The Cult of We: Wework, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion


Eliot Brown - 2021
    Just over fifteen years later, he had transformed himself into the charismatic CEO of a company worth $47 billion--at least on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras, the 6-foot-five Neumann, who grew up in part on a kibbutz, looked the part of a messianic Silicon Valley entrepreneur. The vision he offered was mesmerizing: a radical reimagining of work space for a new generation, with its fluid jobs and lax office culture. He called it WeWork. Though the company was merely subleasing amenity-filled office space to freelancers and small startups, Neumann marketed it like a revolutionary product--and investors swooned.As billions of funding dollars poured in, Neumann's ambitions grew limitless. WeWork wasn't just an office space provider, he boasted. It would build schools, create WeWork cities, even colonize Mars. Could he, Neumann wondered from the ice bath he'd installed in his office, become the first trillionaire or a world leader? In pursuit of its founder's grandiose vision, the company spent money faster than it could bring it in. From his private jet, sometimes clouded with marijuana smoke, the CEO scoured the globe for more capital. In late 2019, just weeks before WeWork's highly publicized IPO, a Hail Mary effort to raise cash, everything fell apart. Neumann was ousted from his company--but still was poised to walk away a billionaire.Calling to mind the recent demise of Theranos and the hubris of the dotcom era bust, WeWork's extraordinary rise and staggering implosion were fueled by disparate characters in a financial system blind to its risks, from a Japanese billionaire with designs on becoming the Warren Buffet of tech, to leaders at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs who seemed intoxicated by a Silicon Valley culture where sensible business models lost out to youthful CEOs who promised disruption. Why did some of the biggest names in banking and venture capital buy the hype? And what does the future hold for Silicon Valley unicorns? Wall Street Journal reporters Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell explore these questions in this definitive account of WeWork's unraveling.

Security Metrics: Replacing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt


Andrew Jaquith - 2007
    Using sample charts, graphics, case studies, and war stories, Yankee Group Security Expert Andrew Jaquith demonstrates exactly how to establish effective metrics based on your organization's unique requirements. You'll discover how to quantify hard-to-measure security activities, compile and analyze all relevant data, identify strengths and weaknesses, set cost-effective priorities for improvement, and craft compelling messages for senior management. Security Metrics successfully bridges management's quantitative viewpoint with the nuts-and-bolts approach typically taken by security professionals. It brings together expert solutions drawn from Jaquith's extensive consulting work in the software, aerospace, and financial services industries, including new metrics presented nowhere else. You'll learn how to: - Replace nonstop crisis response with a systematic approach to security improvement - Understand the differences between "good" and "bad" metrics - Measure coverage and control, vulnerability management, password quality, patch latency, benchmark scoring, and business-adjusted risk - Quantify the effectiveness of security acquisition, implementation, and other program activities - Organize, aggregate, and analyze your data to bring out key insights - Use visualization to understand and communicate security issues more clearly - Capture valuable data from firewalls and antivirus logs, third-party auditor reports, and other resources - Implement balanced scorecards that present compact, holistic views of organizational security effectiveness Whether you're an engineer or consultant responsible for security and reporting to management-or an executive who needs better information for decision-making-Security Metrics is the resource you have been searching for. Andrew Jaquith, program manager for Yankee Group's Security Solutions and Services Decision Service, advises enterprise clients on prioritizing and managing security resources. He also helps security vendors develop product, service, and go-to-market strategies for reaching enterprise customers. He co-founded @stake, Inc., a security consulting pioneer acquired by Symantec Corporation in 2004. His application security and metrics research has been featured in CIO, CSO, InformationWeek, IEEE Security and Privacy, and The Economist. Foreword Preface Acknowledgments About the Author Chapter 1 Introduction: Escaping the Hamster Wheel of Pain Chapter 2 Defining Security Metrics Chapter 3 Diagnosing Problems and Measuring Technical Security Chapter 4 Measuring Program Effectiveness Chapter 5 Analysis Techniques Chapter 6 Visualization Chapter 7 Automating Metrics Calculations Chapter 8 Designing Security Scorecards Index

Ask Your Developer: How to Harness the Power of Software Developers and Win in the 21st Century


Jeff Lawson - 2021
    The landscape has shifted from the classic build vs. buy question, to one of build vs. die. Companies have to get this right to survive. But how do they make this transition?Software developers are sought after, highly paid, and desperately needed to compete in the modern, digital economy. Yet most companies treat them like digital factory workers without really understanding how to unleash their full potential. Lawson argues that developers are the creative workforce who can solve major business problems and create hit products for customers—not just grind through rote tasks. From Google and Amazon, to one-person online software companies—companies that bring software developers in as partners are winning. Lawson shows how leaders who build industry changing software products consistently do three things well. First, they understand why software developers matter more than ever. Second, they understand developers and know how to motivate them. And third, they invest in their developers' success.As a software developer and public company CEO, Lawson uses his unique position to bridge the language and tools executives use with the unique culture of high performing, creative software developers. Ask Your Developer is a toolkit to help business leaders, product managers, technical leaders, software developers, and executives achieve their common goal—building great digital products and experiences.How to compete in the digital economy? In short: Ask Your Developer.

The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win


Gene Kim - 2013
    It's Tuesday morning and on his drive into the office, Bill gets a call from the CEO. The company's new IT initiative, code named Phoenix Project, is critical to the future of Parts Unlimited, but the project is massively over budget and very late. The CEO wants Bill to report directly to him and fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill's entire department will be outsourced. With the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of The Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined. With the clock ticking, Bill must organize work flow streamline interdepartmental communications, and effectively serve the other business functions at Parts Unlimited. In a fast-paced and entertaining style, three luminaries of the DevOps movement deliver a story that anyone who works in IT will recognize. Readers will not only learn how to improve their own IT organizations, they'll never view IT the same way again.

Future Crimes


Marc Goodman - 2015
    Hackers can activate baby monitors to spy on families, thieves are analyzing social media posts to plot home invasions, and stalkers are exploiting the GPS on smart phones to track their victims’ every move. We all know today’s criminals can steal identities, drain online bank accounts, and wipe out computer servers, but that’s just the beginning. To date, no computer has been created that could not be hacked—a sobering fact given our radical dependence on these machines for everything from our nation’s power grid to air traffic control to financial services.      Yet, as ubiquitous as technology seems today, just over the horizon is a tidal wave of scientific progress that will leave our heads spinning. If today’s Internet is the size of a golf ball, tomorrow’s will be the size of the sun. Welcome to the Internet of Things, a living, breathing, global information grid where every physical object will be online. But with greater connections come greater risks. Implantable medical devices such as pacemakers can be hacked to deliver a lethal jolt of electricity and a car’s brakes can be disabled at high speed from miles away. Meanwhile, 3-D printers can produce AK-47s, bioterrorists can download the recipe for Spanish flu, and cartels are using fleets of drones to ferry drugs across borders.     With explosive insights based upon a career in law enforcement and counterterrorism, Marc Goodman takes readers on a vivid journey through the darkest recesses of the Internet. Reading like science fiction, but based in science fact, Future Crimes explores how bad actors are primed to hijack the technologies of tomorrow, including robotics, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. These fields hold the power to create a world of unprecedented abundance and prosperity. But the technological bedrock upon which we are building our common future is deeply unstable and, like a house of cards, can come crashing down at any moment.     Future Crimes provides a mind-blowing glimpse into the dark side of technological innovation and the unintended consequences of our connected world. Goodman offers a way out with clear steps we must take to survive the progress unfolding before us. Provocative, thrilling, and ultimately empowering, Future Crimes will serve as an urgent call to action that shows how we can take back control over our own devices and harness technology’s tremendous power for the betterment of humanity—before it’s too late.From the Hardcover edition.

Open Source Intelligence Techniques: Resources for Searching and Analyzing Online Information


Michael Bazzell - 2012
    In this book, he shares his methods in great detail. Each step of his process is explained throughout twenty-five chapters of specialized websites, software solutions, and creative search techniques. Over 250 resources are identified with narrative tutorials and screen captures. This book will serve as a reference guide for anyone that is responsible for the collection of online content. It is written in a hands-on style that encourages the reader to execute the tutorials as they go. The search techniques offered will inspire analysts to "think outside the box" when scouring the internet for personal information. Much of the content of this book has never been discussed in any publication. Always thinking like a hacker, the author has identified new ways to use various technologies for an unintended purpose. This book will greatly improve anyone's online investigative skills. Among other techniques, you will learn how to locate: Hidden Social Network Content Cell Phone Subscriber Information Deleted Websites & Posts Missing Facebook Profile Data Full Twitter Account Data Alias Social Network Profiles Free Investigative Software Useful Browser Extensions Alternative Search Engine Results Website Owner Information Photo GPS & Metadata Live Streaming Social Content Social Content by Location IP Addresses of Users Additional User Accounts Sensitive Documents & Photos Private Email Addresses Duplicate Video Posts Mobile App Network Data Unlisted Addresses s Public Government Records Document Metadata Rental Vehicle Contracts Online Criminal Activity Personal Radio Communications Compromised Email Information Automated Collection Solutions Linux Investigative Programs Dark Web Content (Tor) Restricted YouTube Content Hidden Website Details Vehicle Registration Details

You Have More Influence Than You Think: How We Underestimate Our Power of Persuasion, and Why It Matters


Vanessa Bohns - 2021
    Those feelings may instead have been the result of a lack of awareness we all seem to have for how our words, actions, and even our mere presence affect other people.In You Have More Influence Than You Think social psychologist Vanessa Bohns draws from her original research to illustrate why we fail to recognize the influence we have, and how that lack of awareness can lead us to miss opportunities or accidentally misuse our power.Weaving together compelling stories with cutting edge science, Bohns answers the questions we all want to know (but may be afraid to ask): How much did she take to heart what I said earlier? Do they know they can push back on my suggestions? Did he notice whether I was there today? Will they agree to help me if I ask?Whether attending a meeting, sharing a post online, or mustering the nerve to ask for a favor, we often assume our actions, input, and requests will be overlooked or rejected. Bohns and her work demonstrate that people see us, listen to us, and agree to do things for us much more than we realize—for better, and worse.You Have More Influence Than You Think offers science-based strategies for observing the effect we have on others, reconsidering our fear of rejection, and even, sometimes, pulling back to use our influence less. It is a call to stop searching for ways to gain influence you don’t have and to start recognizing the influence you don’t realize you already have.

How to Be Rich


Napoleon Hill - 2010
    Why Not You? This is the guiding question of How to Be Rich. To answer it, this compact book gleans must-read passages, powerful meditations, and tantalizing wealth-building techniques from the collected work of the greatest motivational writers ever. Each chapter in How to Be Rich is short enough to read in a grocery store checkout line-yet powerful enough to challenge years of ingrained, self-limiting thinking. How to Be Rich boils down the cumulative insight of leading self-help and positive-thinking guides into one surprisingly concise rule book for releasing your hidden potential. Chapters include: -To Prosper, Let No One Control You by Christian Larson -What We Are Seeking Is Seeking Us: The Mind as Magnet by Julia Seton -The Immense, Secret Power of Gratitude by Wallace D. Wattles -Why Doing More Work Than We're Paid for Leads to Wealth by Napoleon Hill -In Order to Get, We Must Give by Ralph Waldo Trine -The Power of Meditation by James Allen -Fourteen Steps to Success by Joseph Murphy

The Ballerina Mindset: How to Protect Your Mental Health While Striving for Excellence


Megan Fairchild - 2021
    It's a competitive and physically and mentally demanding career that combines elite athleticism, artistry, and performance. Not only do dancers rehearse for six to eight hours a day before performing at night, but they also must make it all look easy!As a principal ballerina with New York City Ballet and a one-time Broadway star--not to mention a mother of three and an MBA student--Megan Fairchild is all too familiar with these challenges. In The Ballerina Mindset, she shares all the wisdom she's learned from her nearly two-decade career, drawing upon her own experiences to show us how she learned to overcome challenges ranging from stage fright to negative feedback to a packed calendar to weight management--and how we can do the same. Inspiring, warm, and revelatory, The Ballerina Mindset is the perfect how-to guide for dancers, athletes, artists, and anyone struggling to stay sane in a high-pressure environment.

Raising a Screen-Smart Kid: Embrace the Good and Avoid the Bad in the Digital Age


Julianna Miner - 2019
    Making mistakes has always been a part of growing up, but how do parents help their kids navigate childhood and adolescence at a time when social media has the potential to magnify the consequences of those mistakes? Rather than spend all their time worrying about the worst-case scenario, readers get a bigger-picture understanding of their kids' digital landscape. Drawing on research and interviews with educators, psychologists, and kids themselves, Raising a Screen-Smart Kid offers practical advice on how parents can help their kids avoid the pitfalls and reap the benefits of the digital age by:- using social media to enhance connection with friends and family, instead of following strangers and celebrities, which is a predictor of loneliness and depression - finding online support and community for conditions such as depression and eating disorders, while avoiding potential triggers such as #Thinspiration Pinterest boards - learning and developing life skills through technology--for example, by problem-solving in online games--while avoiding inappropriate contentWritten by a public health expert and the creator of the popular blog Rants from Mommyland, this book shows parents how to help their kids navigate friendships, bullying, dating, self-esteem, and more online.

Worry-Free Money: Stop budgeting, Start Living


Shannon Lee Simmons - 2017
    Life is expensive. It doesn’t matter if you make $40,000 or $140,000 a year, it can feel like you’re constantly broke. Can you afford that new car, that vacation, that night out? You think so, but it feels impossible to know. And rigid budgets that force you to spend your money in unrealistic ways (like $9.50 per week for pants) don’t make things any clearer.But what if there was a new way to manage your money? One that left you certain you had your bases covered—both for your monthly bills and your future retirement—and then let you enjoy your money by spending it. (Yes, we just said that.)Enter Shannon Lee Simmons, a totally new voice in the world of personal finance, one who understands the new and very real pressures to survive modern life and keep up in the age of social media. Shannon doesn’t lecture, judge or patronize. The founder of the wildly popular New School of Finance, Shannon recognized that most of her thousands of clients felt broke, no matter what their income. And feeling broke can be as bad as actually being broke, because it leads to overspending and misery.Worry-Free Money takes a fresh approach to finances, looking at the root cause of the pressure to spend and showing why traditional budgets don’t work. It is a deeply practical book that will help you break the cycle of guilt, understand why you overspend and find hope—and fun—in getting your money under control.

Valedictorians at the Gate: Standing Out, Getting In, and Staying Sane While Applying to College


Becky Munsterer Sabky - 2021
    The perfect grades, the perfect scores, and the perfect extracurriculars. Valedictorians were knocking at the gate, but Becky realized that in their quest for admission many of these students were missing something. Their transcripts were golden, their interviews polished, but they weren’t applying for college, they were competing for it—and in the end they didn’t know what prize they were really striving for.In Valedictorians at the Gate, Sabky looks beyond the smoke and mirrors of the intimidating admissions gauntlet and places the power firmly where it should be: in the hands of the students themselves. Offering prescriptive, actionable advice for students and their (hopefully not helicoptering) parents, Sabky illuminates the pathway to finding the school that is the ideal match.Witty and warm, informative and inspiring, Valedictorians at the Gate is the needed tonic for overstressed, overworked, and overwhelmed students on their way to the perfect college for them.

Think Like a Breadwinner: A Wealth-Building Manifesto for Women Who Want to Earn More (and Worry Less)


Jennifer Barrett - 2021
    And yet, the majority of women still aren't being brought up to think like breadwinners. In fact, they're actually discouraged--by institutional bias and subconscious beliefs--from building their own wealth, pursuing their full earning potential, and providing for themselves and others financially. The result is that women earn less, owe more, and have significantly less money saved and invested for the future than men do. And if women do end up the main breadwinners, they've been conditioned to feel reluctant and unprepared to manage the role.In Think Like a Breadwinner, financial expert Jennifer Barrett reframes what it really means to be a breadwinner. By dismantling the narrative that women don't--and shouldn't--take full financial responsibility to create the lives they want, she reveals not only the importance of women building their own wealth, but also the freedom and power that comes with it. With concrete practical tools, as well as examples from her own journey, Barrett encourages women to reclaim, rejoice in, and aspire to the role of breadwinner like never before.

How to Disappear: Erase your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails, and Vanish without A Trace


Frank M. Ahearn - 2010
    How to Disappear is the authoritative and comprehensive guide for people who seek to protect their privacy as well as for anyone who’s ever entertained the fantasy of disappearing—whether actually dropping out of sight or by eliminating the traceable evidence of their existence.

Primed to Perform: How to Build the Highest Performing Cultures Through the Science of Total Motivation


Neel Doshi - 2015
    While most leaders believe culture is critical to success, few know how to build one, or sustain it over time.What if you knew the science behind the magic—a science so predictive and powerful that you could transform your organization? What if you could use cutting edge psychology to unlock people’s innate desire to innovate, experiment, and adapt? In Primed to Perform, Neel Doshi and Lindsay McGregor show you how to do just that. The result: higher sales, more loyal customers, and more passionate employees.Primed to Perform explains the counter-intuitive science behind great cultures, building on over a century of academic thinking. It shares the simple, highly predictive new measurement tool—the Total Motivation (ToMo) Factor—that enables you to measure the strength of your culture, and track improvements over time. It explores the authors’ original research into how Total Motivation leads to higher performance in iconic companies, from Apple to Starbucks to Southwest Airlines. Most importantly, it teaches you to build great cultures, using a systematic and sustainable approach.High performing cultures cant be left to chance. Organizations must create systems that shape and maintain them. Whether you’re a five-person team or a startup, a school, a nonprofit or a mega-institution, Primed to Perform shows you how.