Book Description

On Monday, January 10, 2000, America Online announced that it was buying Time Warner for $163 billion. The news was crazy, incredible. The biggest merger ever, it was, according to the media, an "awesome megadeal" and "a fusion of guts and glory." It was "the deal of the century" and "a mega-marriage of earth and cyberspace." An Internet upstart, AOL was buying the world's most powerful media and entertainment company. "A company that isn't old enough to buy beer," marveled the Wall Street Journal, "has essentially swallowed an ancien régime media conglomerate that took most of a century to construct."

Two years later, after the smoke had cleared, $200 billion of shareholder value had vanished into cyberspace. On the trail of possible fraud, the SEC and the Justice Department started investigating AOL Time Warner's accounting practices. Meanwhile, a civil war had broken out inside the company, complete with backstabbing and personal betrayals. Before long, almost every major player was out of the company, discredited, and humiliated. Jerry Levin, Time Warner's "resident genius," lost his job, lost his reputation, and, in the view of some people, simply "lost it." Steve Case, the visionary leader of AOL, was forced out of the company he had created. Gone too was the telegenic wonder-boy Bob Pittman, and his gang of fast-talking salesmen. As for Ted Turner, he resigned from his post as vice-chairman of AOL Time Warner in early 2003, bitter, wiser, and $8.5 billion poorer.

Fools Rush In is the definitive account of one of the greatest fiascos in the history of corporate America. In a narrative fraught with drama, Nina Munk reveals the overweening ambition and moral posturing that brought down the Deal of the Century. With painstaking reporting and the remarkable eye for detail she's known for, Munk lays out, step by step, the anatomy of a debacle. Irreverent, witty, and iconoclastic, she sees through it all brilliantly.

"As in all great Greek tragedies, you knew the plot before it played out," one perceptive insider told Munk on the subject of the AOL Time Warner deal; "you knew who'd be sacrificed at the altar." Here's what we discover in Fools Rush In: In their single-minded quest for power, Steve Case and Jerry Levin were at each other's throats even before the deal was announced. Bob Pittman was regarded as a "windup CEO" by Case, and viewed as a hustler by just about everyone at Time Warner. Ted Turner underestimated Jerry Levin's ruthlessness badly. And Levin himself, convinced he was creating a great legacy comparable to that of Time Inc.'s founder, Henry Luce, refused to acknowledge the obvious: that, with a remarkable sense of timing, Steve Case had used grossly inflated Internet paper to buy Time Warner.

Reviews (20)

How to turn $200-billion into a "mess of porridge"
This is an infectious read. The book itself is beautifully presented and Nina Munk writes like an angel. Well, if you're not Jerry Levin, et al., she does. She has a knack for making the words flow and the personalities as vivid as the sights of childhood. Her hard-edged but clean and crisp style will be widely imitated I predict. Her ability to research and to sift through the results of that research and to lay it all out in such an intriguing way is something close to amazing. I really don't give two hoots about Steve Case, Jerry Levin, the old Luce culture ("I am biased in favor of God, Eisenhower and the stockholders," p. 7), the Warner Bros. legacy (sleazy ethics and "foul tongues" and rumored "Mafia connections," p. 35), the dot com upstarts ("You people really need to start moving at Internet speed," p. 231), etc., but Munk makes it fascinating, like egomaniacs twisting in the wind, so to speak.

But this story isn't just about AOL Time Warner but about corporate America in general, about how merger mania and golden parachuted moguls can play fast and loose with our money, our livelihood, our country, and our future. It's about the collateral damage, the megalomania, the broken hearts and the evaporated portfolios. It's about the mentality of corporate CEOs like Levin who as he turned sixty wanted to be remembered for something other than the bottom line, "for integrity...high moral principles; and wisdom." (p. 133) Ah, yes, a lifetime of chasing money and power and now True Religion. One is reminded of Bill Gates with the very demanding problem of how to distribute all that money wisely before he dies.

Munk knows these people. How she got them to be so carelessly candid at times amazes me, especially her work with Levin. She understands their psychology and to some significant extent, their business. She had to, to write this book and make it work. She packs the text with spiffy and sometimes all too revealing quotes. She has the heart of a baggy-eyed scholar and the soul of a muckraker. The almost surrealistic give and take between Case and Levin as they cooked The Deal reads like something out of a Hollywood movie. Whose ego, whose sense of personal power, and imagined historical accomplishment and brilliance needed massaging the most by whom? And who would steal more from the other? And the ease with which Salomon Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley each got $60-million for their part in the deal reads like tales of manna falling from heaven.

There are some black and white photos in the middle of the book. The test is exquisitely edited and proofed, and the book handsomely designed. Munk ends this "morality play," as she calls it, with a curtain call of the cast of characters in an epilogue and brings us up to date on what has happened to them and what they're doing now.

Incidentally, my subject-line quote about a "mess of porridge" is from Robert Murdoch, no doubt licking his chops. (p. 280)

Bottom line: you will be kept up at night reading this page turner. Better yet take it on that trip to Singapore. It's a jet-lag killer.

Gossipy but convincing
There's an Epilogue to this book about the year 2000 acquisition of Time-Warner by that most overvalued of the Internet phenomena, America On-Line. Despite it's being a coda to an account of what may have been history's most disastrous business transaction, this Epilogue consists of updates on 30 or so of the principal personalities involved (along with two corporate entities, one building, and one painting). The structure and content of the Epilogue emphasize that this is largely a gossip-column approach to business history. Author Nina Munk's great accomplishment is that she convinces us that this is exactly the correct approach.

Munk quickly traces the early history of Time, Inc. through the attitudes and accomplishments of its founder, Henry Luce. Then, using the biographical methodology she will employ throughout, she introduces the most fascinating of the drama's players, Gerald Levin, and exploits his early career to bring the story through Time's 1989 merger with Warner Communications. Along the way, other key characters such as Steve Ross (Warner's builder and CEO) and Ted Turner are profiled using Munk's by now standard technique. (I began to be surprised if a new player was introduced without my finding out what his or her father had done for a living.) A parallel section on AOL and its founder, Steve Case, follows. Then "The Big Deal" itself and its aftermath are examined in sections that are rich in personality-conflict, jealousy, culture-clash.

But don't expect that detail to provide any great depth on the business/economic/strategic issues involved, although these are given some necessary attention. As explanatory factors, they are persuasively made subsidiary to the personalities of Levin, Case, and their cronies. It is not news that many corporations both large and small are run as fiefdoms subservient to the whims of their chief executive. But if further proof is needed that "responsibility to shareholders" has become an American myth, this book can provide it.

Case and Levin enjoyed spectacular early successes. At no point in Munk's account does either ask how much of a role good luck or the confluence of favorable circumstances may have played in those successes. To both principals (and to most of the others portrayed here), their success proved their own genius and assured future triumphs. As evidence to the contrary began to mount, they each forged ahead with no deviation in their individual and increasingly incongruous plans.

Munk details the hubris, but she only hints at alternative or larger explanations of how events unfolded. She does place a significant spotlight on the role of advertising revenues. At AOL, the need for this category of income slowly undermines Steve Case's avowed idealism -- of creating something profound that will benefit society. A similar, though less intense, history unfolds at Time, Inc. This suggests a way of looking at the history of media in general. A promising new medium (radio, publishing, television, the Web) is established and its prime mover is motivated by the desire to do social good, to change the way people think or interact. But then economic realities intrude, causing a greater and greater focus on publicity, marketing, and promotion instead of content. Advertising departments come to dominate decision-making, corrupting and degrading the medium, thus draining it of all social value. Somebody - perhaps one of Vance Packard's descendants -- should write a book about that!

Overpriced and overhyped
This is an article masquerading as a book. When the price drops to the price of a newsstand magazine, as the towering remainder pile suggests it will any day now, pick up a copy. Until then, read the Vanity Fair excerpt.

Ding! Old media vs New Media!
As a mathphobic whose knowledge of technology extends to "it's magic," I appreciate a writer who can tell a story about what happens when bad math meets revolutionary technology and not lose me. I should give Munk's book four stars on that alone.

This tale of AOL's disasterous purchase of Time-Warner also offers the sickly pleasure of watching billionaires act as though we should feel sorry for them, better yet, admire them, because they are actually altruists and gurus. Seriously. That's how they want to see themselves.

It's a strangely detached reading experience, since 98% of us aren't likely to be involved in such a big deal in our lives. Let alone see it blow up in our face. Yet the book is a compelling and compulsive read. See the CEOs run straight into a wall! Hear the ticking clock as the hopeless deal runs out of air...and then violently deflates.

Time Warner comes off a lot better than AOL, which makes me glad I switched services, but may also be because Munk
is "old media." But it isn't as though Jerry Levin comes off that much better than Steve Case--both their stories are apt to leave the reader scratching his or her head asking "How can people be such short-sighted daydreamers yet still make such serious bank?" You know you're reading a weird story when Ted Turner is coming out as one of the most levelheaded figures involved.

So this deal is going to go down in history as a billion-dollar boondoggle. But man, it makes interesting reading--and it lets me use the word "boondoggle."

Anatomy of a Corporate Train Wreck
Those who have read and share my high regard for McLean and Elkind's Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron will find Munk's book comparable in terms of entertainment value (especially humor) as well as quality of thinking and writing. Both were thoroughly researched. The completion of each was aided and enriched by dozens of rigorous interviews of key participants. However, there is one significant difference: senior-level executives at Enron (notably Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow) have been accused and some charged with serious illegalities whereas none of those involved with the merger of AOL and Time Warner have, at least until now. "This is a the story of how two men, Jerry Levin and Steve Case, caused what may be the biggest train wreck in the history of corporate America." Munk goes on to suggest that "In broad terms, the disastrous merger of Time Warner and AOL epitomizes the culture of corporate America and Wall Street in the late 1900s."

Part One "Resident Genius" covers a period from Time Inc. to Time Warner, 1923-1998. Munk provides essential background information which includes a penetrating analysis of Henry Luce.

Part Two Enter the Internet Cowboys: AOL, 1985-1999. Of special interest to me was Munk's analysis of the working relationship of an odd couple indeed, Steve Case and Robert Pittman.

Part Three The Big Deal: AOL and Time Warner, 1999-2000. Step-by-step, Munk traces the process which eventually resulted in "the biggest train wreck in the history of corporate America." I was fascinated to learn about the nature and extent of Ted Turner's involvement amidst corporate intrigues which would have made the Medici envious.

Part Four "Surviving Is Winning": AOL Time Warner 2003-2003. The material which Munk presents offers still another illustration of the fact that success has many parents but failure is an orphan. "Glued together on January 11, 2001, the company known as AOL Time Warner lasted two years, nine months, and five days before it fell apart....In late 2003, [renamed] Time Warner's stock hovered around $16, down 70% from January, 2001, when the AOL Time Warner deal closed."

After reading these four Parts, I proceeded to the Epilogue in which Munk provides an update on several of the "train wreckers." Meyer Berlow "has found a new vocation: he's a wood turner who spends eight hours a day at a lathe, making wooden bowls and other vessels in his workshop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn." Jeff Bewes and Don Logan are now the two most powerful executives at Time Warner, after Dick Parsons. What about Case? In January 2003, he resigned as chairman of the company. "In late 2003, [he] opened an office on Washington, D.C.'s K Street. From there he oversees his investments, which thus far have largely been restricted to Hawaii, his native state."

For me, Levin is the most interesting. Since the train wreck, he "has distanced himself from his past yet again....[and] rarely communicates with former colleagues or associates. 'I'm not in the Hollywood community, I'm not in the media community. That's not where I'm looking for my sustenance.'" Then where is he? According to Munk, Levin has a new life. "He also has a new vocation: the healing arts. Together with his fiancee, Laurie Perlman, a psychologist, Levin is helping to create a holistic mental health institute in Los Angeles, California."

Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner is first-rate in all respects. Hopefully those who read this brief commentary will be encouraged to read other recently published books which also examine "the culture of corporate America and Wall Street in the late 1900s." My own recommendations include the aforementioned Smartest Guys in the Room as well as Kara Swisher's There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere, Alec Klein's Stealing Time : Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner, Jo Johnson and Martine Orange's The Man Who Tried to Buy the World: Jean-Marie Messier and Vivendi Universal, and Rebecca Smith and John R. Emshwiller's 24 Days: How Two Wall Street Journal Reporters Uncovered the Lies that Destroyed Faith in Corporate America. ... Read more

Book Description

Praise for KINGS OF TEXAS

"Kings of Texas is a fresh and very welcome history of the great King Ranch. It’s concise but thorough, crisply written, meticulous, and very readable. It should find a wide audience."
–Larry McMurtry, author of Sin Killer and the Pulitzer Prize—winning Lonesome Dove

"This book is about the King Ranch, but it is about much more than that. A compelling chronicle of war, peace, love, betrayal, birth, and death in the region where the Texas-Mexico border blurs in the haze of the Wild Horse Desert, it is also an intriguing detective story with links to the present–and a first-rate read."
–H.W. Brands, author of The Age of Gold and the bestselling Pulitzer Prize finalist The First American ... Read more

Reviews (10)

King of Texas more than Kings
I took one star away because I dont think the title tells you what the book is about. Most (9 of 14 chapters) of the book is about Richard King, the founder, and the history that took place in South Texas. Only one chapter is devoted to the men who ran the ranch after King. Robert Kleberg, who really made the ranch so wealthy is given little treatment.

However, I did like this book. Its well-written and easy to read. One really gets a sense of what life was like in the late 1800's in South Texas. The later part of the book deals with the impending lawsuit against the King Ranch. Did Richard King swindle his partner's widow out of what was rightfully her's? (about 7,000 acres of prime real estate). The widow's descendants sure think so. Can they win their claim over the power King Ranch? This is a complicated question to answer but the author digs deep into the story. The only bad part is that the case has not yet been settled, so there is no resolution to the engaging battel for money and land.

If you like Texas or western history, you should read this book.

Loved this read!
Don Graham's KINGS OF TEXAS is a compelling account of the fabled King Ranch from its earliest days to a contemporary lawsuit that sums up the mythic and the real history of south Texas. Helen Chapman's story is fascinating. This really gives a feel of what it's like to be connected with this huge sea of land and the epic story of how it became King Ranch.

Surprising insight into King Domain
I bought this tome for my spouse and it sat around the house, unread, until I picked it up myself. I was surprised that this slim volume could explain so much about the founding of the King Ranch and the controversy surrounding its ownership. I was especially interested in the property rights of the missing character, a military cohort and investor of King's whose heirs later sued the King heirs for their ancestor's part of the ranch. All unsuccessfully, of course.

However, this work by Don Graham, whose work I often read in "Texas Monthly Magazine", which centers more on Kleberg than on the later years and workings, is quite interesting. I couldn't put it down until the end. And after yakking it up to my husband, he finally indulged himself in the read. We both recommend it for anyone fascinated by the legends of this gigantic property and its landlords.

History mixed with Bitterness.
Graham begins his tale by informing the reader that he was denied access to the King Ranch's Archives. This immediately sets the tone for the rest of his book as he views the King Ranch through a bitter lens. He spends much of his time writing on the history of the area around the Ranch. He intersperses the document with his personal pronouns and anecdotes of his own experiences. This all culminates in the Big Trials of the King Ranch. This is where his bias against the King Ranch shines. He is clearly opposed to the King Ranch. Foregoing an impartial view of events his prose begins to be colored by his frustrations. This book does give some history of Southern Texas, so it rates a 3 out of 5.

this man can write
as a yankee, i didn't think i would be so fascinated by a texas history. what's sad is, we just don't have sprawling sagas like this up in new jersey. ... Read more

Book Description

With more than $3.7 billion in assets and annual revenue of $800 million, the Nature Conservancy has generated staggering growth that would be the envy of any business. Incorporated in 1951 by a small circle of concerned ecologists, the Conservancy has grown financially into the world's largest environmental organization. It has one million members--up from 500,000 in 1990--and 3,500 employees operating in 50 states and 28 countries across the world. Nature's Keepers offers readers an inspirational leadership tale and management chronicle, as it goes behind the scenes and details the inner workings of the Nature Conservancy. Highlighting the efforts of nine extraordinary leaders, Nature's Keepers examines the organization's culture and management, strategy and decisions, and courageous and ingenious individuals who have dedicated their lives to conservation. Author Bill Birchard reveals how the Conservancy's sometimes controversial business practices--entrepreneurial approaches to preserving ecosystems while meeting human needs--have earned the praise of management gurus such as Peter Drucker. The Conservancy's way of operating, though not free of failings, is both widely emulated in the nonprofit community and greatly respected by business scholars and CEOs nationwide. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

First clear picture of a complicated organization
He gets it.Birchard did a remarkable job distilling what and who made the Conservancy tick at every stage of its development.He captures the genius and passion of stars like Noonan and Jenkins.The dramatic struggles in the formative years were news to me, even though I worked at The Conservancy for 20 years.Others have tried before to penetrate this extremely complicated enterprise and capture the essence of the organization but nothing I have seen captures the pearls of organizational development like this book.Recommended reading for every charity's staff and board.I hoped the book had room to show how much fun we had- such as the hilarious story of the Aggassiz Glacier, a ficitious land project that staff almost got through the Board of Governors. Maybe in the next book.And I thank the author for re-inforcing my own pride in having worked so hard on the Conservancy's mission.

Well written, a great read
This is a well-researched, well-written book that paints a vivid picture of the politics and complexities of an organization -- even one as well-intentioned as the Nature Conservancy.

This would make an excellent book for classes in management and leadership.

A great success story
You don't need to be an environmentalist to love this book.The Nature Conservancy is not only the world's largest environmental organizations but one of the most effective.Having worked at other environemtal groups, watching the Conservancy's tremendous growth over the years, I was just amazed and wondered what they were doing to achieve such success.Now Nature's Keepers explains it all.What I really liked was that it was a real honest appraisal about the organization including the mistakes it made and the troubles it faced.It is a great lesson about how to face and overcome challenges to ultimately make your organization stronger. ... Read more

Book Description

This book provides the original and definitive treatments of such fundamental concepts as bounded rationality, attention focus, and problem solving. ... Read more

Book Description

Corporate CEOs are headline news. Stock prices rise and fall at word of their hiring and firing. Business media debate their merits and defects as if individual leaders determined the health of the economy. Yet we know surprisingly little about how CEOs are selected and dismissed or about their true power. This is the first book to take us into the often secretive world of the CEO selection process. Rakesh Khurana's findings are surprising and disturbing. In recent years, he shows, corporations have increasingly sought CEOs who are above all else charismatic, whose fame and force of personality impress analysts and the business media, but whose experience and abilities are not necessarily right for companies' specific needs. The labor market for CEOs, Khurana concludes, is far less rational than we might think.

Khurana's findings are based on a study of the hiring and firing of CEOs at over 850 of America's largest companies and on extensive interviews with CEOs, corporate board members, and consultants at executive search firms. Written with exceptional clarity and verve, the book explains the basic mechanics of the selection process and how hiring priorities have changed with the rise of shareholder activism. Khurana argues that the market for CEOs, which we often assume runs on cool calculation and the impersonal forces of supply and demand, is culturally determined and too frequently inefficient. Its emphasis on charisma artificially limits the number of candidates considered, giving them extraordinary leverage to demand high salaries and power. It also raises expectations and increases the chance that a CEO will be fired for failing to meet shareholders' hopes. The result is corporate instability and too little attention to long-term strategy.

The book is a major contribution to our understanding of corporate culture and the nature of markets and leadership in general.

Reviews (8)

A landmark look at the Cult of CEO
A brutally honest look at what is wrong with how CEOs are chosen in America today.I read an advance copy of this book and could not believe it was allowed to go to press.Dr. Khurana certainly has put his professional aspirations on the line to be so bold, but this is the kind of book that makes a difference in the world.

This book presents what I considered some amazing and enlightening information not normally available to ordinary people.We can read about the stupefying emoluments, titanic disasters, and spectacular firings of CEOs in the popular press, but it is hard to find out the inner workings of how these people got into these positions of influence to begin with.Many of the academic treatises on management I have read seem like distant observations from an ivory tower.Refreshingly, parts of this book sounded to me like the information came from furtive phone calls late at night.

Of course, part of the problem is that the foxes are already in charge of the chicken coop.I, too, would recommend this book to members of corporate boards responsible for the performance of top executives.There are plenty of brilliant executives who should be promoted based upon sound character and true leadership ability.Everyone knows that in many cases this is not happening, but Dr. Khurana has identified the defective process that underlies the problem.It is up to boards of directors to learn about and correct their mistakes.

The final page of the book uses an analogy from the Wizard of Oz about drawing back the curtain to shed light on the inner workings of power, and Dr. Khurana has done a good job of this.His book is to CEO succession as Sinclair Lewis' "The Jungle" was to the meat packing industry--it will turn your stomach and make you cry out for change if you read it.

Study this book if you are looking for a CEO
The selection of a new CEO can be as mysterious as the election of a new Pope, the opacity raising questions about the efficiency and legitimacy of the decisions reached. Because external CEO searches are generally undertaken by companies in the throes of a real or perceived crisis, stakeholders hope the outside CEO will be their savior. Because single-handedly saving a troubled corporation is no ordinary job, boards bent on finding a corporate messiah are not interested in ordinary qualifications but a person who is thought to possess charisma. Enron's Skilling offers a dramatic and instructive illustration of the perils of charismatic corporate ladership. Corporations would do well to reconsider their models of leadership and ways of choosing leaders.

In the decade following McCoy's appointment as CEO, Chicago's Bank One Corporation acquired over 100 banks, moved from 37th largest bank to fourth, and stock increased 500%. In 1999 Bank One began to falter, the stock fell, integrating First Chicago was more difficult than expected, the conservative style clashed with the entrepreneurial culture and McCoy's management style, which was included in the Harvard Business School's required general management course, was seen to be a liability rather than an asset. A revolt gathered steam and a generous separation agreement was negotiated. Stock jumped 11% on the announcement but became volatile with media coverage of the high-profile search for the best person in the US to lead Bank One back to the top with the leadership as the overriding principle guiding the search. Dimon was top of the short list. "In late February, Dimon flew into Chicago to deliver a two-hour presentation to the Bank One search committee. By this time, he had decided he wanted the job. Dimon's presentation seemed to leave his audience breathless. He talked about his philosophy of management, covering such topics as his leadership style and the importance of clearly articulating to people their roles and responsibilities. He also spoke about the importance of instituting a more extensive stock-option plan to better align the incentives of the executives with those of the shareholders. Dimon's bluntness and self-confidence impressed the committee." He wasn't afraid to lead, he said all the right things, he had a plan, he was prepared to make the tough decisions that others wouldn't make. In one brief appearance that Dimon himself largely orchestrated he met Bank One's high standards of leadership.Dimon was appointed over insider Istock and stock soared 30%.

Bank One's CEO succession process followed a familiar script with little emphasis on the company's strategic position and whether the candidate's background was appropriate. If the new CEO is unable to deliver quickly, the wisdom of the selection is questioned. This is the first thread of irrational behavior in what should be a carefully considered process. The leadership school believes that CEOs play a critical role in a firm's performance, while the constraint school believes that internal and external constraints limit the CEO's ability to affect performance. A third school suggests that the pertinent question to answer is 'When does leadership matter?' rather than 'Does leadership matter?' as the leader's impact is highly case-sensitive. "As the Bank One story illustrates, however, it is not only the criteria directors use in choosing a new CEO that calls into question the efficiency and overall rationality of the external CEO market. So do many other features of the search itself." Not only was the initial boost to the stock price short lived, but the board was questioned on its control over the CEO after five directors, including the internal candidate for CEO, "volunteered" to retire from the board after five months. Whether the benefits would be worth the price agreed by the board would remain an open question for an unforeseeable length of time.

"How are we to account for these remarkable, ultimately disquieting features of the external CEO search: the overestimation of the CEO's role and the fixation on charisma; the somewhat Byzantine nature of the search process itself, simultaneously closed to many presumably qualified candidates and open to the influence of many external actors; and the questionable outcomes that this process often produces? This book is an attempt to answer this very question." Boards seriously underestimate the damage that outside succession entails and if the firm is already in trouble, hiring an outside CEO might threaten the survival of the organization itself. A remarkable feature of the Bank One search was that the board passed up an experienced, highly qualified executive who knew the company and its business well. The airplane interview technique in which the incumbent CEO conducts a surprise interview with successor candidates individually and asks who should lead the company assuming both are killed provides very interesting information about the chemistry of the group. Repeating the process three months later when candidates are better prepared but only the incumbent CEO is killed, provides further valuable information. All information is shared with those involved in the final decision. If the process is initiated early enough, the shortlisted candidates can be moved into testing situations that may help the final decision.

Kurana, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Harvard Business School wrote this book based on a study of hiring and firing of CEOs at over 850 of America's largest companies. Anyone who is involved in the selection process of a CEO would be wise to study his findings.

Important piece of work
In this important work, Khurana focuses the spotlight on the high-risk dynamics of CEO recruiting - particularly in cases where a company has not been doing well, and its former CEO has been disposed of.He demonstrates that this drama is being played out with increasing frequency in the large corporations which play a major role in our economy.

He finds that a pattern has begun repeating itself in such situations: Boards of directors don't usually take action until a company situation has been deteriorating for a while, so even when they begin the recruiting process, they are already under pressure to take bold and decisive action. This impels them to begin by rejecting any current inside candidates who are felt to be part of the problem, thus incapable of breathing new life into the organization. Underlying this "explanation" is the fear that the press, investors, and the media might not applaud a less-than-spectacular candidate such as any merely competent insider.Such lack of enthusiasm by all these onlookers mightwell lead to further erosion of stock which has probably already suffered. Thus the directors embark on a quest for some outside candidate who might possess the magic powers to provide salvation. The rejection of inside candidates and the quest for some superstar who can pull a rabbit from the hat are, Khurana asserts, the first steps down a slippery slope that frequently end in tragedy. The book describes the descent and how it has and will affect Americanbusiness.

This is a fine book that presents a number of fresh insights about a critical issue in the world of large corporations.It is written cogently, with erudition, by an author who is rightfully passionate about his subject. Of the hundreds of management titles published in recent years, this description wouldn't apply to more than a handful.

It is interesting to compare Khurana's findings with those described in the book, "Good to Great" by Jim Collins.Collins reports on a number of companies that outperformed their competitors by huge orders of magnitude.According to Collins the CEOs of these spectacularly performing companies (a) were, with one exception, recruited from within and (b) were definitely non-charismatic leaders, selected for their capabilities with no expectation that they would perform miracles or provide instant cures. These findings certainly lend support to Khurana's assertions.The fact that one of Collins "Good to Great" companies, Gillette, ended up as a Khurana case when its CEO was forced out of his position in 2000 suggests that any generalizations in this field must take into account the rapid changes in the world.

In a final chapter, Khurana attempts a description of some possible solutions to the problems he has identified. His main prescriptions are that the CEO job market be opened up and that some more professional recruiting and evaluation processes be created for CEOs.These are rather weak palliatives for the seemingly intractable trends Khurana has described. The book's strengths lie in its portrayal of the way the CEO labor market is operating, the insights into why it is working that way and its portrayal of implications for the future of large American corporations if the trends continue.

Moreover his findings raise two fundamental issues which, though clearly beyond the scope of this book, must be dealt with in any quest for amelioration.

First issue: When things are going well, boards of directors play very stereotypical and structured roles that rarely include in-depth managerial initiatives. The chances that a board of directors, could, once it becomes evident that a company needs new leadership, mobilize itself into an effective working group and then put in the time and energy to (1) decide why the company is in trouble (2) sketch some of the remedial actions that are needed to cure it (3) set out a rational professional search and bring in new CEO in circumstances in which he or she might succeed and (4) have the patience to permit a new CEO to effect a transformation, is virtually zero. Thus a realistic conclusion from the book's findings is that the chances of success in such a venture are so slight as to be not worthy of the attempt.And if that is the inescapable conclusion, then some solutions more drastic than Khurana's may be called for.One example might be consultants who are dedicated to filling in some sort of CEO role during a transitional year or two in such situations, working with the board to evolve a strategy.I am not recommending such a step - merely suggesting that some new thinking is required.

The second issue -- again assuming that the risks in CEO recruiting will continue to be unacceptably high -- concerns a board's responsibility for making certain that they are never forced to undertake the impossible search. Instead of focusing on what boards have to do to improve their techniques for replacing the CEO, it might be more useful to ask whether it shouldn't be a responsibility of boards to ensure this doesn't happen. What mechanisms need to be built in for boards to assess managerial performance on an ongoing basis and to take prompt action when performance is not satisfactory.

While these are important issues that need to be dealt with, I do not criticize Khurana for not dealing with them in his very fine book.He has done yeoman service in identifying the issues and, in that respect, has hit a bull's eye.

fun but flawed
I really enjoyed parts of this book, but the broader points he was trying to make fell flat.The thesis, that we should be wary of charisma and value competency more, is welcome to most people-perhaps everyone sufficiently detached-and his anecdotes provide interesting and powerful support.

For example, as a former banker I appreciated the point he made that big NYC bankers tend to be investment bankers, which is different than commercial banking,which is different than retail banking.It may seem like inside baseball to outsiders, but that's exactly the point: if you don't know the difference, you shouldn't be a bank director.Thus my conclusion would be that instead of telling current board members to be less foolish, it would be more practical to focus on reforming the way board members are chosen.In my experience, most bank board members were absolutely incapable of judging competence on the essential technical issues to sound banking (eg, how credit quality, spread, and volume are related), and choosing board members based on some objective criteria would seem to advance the search for a good CEO better than telling the current board members to not fall for the next empty suit.

But more broadly, is the flawed method of picking a CEO worse than before?Khurana's own data suggests that new CEOs don't matter much, which mean they aren't worse either.And the issue of arbitrariness is somewhat overstated, compared to a platonic ideal that has never existed.Picking any manager, such as a head of IT, raises the same example of cliquish, suboptimal groupthink.The same could be said for how collectives choose politicians, pundits or professors.In the words of Flaubert, "our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this."

Lastly, he relies a lot on outdated sociological treatises (C Wright Mills, Weber, Whyte), and the idea of a WASP closed society. For example, at one point he mentions that in 1950 most CEOs where white, male, and Protestant, and the same is true today.But as pointed out it in Brook's Bobos in Paradise, you would be remiss not to mention the dramatic change over the past 50 years.For example, back then the Kennedy family were considered outside the establishment.Jews are now around 20% of Harvard's undergrad, and 13% of the Fortune 500 CEOs, even though 3% of the US population.The WASP elite have given way to a much more meritocratic elite, and the fact that it extends to the boardroom is partially a result of the new process for choosing CEOs.In predictable sociological fashion his straw man argument is the dopey institution-free economist, that conventional wisdom that Keynes and Galbraith effectively invoked, but which is now a tired parody of current economic thinking.In the end, there is nothing really deep here, just a fun book highlighting the current foibles of specific group of people trying to deal with incomplete information and coalition building.

Packed with Knowledge!
Charisma and reputation have replaced management experience and industry expertise in the corner office. Certainly that's not news to anyone who has read the business press at any time in the past decade, but the trend is certainly important enough to warrant the comprehensive examination provided by Rakesh Kurana. Starting with an analysis of the increasing power of activist institutional investors, Kurana traces the process through which boards of directors have forsaken mature managers for media darlings in their CEO searches. In light of the spate of embarrassing and enraging CEO scandals, we from getAbstract recommend this book to all readers. ... Read more

Book Description

Family Business provides the next generation of family business owners with the knowledge and skills needed for the successful management and leadership of the family enterprise. The author, Ernesto Poza, uses both text and cases to explore a diverse set of family firms, examining the interrelationships among the owners, the family, and the management team. Family Business, at its core, is a practical book that presents the management and family practices that ensure success as well as an honest look at the advantages and challenges facing family enterprises.With an emphasis on leadership and positioning for the future, Family Business illustrates how the family enterprise can achieve sustained growth and continuity through generations. ... Read more

Book Description

Behind Procter & Gamble's wholesome image is a control-obsessed company so paranoid that Wall Street analysts, employees, and the chairman himself refer to it as "the Kremlin." P&G's wealth and power ensure that it gets what it wants, from tax breaks to the eager services of Washington lobbyists.

In this explosive expose, Wall Street Journal reporter Alecia Swasy tells the chilling story of life within P&G.

Wonderfully readable, impeccably researched, Soap Opera is a sobering look at the price of success in American business. ... Read more

Reviews (10)

Great informative read on a very unreliable company.
I read this book in 4 days. This was such a good read and it also helped me to realize that 95% of homes in America and abroad have this company's products in them. That scares me because they have such a blatent disregard for human life and preserving it. I will never use P&G products ever again in my home. Please use this book to wake up to corporate money hungry companies like P&G. Really sad that most americans don't have a clue what kind of company's products they are using.

Horrendous Company
I always thought that P&G was a horrible company because they refuse to stop animal testing, but after reading this book I am certain that P&G is a horrendous company.
P&G started out as a small company, giving people steady employment even through the Great Depression. The people who worked there felt that they were respected and believed they had a job for life. Unfortunately that wasn't to be. Working at P&G soon became a nightmare for a lot of people, especially women and minorities. Women were discouraged from wearing skirts, even during off hours because management wanted them to avoid showing skin. Employees actually had to get their hair cut when their boss thought it was a bit long. No personal items were allowed at your desk and one former worker was even scolded for "not walking fast enough"
P&G was and still is notorious for its blatant sexist ads. Women were made to feel guilty if her family's clothes weren't white or the dishes weren't sparkling. In the 70's, P&G introduced Rely tampons, made of super absorbent fibers. What they failed to tell people, was that they were made with cancer causing agents. At one point P&G was receiving 177 complaints a month, but still did nothing. Women were dying from Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) but P&G still assured people that their products were safe. Even knowing this, P&G continued their plan to support Rely and build its share to leadership status.
P&G doesn't seem to care who it hurts, just as long as their products are dominating the market.

"A Thoroughly Nasty Business Concern"
The following statement, from the preface to C. S. Lewis's "The Screw Tape Letters" could serve as a trenchant summary of all that Ms. Swasy has to say about Procter & Gamble:

"The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern."

Something is Rotten in Cincinnati
The kind of writing you would expect from a writer at the Wall Street Journal, the best written and edited newspaper in America. This book tells it all, and you need to read it: Something is rotten in Cincinnati.

Why people hate big business
"Soap Opera" recounts what one hopes to be, though perhaps optimistically, a particularly bad period in the history of one of America's largest corporations, Procter & Gamble in the '80s and early '90s, when led by succeeding CEOs John Smale and Ed Artzt, the company ran afoul of environmental laws, consumer safety, common sense, and basic human decency in truly arrogant fashion. To read the story comprehensively laid out by Alecia Swasy is to gape in astonishment at the true measure of human depravity in search of the holy buck.

Does Swasy have it in for P&G? Yeah, but so would you if you were a journalist and your subject was breaking the law to trample on your rights while you tried to do your job. Things got so out of hand as P&G launched telephone record investigations and had ex-employees brought to Cincinnati police stations to explain why they were talking to a reporter, that the ensuing coverage sparked a national outcry. Pundits and cartoonists weighed in about the KGB tactics of people who make laundry detergent and toothpaste. When finally brought to heel by indignant shareholders, CEO Artzt shrugged and called it a mistake. "The only thing he regretted," Swasy writes, "was getting caught."

Swasy was clearly embittered by her experience, and when her narrative flies into polemical flourishes, as in the Epilogue ("[Critics] refuse to buy the Ivory-pure image so carefully cultivated by P&G's years of marketing. We should all do the same"), the book is poorer for it. She does a great job describing, through the voices of mostly anonymous insiders, the noxious work environment of P&G for its employees (and you don't have to be a "Proctoid" to relate to the Dilbert-in-the-Death-Star picture she paints), then editorializes on how P&G advertising nurtures enduring cultural "myths" about a woman's place being in the home. Frankly, this latter angle comes up lame. P&G advertising reflected the culture for years, it sold product, and it has been adjusted to fit contemporary mores, as Swasy notes (just not enough for her liking.) I don't know whether it's so awful the role of the female was once rather more rigidly defined than it is now, but dumping much of the blame on P&G's doorstep seems excessive. Marketing to lesbian soccer Moms in the 1940s would probably have not helped P&G achieve its present level of success.

Where Swasy's book is strongest is the account of Rely, the tampon whose ingredients could cause toxic shock, and were directly responsible for the deaths of several women in 1979-80. Despite the accumulation of evidence, P&G went forward with its marketing. As recounted in a chapter of the book "Guerrilla Marketing") that should be required reading in corporate ethics classes, CEO Smale even planned to roll out a deodorant version of Rely while his underlings worked to silence researchers (mostly successfully) with generous grant money. The chapter is particularly good when it recounts how one trial lawyer and a bereaved husband he represented forced P&G to pay ridiculously low damages and put needed heat on the effort to establish P&G's culpability. Never mind, though. Swasy reveals later on that P&G's lab boys were concurrently doping out how to add the same toxic chemical to diapers.

There are other good chapters on P&G's arrogant practices overseas, its inept handling of domestic retailers (not just the small fry but WalMart, too!), and its stranglehold on a Florida community living around a river P&G polluted. Sometimes, as with the Florida case, Swasy seems too eager to embrace anything the critics dish out, and her noting the death of the P&G snack food Pringles [as of the book's publication in 1994] appears in retrospect to have been premature.

But overall, "Soap Opera" is a solid addition to business journalism. Books like this one only make you look a little deeper than your coupon stash in thinking about what products you buy. And that's a good thing. ... Read more

Amazon.com

George Soros was once described as "the only private citizen [of the U.S.] who has his own foreign policy." In this penetrating biography, Michael Kaufman explores the multifaceted life of a man who instead describes himself as "a financial, philanthropic, and philosophical speculator."

Like Intel chairman Andrew Grove, whose memoir Swimming Across touches on some of the same territory, Soros grew up as the scion of a Hungarian Jewish family, many of whose members did not survive the Holocaust. Inclined toward philosophy (a field in which he sometimes writes even today, though many philosophers wish he would not), Soros escaped to England, and later America, and put his sharp mind to work making a huge fortune. Not content to live a leisurely or unexamined life, Soros put more than $1 billion to use in bettering the lives of citizens of formerly totalitarian regimes--and even in hastening the end of dictatorships around the world.

Former New York Times columnist Kaufman delivers a respectful account, closeted skeletons and all, of Soros's life and work, and his book will interest a wide range of readers. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Not bad...perhaps a bit unbalanced
The book basically divides Soros' life into three phases:
1. Childhood survival against the Nazis in Hungary during WW II
2. Financial successes and philosophical failures
3. Philanthropy

What I found puzzling is how much of the text was spent on Soros' philanthropic activities. They deserve a significant portion of the text, but well over half of the text is devoted to this. I would have been interested, for example, in seeing some experts from Soros "Burden", and trying to understand a bit better what issues Soros was trying to describe in his own book, but could not.

Having said all this, this was a well researched, well written, well referenced biography. This is not a trading book, and those seeking trading advice should look elsewhere.

Very readable and informative.
A book written in a flowing, readable style, well researched and full of information, even for one who has read Soros himself. Indeed too much was dedidicated to Soros' misguided charity but then, Soros himself would rate that as his most important activity.

As an observer, I came away with the portrait of a tragic figure. A man who has done what Freud termed "identification with the oppressor". Expelled from Hungary and humiliated there, the first country to received huge sums of his money was Hungary. Other countries with equally rich antisemitic pasts receieved no less. Another way explain this would be as what is termed in Anthropology, following Marcel Mause in the Spirit of the Gift, "inflicting gifts" or giving to humiliate.

I kept thinking while reading the book that a man who made most of his money within walking distance from Harlem should look in his own backyard for noble causes first. And talking about his own back yard, isn't it pathetic that he never gave anything to his own people?

And yet, the boyish smile of the man is endearing and heart warming and even heart breaking.

And again, the writer, a pleasure to read.A minor technical detail: he should have given his manuscript to a native Hungarian speaker to edit the spelling and also to tighten some of the explanations which refer to the lnaguage or the culture or the country. (I am just being pedantic here, I know)

Though not new, read it if you have not done so yet.

Soros was convicted of insider trading in 2002
The life and times of a man convicted of insider trading in Societe Generale stock.

a book about his personal life (not financial life)
I was disappointed. Even if you do want a book about Soros' personal life, the presentation was boring. It was doubly boring for me because I was hoping to learn something about his financial history. There is Shamefully little of that in there. Even the 1/3 of the book entitled "Making Money" was not about that. There are enough uncritical biographies written about his personal life. When is someone going to write a critical account of his financial history? That is the interesting part. There is the story. Too much about his philanthropy...this book had an agenda.

The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire
Kaufman (New York Times journalist) chronicles George Soros's life and wide-ranging accomplishments as creative hedge fund manager, destroyer of foreign currencies, innovative philanthropist, and promoter of open societies and democracy. The author traces his youth growing up in Hungary, hiding from the Nazis, taking a degree at the London School of Economics, and working in London at an initial salary of seven pounds a week. Soros departed to America at 26 for a job on Wall Street with a five-year plan to accumulate $500,000. By 1973 he left his lucrative Wall Street position to set up Soros Fund Management and attracted wealthy investors. Every $100,000 invested grew to $353 million by 1998, and the value of his Quantum Fund reached $6 billion. In the 1970s Soros commenced philanthropic activities, strongly influenced by the "open society" ideas of Karl Popper but motivated somewhat by the reduction in estate taxes. Kaufman describes the foundations and Open Society programs Soros established in Eastern Europe, China, Russia, the former Soviet republics, and the US. See also Robert Slater's Soros (CH, May'96). This biography of the remarkable life of an eclectic billionaire is recommended for public, academic, lower-division undergraduate and up, and professional library collections. ... Read more

Book Description

A page-burning account of intrigue and espionage in the offices and boardrooms of today's corporations.

Imagine your main business competitor building a satellite-equipped "war room" to secretly monitor your new ventures. Imagine your classified product prototype mysteriously landing on the market under the brand name belonging to your archrival. Impossible? This isn't a story line from the latest spy thriller, it's modern-day corporate America. Spooked thrusts readers into a clandestine world-where business means war and information is worth stealing.

Through narrative accounts of corporate spies within companies such as IBM, Microsoft, and Motorola, Spooked dramatically brings to life one of America's fastest-growing industries: Corporate Intelligence. In this page-burning exposé, Adam Penenberg and Marc Barry uncover and describe in thrilling detail the alarming regularity of espionage in industry. They offer an unsettling portrait of America's publicly traded companies, and unravel the truth and hypocrisy behind the multi-billion dollar corporate intelligence industry. ... Read more

Reviews (20)

light reading
I picked up this thin hardback as a remaindered item, and it was worth what I paid for it. The book is about corporate espionage (and the field of "competitive intelligence") by a journalist and a practitioner, respectively.The bulk of the book tells the story of Victor Lee, an employee of the Avery Dennison company, who was the first person to be prosecuted under the U.S. Economic Espionage Act for selling company secrets to First Pillars, a company in his native Taiwan. The book's account of that case seems quite balanced, with due weight given to the defense (which ultimately failed, and apparently rightly so). This story is spread throughout the nine chapters (1, 3, 6, and 8 of the book's 9), in a somewhat disjointed fashion.

The book also describes the founding of the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals and the competitive intelligence group at Motorola by former CIA analyst Jan Herring, a case where Schwann's obtained competitive intelligence via legitimate means to compete with Kraft in pizza manufacturing, another chapter on legitimate intelligence gathering by Teltech to find out about nanotechnology development of plastics for Dow, and a very different chapter on eEye "Chief Hacking Officer" Marc Maiffret.

The book seems to have two voices about the ethics standards of SCIP, with co-author Barry thinking that the standards are hypocritical and rightly ignored, while it appears that Panenberg may be more sympathetic.

There doesn't seem to be much in the book in the way of conclusions drawn in the book. It could have been more useful with a summary of methods to prevent espionage, more details on principles of legitimate intelligence gathering, or at least lessons learned from specific cases.

Decent Expose, surprising level of insider openness
Barry is rather an oddball for a usually very button downed profession. He comes off as a field ops guy, not an HQ analyst like Herring. Field guys, in certain roles, can be pretty flamboyant since the sort of people they hang out with quite often are. Criminals are often sociopathic and particularly in the drug investigations that Barry used to do, flamboyant doesn't begin to describe some of those guys. They get downright bizzare.

Probably Barry's drug-bust type background, and profile as a risk addicted field ops guy is why he's so willing to lay it on the line about what's really going on out there. Comes across a bit like Robert Baer, the CIA guy who has been writing those books on the middle east. It's a classic schism between the guys in the home office and the guys risking their lives out in the field. The guys risking their necks tend to get a "f*** you" attitude pretty fast toward HQ.

Book is worth reading, if a bit boring in it's detail at times. Reads like an article series that didn't get published.

Some reviewers have said this book is a slander suit waiting to happen. Naah. First of all, it's printed, so it's libel. Second, I'll bet good money that Barry could trot out enough evidence in court to convince a jury he was telling the truth. So nobody is going to sue. Guys like Herring and the management of SCIP know better. Barry would cut them to ribbons, and then counter sue and set himself up for life.

Besides, it's much more effective in the long run to freeze the guy out of his profession, quietly. Or just ignore it completely, because it doesn't matter.

Interesting to read, but not a 'must have'
Penenberg, a writer for Time and Forbes, and Barry, the head of his own intelligence company, have written an easy-to-read, but yet disjointed book on the use of intelligence gathering techniques in modern business. The book provides ample evidence that intelligence collection on business rivals is alive and well but does not offer any solutions as to how to prevent these techniques from being used against one's own organization. Readers who want a better sense of how 'social engineering' works are better served by reading Kevin Mitnick's "The Art of Deception."

Professional competitive intelligence professionals, especially those that are members of SCIP (the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals), will learn nothing new here except to be aware of now NOT to collect intelligence. Computer hacking, information brokering and pretext are techniques that are used by companies with the "do whatever it takes to get the information" philosophy.

Readers that want more detail and insight on the Avery Dennison/Four Pillars case are better served by reading "Sticky Fingers."

Mark Robinson
The author of "Beyond Competitive Intelligence: The Practice of Counterintelligence and Trade Secrets Protection."

Reveals Corporate Methods for Information Gathering
Information gathering is a serious tool used extensively in the corporate world.Penenberg and Barry reveal techniques commonly used to ferret out information regarding corporate adversaries, be they other corporations or individuals.

This author committed a crime in writing this book
This book is one of the worst books I have ever read. It is a complete wast of time. This book was written by the writter who once worked for Forbs Mag where he was fired due to reporting stories in this fashion. Do not buy this book. You have better things to spend your money on. ... Read more

Book Description

Over 30 books covering individual states!

How to Incorporate and Start a Business in... covers every essential topic you need to understand to start a business right. Protect yourself and your business with expert knowledge provided in this book. The easy-to-follow steps and worksheets guide you through every aspect of incorporation and starting your own business. This book discusses in detail:

Selecting an operating entity-which one is best for you? Learn the pros and cons of each type:
Sole proprietorships
Partnership-general and limited
"S" corporations
Limited Liability Companies (LLCs)
Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs)

The five necessary steps to incorporation-five essential moves you must know and follow:
Choose a name: learn the legal ramifications of this simple step
Prepare the Articles of Incorporation
Write the bylaws
Hold the organizational meeting
Issue the stock

Raising Capital-Avoid costly mistakes and financing pitfalls that leave other business owners behind:
Identify potential investors
Sell stocks, notes, bonds, or convertibles
Borrow money from banks, credit unions, and venture capital firms

Dealing with the law-Legal issues always come up, so be prepared:
Learn how to arm yourself with knowledge
Handle disputes
Tips to keep you out of court

Preparing Contracts and Leases-Learn the tricks of the trade to save you time and money:
Identify the essential elements
Master unique aspects of your business
Negotiate a lease for maximum benefit, minimum risk

Understanding copyrights, trademarks, and patents-How does this apply to you?
Learn how to copyright material
Identify the key elements of a trademark
Navigate the patent process

Mastering your taxes-Save money by following advice outlined in this chapter:
Choose an accounting method
Keep accurate records
Learn what you can deduct, and what you can't

How to Incorporate and Start a Business in... will also each you how to hire the best employees, extend credit to your customer, acquire the proper insurance for your business, and maximize corporate and executive benefits.

Don't be left out in the cold! How to Incorporate and Start a Business in... How to Incorporate and Start a Business in...will guide you past common snares and pitfalls that hamper the efforts of many new business owners. This book contains dozens of profit strategies engineered to maximize your profit and prevent common mistakes. Plus, this book outlines specific laws and procedures you need to be aware of to do business in your state. It's specifically designed for you. How to Incorporate and Start a Business in...is easy to read, informative, and will save your business both time and money. Use its expert advice to get you started and keep you business on the path to success! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Excellent Book
I recently opened a business in Virginia and was happy to find this book. It was the only book that talks specificially how to incorporate in Virginia.

J.W. Dicks is an excellent writer, a real entrepneneur and a attorney so he offers a broad and unique background on business, corporations. What works and what doesn't work.

Good book, especially for Virginians. ... Read more

Book Description

This fascinating book chronicles the rise of a cadre of imaginative, bold, and often ruthless entrepreneurs who took advantage of a buoyant stock market to create giant enterprises. ... Read more

Amazon.com

In consultant Cyndi Crother's Catch! the fabled Pike Place Market fishmongers in Seattle explain a shared philosophy of work and life in their own words. The author's work as anthropologist--she interviewed and flung fish with 17 crew members--allows her to translate their inside jokes and shoutouts into habits of mind to "transform ordinary into great." Crother manages to keep Piscean puns to a minimum (stop floundering, how to get off the hook) and skillfully applies the principles of mind-over-matter cognitive psychology.Several phrases are key. "It's all over here," is an expression of personal responsibility and choosing a positive response to create the outcome. "What you say is what get" is a mantra for using choosing your words to change your mind.

These ideas of self-reliance, intention and language as reality are not new. Yet Crother gives them a fresh and practical application in the photos of individual fishmongers and in their words. Whether reading about Jeremy's ordeal of chemotherapy or Bugge's finessing the customer who was showered with ice from a flying fish, readers will find the most animated and instructive stories since Finding Nemo. --Barbara Mackoff ... Read more

Reviews (7)

A Good Read!
While author Cyndi Crother acknowledges that another wildly successful business book about this fish market preceded her, she has insights to offer based on time she spent with the free-wheeling, fish-throwing denizens of Seattle's World Famous Pike Place Fish. Her book picks up on the spirit of past coverage, but she adds the fishmongers' philosophical ruminations to her own slightly mushy, eclectic New Age managerial wisdom. This is not for strictly business readers, but it will ring a chord with those who seek to balance life and work. It's about warmth, and treating people with sensitivity, and creating your own reality by aligning your thoughts and actions with your intentions. It is also about workplace comradeship, customer service and how to sell the heck out of fish all day long. It's all pretty entertaining, given the lively background of the fish market. We suggest you throw a line in the water; you might just hook something you can really use

Most inspiriational book I have read lately!
If this book does not inspire you to come alive and get going with your life, nothing will. And it is not some philosoper's old boring stuff; it is real life from ordinary fish mongers. It is down-to-earth information that is easily read, easily undetstood, and easy to apply to your own life. I plan to reread this little book several times a year to remind me what any person can easily do to become "great."

The whole idea of the Pike Place Fish Market is inspirational. If you have ever been to the market in Seattle, you will be quite inspired and maybe even a happier person right away because if it. The people who work there are inspirational. They are succeeding personally and as part of a team. They are very happy to be working where they are. They have a formula for success that is really working, and working for ordinary people. This is why they sell tons of fish on the Internet. This is why they perform training programs all over the country. This is why they sell so many books and videos and T-shirts.

If you do not check into this source of inspiriation you are losing out. I'm so glad I know about Fish!

From the heart
I've read FISH! and all the related books...loved them all. Catch is different; it is written from the point of view of the fishmongers. It has passion -- it comes from the heart.
The fishmonger's vision "to make a difference" comes through loud and clear.
I've added Catch to my FISH! collection and I am recommending it to all my FISH! associates.
Keep up the inspirational work.... you guys are the best!
:)

hrmmm....
Somehow I think that people misunderstood that the book wasn't really written by the fish guys :) Yes, I think the stories were the general idea of what they said in the interview, but most was shaped by the author (Ms. Crother) and the publishing company! I have to agree that this is a much better (more interesting, stimulating, fun) read than any of the other "Fish" books. Thanks for putting out an inspirational story that has made me reexamine my life!

Fresh and Motivating
Just when you think another motivation book has been written, 'Catch' does not preach motivation and business philosophy, 'Catch' shows how the crew is motivated from within themselves to perform and succeed. Everybody is motivated differently. Read how with the right ingrediants in people and environment, business will thrive. ... Read more

Book Description

How can a municipal investment pool, which is supposed to be safe, lose billions of dollars? What are derivatives and how did they contribute to this tragedy?
In December 1994, Orange County became the largest municipality in U.S. history to become bankrupt. By borrowing heavily and placing the wrong bets, Orange County Treasurer Robert Citron lost $1.7 billion of Orange County's $7.4 billion investment portfolio.
Big Bets Gone Bad: Derivatives and Bankruptcy in Orange County is the first detailed description of the Orange County bankruptcy. Author Philippe Jorion, the only professor in Orange County who teaches and researches derivatives, is uniquely placed to understand the technical details of the portfolio and climate in the Orange County municipal government that encouraged the decisions that led to the bankruptcy.
Big Bets Gone Bad provides an introduction to the U.S. bond market and details Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan's efforts to tighten credit. Its description of the $35 trillion derivatives market makes the losses of Barings Bank, Kashima Oil, West Virginia, and Metallgesellschaft more understandable. Big Bets Gone Bad explains what everyone should know about tax monies and public investments. Because nobody likes to lose $1.7 billion. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Risk Management, emphasis on management
Jorion gives a good text book account of the Orange County debacle, concluding that this was a gross but purely human error, and not a failure of the financial system or the derivatives market.

The first part of the book introduces the problem quickly then proceeds to give the reader a crash course in risk management theory, explaining among other things the concept of Value-at-Risk (VaR). Many types of derivatives are described and their proper use explained. We are given a manager's working knowlege of finance.

Jorion then moves to the Orange County debacle proper and his conclusion is frighteningly simple: the financial managers of Orange County, entrusted with billions, did not know what they were doing. They were ignorant of what we learned in the first few chapters. They were amateur money managers playing roulette.

The book is still topical. The Basel II banking agreements mandate strict capital reserve requirements for a variety of risks, such as market and liquidity risk, so that understanding the concept of VaR is more important than ever. Most importantly however, Basel II requires preparation and reserves for operation risk, which most often has to do with the people side of finance rather than the mathematical vality of the models used. Jorion's book is thus also a good introduction to the human side of risk.

Excellent explanation.
This book tells the story of a 1.4 billion$ financial loss by the Orange County municipality.
The author explains very clearly what happened.
The municipality, through its treasurer, speculated that interest rates would stay the same or fall. Into the bargain, he leveraged his position with a factor 3. The means for the speculation were repos on bonds.

When the interest rates went through the roof (from 5,25% to 8% = + 52%), the value of the collateral (the bonds) for his position fell (with a factor 3). He got a margin call, but couldn't pay it. The biggest part of the investment (held by FBCS) was liquidated with a phenomenal loss. Only Merrill Lynch didn't cover their position.

The author gives excellent explanations on some very specialized investments like reverse floaters and other high tech financial operations of which the value can only calculated by partial integrals.

Food for investment bankers.

Interesting and informative read
Readable account of the Orange County financial blow-up. Particularly interesting is the description of Robert Citron, the hapless college dropout who controlled billions of dollars of public money. Also fascinating are the prescient comments of the obscure accountant who ran against unbeatable Citron in the election prior to the disaster. Jorion manages to educate the reader, in a very painless way, about the institutions of the bond market (such as repos).

On the minus side, the book is not particularly well documented (in terms of, for example, the graphs and the sources of the data) and some chapters seem suspiciously like lecture notes, hastily adapted to a book format. Still, an enjoyable trip to the dark side of financial market.

Profiteering without Prudence or Oversight
Jorion should be commended for his insightful, first-class treatment of this history making event. Big Bets... is a fast, fluid read that is devoid of technical terms and is written in an active, conversational and explanatory voice that the typical layman can readily understand. In this book, which reads more like gripping fiction, we are treated to an excellent character sketch of the key culprit in the Orange county financial fiasco, Robert L. Citron, his rise to power, the environment he worked in, the exotic financial tools he carelessly wielded, an unforgettable cast of financial hucksters and ill-advised power wielding greedy misfits, and the ultimate downfall of the Orange county financial safety net and its after-effects.

From this book, we learn that Robert L. Citron was head of a large portfolio, had no oversight, and an inflated ego. His superiors and fellow investment participants (such as the county school district) knew full well what he was doing, but allowed him to continue unsupervised because of his past stellar performance- much of which was due to pure luck and favorable market conditions. We also learn that Citron, much like Nicholas Leeson, the orchestrator of the fall of Barings, was a financial neophyte. While on the one hand believing that he was fully invested in bonds, Citron had taken a heavily leverage