Friday, August 8, 2014

Business Adventures

Since Bill Gates recently called Business Adventures his favourite business book of all time, I had to give it a read. And I'm not the only one: it has become the #1 best seller in the commerce category at Amazon.

Basically, the book is like a collection of bedtime stories for business-minded adults. Each chapter tells its own tale, with literally no pretense of any connection between the stories. One is about what prompted a day's large stock market drop, while another is about why a famous company's product launch completely failed. Each story offers a number of lessons, and then it's off to the next unrelated story.

I found it great for learning some business history. All of the stories take place in the 1960s, and despite the immense changes in technology through which our society has gone, there are a lot of parallels you can draw between what used to happen then and what still happens today. The ways in which we communicate have changed, but our nature and institutions have not.

Enjoy!

No comments: