increasingly relevant.Yet, most new platform ideas fail because the business design and growth strategies involved in building platforms are not well understood.Platform Scale lays out a structured approach to designing and growing a platform business model and addresses the key factors leading to the success and failure of these businesses.Six core concepts for successful platform business model design1. Re-imagine your business for platform scaleThe mechanism by which these new business models scale so rapidly. Understand the shift in thinking needed to manage businesses with platform scale and the impact of network effects, virality, behavior design and data."We are not in the business of building software. We are in the business of enabling interactions."2. Leverage interaction-first designHow detailed consideration around designing the producer-consumer core interaction is critical for building business models that leverage platform scale."The design of the platform business model involves the design of a core interaction followed by the design of an open infrastructure that will enable and govern this interaction."3. Build cumulative value and minimize interaction failureKnow the key managerial decisions to focus on while managing platform scale businesses, all geared towards maximizing the ability of these businesses to enable interactions by scaling producer participation and minimizing interaction failure."Platform scale is achieved by maximizing the repeatability and efficiency of the platform's core interaction."4. Solve chicken and egg problemsPlatform business models face an all too familiar catch-22 chicken and egg problem on the way to scaling. This can be overcome by designing the conditions for sparking interactions."The solution to the chicken-and-egg problem requires a bait that can break the vicious cycle of no activity."5. Design viral enginesUnderstand the drivers of viral growth in a world of networks and apply the viral canvas design-first approach to viral growth."Virality is a business design problem, not a marketing or engineering effort. It requires design before optimization."6. Account for reverse network effectsConsider the counter view on platform scale and be on the lookout for conditions where scale can be detrimental to platform businesses."The goal of platform scale is to ensure the simultaneous scaling of quantity and quality, of interactions."Platform Scale is a maker's guide for entrepreneurs, innovators and educators looking to understand and implement the inner workings of highly scalable platform business models.

    In the international bestseller, The Toyota Way, Jeffrey Liker explained Toyota's remarkable success through a 4P model for excellence-Philosophy, People, Problem Solving, and Process. Liker, with coauthor David Meier, provided deeper insight into the practical application of the principles in The Toyota Way Fieldbook. Now, these authorities on Toyota reveal how you can develop talented people and achieve incredible results in your company.Toyota Talent walks you through the rigorous methodology used by this global powerhouse to grow high-performing individuals from within. Beginning with a review of Toyota's landmark approach to developing people, the authors illustrate the critical importance of creating a learning and teaching culture in your organization. They provide specific examples necessary to train employees in all areas-from the shop floor to engineering to staff members in service organizations-and show you how to support and encourage every individual to reach his or her top potential.Toyota Talent provides you with the inside knowledge you need toIdentify your development needs and create a training planUnderstand the various types of work and how to break complicated jobs into teachable skillsSet behavioral expectations by properly preparing your workplaceRecognize and develop potential trainers within your workforceEffectively educate nonmanufacturing employees and members of the staffDevelop internal Lean Manufacturing expertsGuiding you with expert tips and training aids, as well as real-world examples drawn from the authors' two decades of research and field work, Liker and Meier show you how to get the most out of people who live and breathe your company's philosophy-and who work together toward a common goal.

    Peterson describes his remarkable life story beginning in Kearney, Nebraska as an eight-year-old manning the cash register at his father's Greek diner through his "Mad Men" advertising days, to Secretary of Commerce in Nixon's paranoid White House, to the tumultuous days of Lehman Brothers, and to the creation of The Blackstone Group, one of the great financial enterprises in recent times. In THE EDUCATION OF AN AMERICAN DREAMER, Peterson chronicles the progress of this journey with irony, humor and, sometimes, painful honesty. Within these pages are stories of marriage and family hardship; lessons in political gamesmanship; thoughts on his obsessive desire to succeed; and, finally, learning the meaning of "enough." From his advertising days in Chicago in the 1950's to becoming the youngest CEO of a Fortune 300 Company, he shares with us his rise to the top and the price paid along the way. As the youngest Cabinet member in the Nixon administration, he describes his survival techniques in a hubris-driven and paranoid White House, including his turbulent turf wars with Treasury Secretary John Connally leading to Peterson's abrupt and highly publicized firing. His stewardship of Lehman Brothers is a Shakespearian tale of a CEO who struggled to deal with partners who were plotting his demise and, at the same time, turning an institution on the brink of bankruptcy to one with 5 straight years of record profits. His life's story is about doing well by doing good. In the wake of Blackstone's highly successful public offering, Peterson found himself an 80-year old instant billionaire, on the verge of retirement. And like many lifetime workers and over-achievers, he suddenly confronts an unexpected, depressing identity crisis. His solution? Committing a great bulk of his net proceeds to establish the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, his philanthropic endeavor to do something about America's politically untouchable challenges that threaten America's future, among them massive entitlement obligations, ballooning health care costs, and our energy gluttony.Ultimately, this is a man's account of his legendary successes, humiliating failures, and personal tragedies - a testament to a remarkable life and, indeed, to the American Dream itself.

    After months of exclusive conversations, years of extensive research, and in-depth interviews with Onassis's friends, lovers and rivals, Evans produced the only true, full account of the charismatic and ruthless Aristotle Onassis. To be a major ABC miniseries in February. 32 pages of photos.

    Brett Wilson, Dragons' Den co-star and Risky Business host, often gets asked about his secrets to success. He became one of Canada's top investment bankers because he was driven, willing to take risks and saw opportunity where others saw roadblocks.But along the path to business success, he tripped over a multitude of misguided priorities. For many years, Wilson pursued business with uncompromising focus, working long hours, seven days a week. In the process, his marriage and his health suffered greatly: he was rarely home as his children were growing up, divorce became inevitable and cancer struck at age forty-three. He truly learned the hard way that one can find financial success and the respect of business peers while almost losing what matters most: health, family and friends.Redefining Success details how Wilson was forced to redefine his life, making health and key relationships his first priorities. Through trial and error, he discovered that these simple virtues are foundational for real, enduring success, both in business and in life. Wilson's compelling insights are the basis for Redefining Success. Not just for entrepreneurs and business people, the book outlines how we can change our lives for the better by re-evaluating our personal definitions of success, then reworking them into a life plan that is feasible, lasting and rewarding.Inspirational and paradigm-changing, Redefining Success will help you implement and sustain lasting, positive change in your life—and make your world a little more meaningful—every day.

    Today, Munger is one of America’s most successful investors, the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, and Warren Buffett’s business partner for almost forty years. Buffett says “Berkshire has been built to Charlie’s blueprint. My role has been that of general contractor.” Munger is an intelligent, opinionated businessman whose ideas can teach professional and amateur investors how to be successful in finance and life. Like The Tao of Warren Buffett and The Tao of Te Ching, The Tao of Charlie Munger is a compendium of pithy quotes including, “Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant” and “In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time—none, zero.” This collection, culled from interviews, speeches, and questions and answers at the Berkshire Hathaway and Wesco annual meetings, offers insights into Munger’s amazing financial success and life philosophies. Described by Business Insider as “sharp in his wit and investing wisdom,” Charlie Munger’s investment tips, business philosophy, and rules for living are as unique as his life story, intelligent as he clearly is, and as successful as he has been.

    

    What would have once meant a crippling shock to the system was absorbed astonishingly quickly, partly due to the efforts of the then Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan. The post 9/11 global economy is a new and turbulent system - vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than it was even twenty years ago. The Age of Turbulence is an incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world - how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good or ill, channelled through Greenspan's own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure.

    Rahman's first film Roja was released in 1992, his astonishing music with its other-worldly melodies, tonal texture, pulsating rhythms made an instant impact in India. His abundantly flowing talent has given life to the score of over a hundred films, including Dil Se, Bombay, Lagaan, Warriors of Heaven and Earth, 127 Hours and Jodhaa Akbar. According to a recent estimate by the BBC, 150 million Copies of his albums have sold worldwide. A.R. Rahman has won a host of awards, together with a Golden Globe, a Bafta, two Oscars and two Grammys for his score in Slumdog Millionaire. In 2010, he received the Padma Bhusan, the third civilian honour, awarded by the Government of India. Despite all his great success, Rahman remains a deeply private person, shying away from the glitz and glamour of show business. A.R. Rahman, The Spirit of Music is in the form of biographical conversations between the composer and Nasreen Munni Kabir in which we hear of Rahman's amazing journey from modest beginning to an assured place in world music history.

    Rockefeller, Sr.--history's first billionaire and the patriarch of America's most famous dynasty--is an icon whose true nature has eluded three generations of historians. Now Ron Chernow, the National Book Award-winning biographer of the Morgan and Warburg banking families, gives us a history of the mogul "etched with uncommon objectivity and literary grace . . . as detailed, balanced, and psychologically insightful a portrait of the tycoon as we may ever have" (Kirkus Reviews). Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller's exceptionally rich trove of papers. A landmark publication full of startling revelations, the book will indelibly alter our image of this most enigmatic capitalist.        Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world's richest man by creating America's most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Branded "the Octopus" by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America.        Rockefeller was likely the most controversial businessman in our nation's history. Critics charged that his empire was built on unscrupulous tactics: grand-scale collusion with the railroads, predatory pricing, industrial espionage, and wholesale bribery of political officials. The titan spent more than thirty years dodging investigations until Teddy Roosevelt and his trustbusters embarked on a marathon crusade to bring Standard Oil to bay.        While providing abundant new evidence of Rockefeller's misdeeds, Chernow discards the stereotype of the cold-blooded monster to sketch an unforgettably human portrait of a quirky, eccentric original. A devout Baptist and temperance advocate, Rockefeller gave money more generously--his chosen philanthropies included the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Chicago, and what is today Rockefeller University--than anyone before him. Titan presents a finely nuanced portrait of a fascinating, complex man, synthesizing his public and private lives and disclosing numerous family scandals, tragedies, and misfortunes that have never before come to light.        John D. Rockefeller's story captures a pivotal moment in American history, documenting the dramatic post-Civil War shift from small business to the rise of giant corporations that irrevocably transformed the nation. With cameos by Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, Jay Gould, William Vanderbilt, Ida Tarbell, Andrew Carnegie, Carl Jung, J. Pierpont Morgan, William James, Henry Clay Frick, Mark Twain, and Will Rogers, Titan turns Rockefeller's life into a vivid tapestry of American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is Ron Chernow's signal triumph that he narrates this monumental saga with all the sweep, drama, and insight that this giant subject deserves.From the Hardcover edition.