Making Good. The Inspiring Story of Serial Entrepreneur, Maverick and Restaurateur

The first complete look at one of America's legendary business leaders This groundbreaking biography by Kevin Maney, acclaimed technology columnist for USA Today, offers fresh insight and new information on one of the twentieth century's greatest business figures. Over the course of forty-two years, Thomas J. Watson took a failing business called The Computer-Tabulating-Recording Company and transformed it into IBM, the world's first and most famous high-tech company. The Maverick and His Machine is the first modern biography of this business titan. Maney secured exclusive access to hundreds of boxes of Watson's long-forgotten papers, and he has produced the only complete picture of Watson the man and Watson the legendary business leader. These uncovered documents reveal new information about how Watson bet the company in the 1920s on tabulating machines-the forerunners to computers-and how he daringly beat the Great Depression of the 1930s. The documents also lead to new insights concerning the controversy that has followed Watson: his suppos ed coll usion with Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Maney paints a vivid portrait of Watson, uncovers his motivations, and offers needed context on his mammoth role in the course of modern business history. Jim Collins, author of the bestsellers Good to Great and Built to Last, writes in the Foreword to Maney's book: «Leaders like Watson are like forces of nature-almost terrifying in their release of energy and unpredictable volatility, but underneath they still adhere to certain patterns and principles. The patterns and principles might be hard to see amidst the melee, but they are there nonetheless. It takes a gifted person of insight to highlight those patterns, and that is exactly what Kevin Maney does in this book.» The Maverick and His Machine also includes never-before-published photos of Watson from IBM's archives, showing Watson in greater detail than any book ever has before. Essential reading for every businessperson, tech junkie, and IBM follower, the book is also full of the kind of personal detail and reconstructed events that make it a page-turning story for general readers. The Maverick and the Machine is poised to be one of the most important business biographies in years. Kevin Maney is a nationally syndicated, award-winning technology columnist at USA Today, where he has been since 1985. He is a cover story writer whose story about IBM's bet-the-company move gained him national recognition. He was voted best technology columnist by the business journalism publication TJFR. Marketing Computers magazine has four times named him one of the most influential technology columnists. He is the author of Wiley's MEGAMEDIA SHAKEOUT: The Inside Story of the Leaders and the Losers in the Exploding Communications Industry, which was a Business Week Bestseller. Residence: Clifton, VA. «Watson was clearly a genius with a thousand helpers, yet he managed to build an institution that could transcend the genius.» -from the Foreword by Jim Collins «Like all great biographers, Kevin Maney gives us an engaging story. . .his fascinating and definitive book about IBM's founder is replete with amazing revelations and character lessons that resonate today.» -Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School, bestselling author of Evolve! and When Giants Learn to Dance

The untold story of the world's premier bourbon and the family that made it #1 American Still Life tells the intertwined true stories of America's favorite whiskey and the family dynasty that produces it to this very day. Jim Beam is the world's top-selling bourbon whiskey, with sales of over five million cases per year. Not a day has passed in the 207 years of Jim Beam's existence when a Beam family member has not been master distiller. Dedicated to quality, and dedicated to the family legacy, the Beams have shepherded their particularly American spirit to the top of their industry. And they've done it in an industry beset by challenges, from government regulation and prohibition, to changing consumer tastes, to fierce new global competition. By creating a brand of unparalleled quality and consistency, and by tying the success of their product with the good name of the family, the Beams have established a lasting legacy as perhaps one of the greatest family business dynasties in American history. Not just a simple history of «America's native spirit» (so named by an act of Congress in 1964) or a simple family history, American Still Life is a story of business success based on quality and attention to detail, constant innovation, revolutionary branding and advertising, and adaptation to the business environment. F. Paul Pacult (Walkill, NY) is recognized the world over as his generation's most accomplished and respected authority on beverage alcohol. He has written for many magazines, including Playboy, Wine and Spirits, Connoisseur, Whisky, Drink, Men's Journal, Cheers, Country Inns, Travel and Leisure, Bon Appetit, Decanter, and Food and Wine. Among his many accomplishments, he has hosted and coproduced two syndicated talk-radio programs and served as the primary expert on whiskey, beer, and wine for the History Channel documentary America Drinks: History in a Glass.

Lessons in business success from the newest Dragon in town You no longer have to enter the Dragon' Den to get expert startup advice. In Secrets of a Serial Entrepreneur, Shaf Rasul distils his vast experience and knowledge into a practical business startup guide that takes you smoothly and successfully from idea to exit. Are you in? With tips and advice from Shaf, as well as examples and anecdotes from inside and outside the den, you'l discover exactly what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. From starting up to buying and selling, from business plans to number crunching, Secrets of a Serial Entrepreneur shows you how to do it right first time. You'll fin out: If you've got what it takes to e an entrepreneur How to set up and manage a business with confidence How to make a business profitable – fast Ten key things to know about finance How to be quick on your feet and beat the rest How to hire and manage the right people When and how to exit – and how to spot your next opportunity Who’s the Man? Frequently featured in The Sunday Times Rich List, Shaf Rasul made his fortune in IT, property and asset management. In 2008 he was 19th in a Management Today survey of the UK's top 100 entrepreneurs and is one of the UK's most successful entrepreneurs under the age of 40. He co-presents the BBC's Dragons' Den spin off, Dragon's Den Online, an internet and mainstream TV phenomenon. «Shaf really knows his stuff – if you believe in your business, and want it to succeed, then read this book.» —Kavita Oberoi, Founder of Oberoi Consulting and star of Channel 4's The Secret Millionaire «Seriously good advice for would-be entrepreneurs and those already in business, Shaf’s 'tricks of the trade' tell you to do things properly – and this book shows you how.» —Professor Sara Carter, head of Department, Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, Strathclyde Business School «Shaf has never hidden behind tired old clich?s or business jargon – he's a straight-talking tycoon who tells people openly and honestly how to become a success in the cut-throat business world.» —Matt Bendoris, The Scottish Sun

Entrepreneur Stuart Skorman—the founder of Elephant Pharmacy, Hungryminds.com, Reel.com, and Empire Video—grew up in a retailing family in Ohio. He worked every kind of job, from cab driver to professional poker player to CEO. In this entertaining, personal account of his coming-of- age in the business world, Skorman gives an insider’s view of what it takes to start a business from the ground up. Stuart Skorman offers his hard-won lessons in business for any entrepreneur or small businessperson who wants to create a company that has a heart and soul. He reveals what he learned about marketing while working a stint as a rock band manager and bares his soul about his failure during the dot-com bubble. He describes in vivid terms the roller coaster ride of the entrepreneur in good times and bad and explains how to survive in today’s uncertain business environment.

A primer for pursuing entrepreneurial ambitions and achieving success Filled with strategies and powerful anecdotes about defining and setting goals and pushing for entrepreneurial success, The Everyday Entrepreneur reveals how readers can apply the ambitions of a go-getter in their own lives, position themselves ahead of the pack, examine how to calculate risk, and understand the mindset necessary to venture forward on their own. Unlike other books on the market, The Everyday Entrepreneur looks at tangible strategies for business owners to build wealth and financial freedom at any age and inspires those who think they may not have what it takes to get out and put plans into action. Filled with valuable lessons about driving business growth and honing your entrepreneurial instincts to the fullest Includes thoughtful interviews of successful individuals from diverse backgrounds The Everyday Entrepreneur imparts meaningful stories and offers a guide to find your own success.

Wordsworth and Coleridge as you’ve never seen them before in this new book by Adam Nicolson, brimming with poetry, art and nature writing. Proof that poetry can change the world. It is the most famous year in English poetry. Out of it came The Ancient Mariner and ‘Kubla Khan’, as well as Coleridge’s unmatched hymns to friendship and fatherhood, Wordsworth’s revolutionary verses in Lyrical Ballads and the greatness of ‘Tintern Abbey’, his paean to the unity of soul and cosmos, love and understanding. Bestselling and award-winning writer Adam Nicolson tells the story, almost day by day, of the year in the late 1790s that Coleridge, Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and an ever-shifting cast of friends, dependants and acolytes spent together in the Quantock Hills in Somerset. To a degree never shown before, The Making of Poetry explores the idea that these poems came from this place, and that only by experiencing the physical circumstances of the year, in all weathers and all seasons, at night and at dawn, in sunlit reverie and moonlit walks, can the genesis of the poetry start to be understood. What emerges is a portrait of these great figures as young people, troubled, ambitious, dreaming of a vision of wholeness, knowing they had greatness in them but still in urgent search of the paths towards it. The poetry they made was not from settled conclusions but from the adventure on which they were all embarked, seeing what they wrote as a way of stripping away all the dead matter, exfoliating consciousness, penetrating its depths. Poetry for them was not an ornament for civilisation but a challenge to it, a means of remaking the world.

What is school for and why does it matter?The Making of Her asks the big questions. What are the challenges facing students and their teachers today? How do we educate girls to become tomorrow’s leaders? What is the role of a school in a modern, virtual world?This book takes a provocative look at our education system, laying bare the day-to-day experience of school for students, teachers and families. Now, in the twenty-first century, what does it take for every student, regardless of background, to find their passion, reach towards excellence and flourish?Clarissa Farr pulls together everything she has learned during her extraordinary leadership career into a message for our time. If we care about the future for our schools and young people, here are the changes we must make.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD 2019‘This is a book of wonders’ Sunday Times‘Spellbinding and intelligent’ Financial Times‘Extraordinary and engrossing’ SpectatorIt was the most extraordinary year. In a book brimming with poetry and nature writing, biography and adventure, Adam Nicolson walks in the footsteps of Coleridge, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy during the months in the late 1790s they spent together in the Quantock Hills.Out of it came The Ancient Mariner, ‘Kubla Khan’, Lyrical Ballads and ‘Tintern Abbey’; Coleridge’s unmatched hymns to friendship and fatherhood; Wordsworth’s revolutionary verses and paeans to the unity of soul and cosmos, love and understanding. In short, a poetry that sought to remake the world.

A journey through the Index Revolution from the man who started it all Stay the Course is the story the Vanguard Group as told by its founder, legendary investor John C. Bogle. This engrossing book traces the history of Vanguard—the largest mutual fund organization on earth. Offering the world’s first index mutual fund in 1976, John Bogle led Vanguard from a $1.4 billion firm with a staff of 28 to a global company of 16,000 employees and with more than $5 trillion in assets under management. An engaging blend of company history, investment perspective, and personal memoir, this book provides a fascinating look into the mind of an extraordinary man and the company he created. John Bogle continues to be an inspiring and trusted figure to millions of individual investors the world over. His creative innovation, personal integrity, and stubborn determination infuse every aspect of the company he founded. This accessible and engaging book will help you: Explore the history of some of Vanguard’s most important mutual funds, including First Index Investment Trust, Wellington Fund, and Windsor Fund Understand how the Vanguard Group gave rise to the Index Revolution and transformed the lives of millions of individual investors Gain insight on John Bogle’s views on values such as perseverance, caring, commitment, integrity, and fairness Investigate a wide range of investing topics through the lens of one of the most prominent figures in the history of modern finance The Vanguard Group and John Bogle are inextricably linked—it would be impossible to tell one story without the other. Stay the Course: The Story of Vanguard and the Index Revolution weaves these stories together taking you on a journey through the history of one revolutionary company and one remarkable man. Investors, wealth managers, financial advisors, business leaders, and those who enjoy a good story, will find this book as informative and unique as its author.

Foreword by Janet Yellen Weijian Shan's Out of the Gobi is a powerful memoir and commentary that will be one of the most important books on China of our time, one with the potential to re-shape how Americans view China, and how the Chinese view life in America. Shan, a former hard laborer who is now one of Asia's best-known financiers, is thoughtful, observant, eloquent, and brutally honest, making him well-positioned to tell the story of a life that is a microcosm of modern China, and of how, improbably, that life became intertwined with America. Out of the Gobi draws a vivid picture of the raw human energy and the will to succeed against all odds. Shan only finished elementary school when Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution tore his country apart. He was a witness to the brutality and absurdity of Mao’s policies during one of the most tumultuous eras in China’s history. Exiled to the Gobi Desert at age 15 and denied schooling for 10 years, he endured untold hardships without ever giving up his dream for an education. Shan’s improbable journey, from the Gobi to the “People’s Republic of Berkeley” and far beyond, is a uniquely American success story – told with a splash of humor, deep insight and rich and engaging detail. This powerful and personal perspective on China and America will inform Americans' view of China, humanizing the country, while providing a rare view of America from the prism of a keen foreign observer who lived the American dream. Says former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen: “Shan’s life provides a demonstration of what is possible when China and the United States come together, even by happenstance. It is not only Shan’s personal history that makes this book so interesting but also how the stories of China and America merge in just one moment in time to create an inspired individual so unique and driven, and so representative of the true sprits of both countries.”