Big Weed: An Entrepreneur's High-Stakes Adventures in the Budding Legal Marijuana Business


Christian Hageseth - 2015
    22 states have authorized sales in some form; Denver has more legal marijuana dispensaries than Starbucks franchises. We are witnessing the dawn of a new industry. And like the early days of gourmet coffee chains, the rules and players are being established on the fly.Christian Hageseth is the face of the revolution-an entrepreneur and father of three who worked in the white-collar professional world for 20 years before opening his first dispensary. The Founder and Chairman of Green Man Cannabis, the fastest-growing legalized marijuana company in the country, he's the perfect tour guide through the wild frontier, where police hardly know what laws to enforce, or parents what to tell their kids. He paints a colorful picture not only of how he got into the business, but of the big interests that are eager to do the same-namely Philip Morris, Monsanto and a who's who of Big Pharma. He predicts a future where the marijuana market splits in two: the high-end, artisanal market, supplied by individual growers and small farms, and the mass market, covered by the cigarette giants and anyone bold enough to compete with them. Much like beer and coffee, your brand of weed will be just one more reflection of your lifestyle. It's an entrepreneur's dream, and Hageseth invites us along in Big Weed as he pitches skeptical investors, negotiates a shaggy cast of colleagues, and builds the biggest business he can.

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth


Chris Hadfield - 2013
    During this time he has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane, and been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft. The secret to Col. Hadfield's success-and survival-is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst-and enjoy every moment of it. In An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, Col. Hadfield takes readers deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks, and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement-and happiness. His own extraordinary education in space has taught him some counterintuitive lessons: don't visualize success, do care what others think, and always sweat the small stuff. You might never be able to build a robot, pilot a spacecraft, make a music video or perform basic surgery in zero gravity like Col. Hadfield. But his vivid and refreshing insights will teach you how to think like an astronaut, and will change, completely, the way you view life on Earth-especially your own.

Around the Corner to Around the World: A Dozen Lessons I Learned Running Dunkin Donuts


Robert Rosenberg - 2020
    Throughout all the chaos, you need a mentor that has seen a business through the ins and outs and can offer guidance that will exponentially tip the odds in your favor to succeed.Robert Rosenberg took over as CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts in 1963, 13 years after the first restaurant was founded by his father William. In his remarkable 35-year run, he grew the company from $10 million in sales to over $2 billion with more than 3,000 outlets. Through his tenure, Robert learned important lessons on running and scaling a family business.Rosenberg shares his insider perspective on all the dramatic highs and lows that are part of the Dunkin’ Donuts story to guide you to your own success story.In Around the Corner to Around the World, Rosenberg helps you as he:Distills the characteristics of a successful company through all phases of growth.Provides a new perspective on the dramatic story behind the rise of one of the world’s most iconic brands.Tells the first-hand account and essential lessons learned from the tenure of one of the most successful CEO runs in modern business history.Reveals some of the dramatic and surprising plot turns in the story of Dunkin’s rise to global prominence.Around the Corner to Around the World tells a compelling story of lessons gleaned over a 35-year career building a small business into the iconic Dunkin' brand it has become.The harrowing twists and turns and sometimes existential threats to the business will enlighten anyone starting or running a business.

Powerhouse


James Andrew Miller - 2016
    Started in 1975, when five bright and brash employees of a creaky William Morris office left to open their own, strikingly innovative talent agency, CAA would come to revolutionize the entertainment industry, and over the next several decades its tentacles would spread aggressively throughout the worlds of movies, television, music, advertising, and investment banking. Powerhouse is the fascinating, no-holds-barred saga of that ascent. Drawing on unprecedented and exclusive access to the men and women who built and battled with CAA, as well as financial information never before made public, author James Andrew Miller spins a tale of boundless ambition, ruthless egomania, ceaseless empire building, greed, and personal betrayal. It is also a story of prophetic brilliance, magnificent artistry, singular genius, entrepreneurial courage, strategic daring, foxhole brotherhood, and how one firm utterly transformed the entertainment business.Here are the real Star Wars—complete with a Death Star—told through the voices of those who were there. Packed with scores of stars from movies, television, music, and sports, as well as a tremendously compelling cast of agents, studio executives, network chiefs, league commissioners, private equity partners, tech CEOs, and media tycoons, Powerhouse is itself a Hollywood blockbuster of the most spectacular sort.