From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, the never-before-told story behind America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies. Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds. Here are up-close portraits of the maverick band of scientists and engineers who made the Skunk Works so renowned. Filled with telling personal anecdotes and high adventure, with narratives from the CIA and from air force pilots who flew the many classified, risky missions, this book is a riveting portrait of the most spectacular aviation triumphs of the 20th century. Read more

Discover the vital relationship that will take your company from "what's next?" to "we have liftoff!" Visionaries have groundbreaking ideas. Integrators make those ideas realities. This explosive combination is the key to getting everything you want out of your business. It worked for Disney. It worked for McDonald's. It worked for Ford. It can work for you. From the author of the best-selling Traction, Rocket Fuel details the integral roles of the visionary and integrator and explains how an effective relationship between the two can help your business thrive. Offering advice to help visionary-minded and integrator-minded individuals find one another, Rocket Fuel also features assessments, so you're able to determine whether you're a visionary or an integrator. Without an integrator, a visionary is far less likely to succeed long term and realize the company's ultimate goals; likewise, with no visionary, an integrator can't rise to his or her full potential. When these two people come together to share their natural talents and innate skill sets, it's like rocket fuel - they have the power to reach new heights for virtually any company or organization. Read more

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The gripping story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos—one of the biggest corporate frauds in history—a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley, rigorously reported by the prize-winning journalist. With a new Afterword. “Chilling ... Reads like a thriller ... Carreyrou tells [the Theranos story] virtually to perfection.” —The New York Times Book Review In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the next Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with its breakthrough device, which performed the whole range of laboratory tests from a single drop of blood. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.5 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work. Erroneous results put patients in danger, leading to misdiagnoses and unnecessary treatments. All the while, Holmes and her partner, Sunny Balwani, worked to silence anyone who voiced misgivings—from journalists to their own employees. Read more

The grid is an accident of history and of culture, in no way intrinsic to how we produce, deliver and consume electrical power. Yet this is the system the United States ended up with, a jerry-built structure now so rickety and near collapse that a strong wind or a hot day can bring it to a grinding halt. The grid is now under threat from a new source: renewable and variable energy, which puts stress on its logics as much as its components. In an entertaining, perceptive and deeply researched fashion, cultural anthropologist Gretchen Bakke uses the history of an increasingly outdated infrastructure to show how the United States has gone from seemingly infinite technological prowess to a land of structural instability. She brings humor and a bright eye to contemporary solutions and to the often surprising ways in which these succeed or fail. And the consequences of failure are significant. Our national electrical grid grew during an era when monopoly, centralisation and standardisation meant strength. Yet as we've increasingly become a nation that caters to local needs, and as a plethora of new renewable energy sources comes online, our massive system is dangerously out of step. Charting the history of our electrical grid, Bakke helps us see what we all take for granted, shows it as central to our culture and identity as a people and reveals it to be the linchpin in our aspirations for a clean-energy future. Read more

Unbundling the Enterprise provides a blueprint for organizations to remain relevant and maximize growth in the digital economy by embracing the flexibility and optionality enabled by APIs.Drawing on real-world examples of both innovative “digital pirates” and legacy “digital settlers,” authors Stephen Fishman and Matt McLarty articulate strategies to unbundle business capabilities into reusable digital assets. These building blocks can then be rapidly combined and recombined to capitalize on new opportunities and innovations as they emerge. For business and technology leaders, Unbundling the Enterprise provides an actionable methodology to engineer “happy accidents” and sustainable success in turbulent times.Underpinning their strategy are techniques tailored for digital business, like using APIs to create widespread optionality, designing digital business models focused on value exchange, and optimizing outcomes through tight feedback loops. More than copying the superficial traits of digital pioneers, this book reveals the deeper mindset shift required to continually capitalize on unanticipated opportunities enabled by rapid technology innovation.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

How did global gaming company Electronic Arts go from being named "Worst Company in America" to clearing a billion dollars in profit?They discovered a simple truth - and acted on it: Not all customers are the same, regardless of how they appear on the surface. The most successful companies, from Amazon to Best Buy, understand their best customers are their most valuable asset, and they tailor their acquisition, development, and retention efforts to those customers.In The Customer Centricity Playbook, Wharton School professor Peter Fader and Wharton Interactive's executive director Sarah Toms help you see your customers as individuals rather than a monolith, so you can stop wasting resources by chasing down product sales to each and every consumer.Fader and Toms offer a 360-degree analysis of all the elements that support customer centricity within an organization. In this book, you will learn how to: develop a customer-centric strategy for your organization; understand the right way to think about customer lifetime value (CLV); fine-tune investments in customer acquisition, retention, and development tactics based on customer heterogeneity; foster a culture that sustains customer centricity; and more. Read more

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER USA TODAY BESTSELLERAmazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are the four most influential companies on the planet. Just about everyone thinks they know how they got there. Just about everyone is wrong. For all that’s been written about the Four over the last two decades, no one has captured their power and staggering success as insightfully as Scott Galloway. Instead of buying the myths these compa­nies broadcast, Galloway asks fundamental questions. How did the Four infiltrate our lives so completely that they’re almost impossible to avoid (or boycott)? Why does the stock market forgive them for sins that would destroy other firms? And as they race to become the world’s first trillion-dollar company, can anyone chal­lenge them? In the same irreverent style that has made him one of the world’s most celebrated business professors, Galloway deconstructs the strategies of the Four that lurk beneath their shiny veneers. He shows how they manipulate the fundamental emotional needs that have driven us since our ancestors lived in caves, at a speed and scope others can’t match. And he reveals how you can apply the lessons of their ascent to your own business or career. Whether you want to compete with them, do business with them, or simply live in the world they dominate, you need to understand the Four. Read more

The digital age we live in is as transformative as the Industrial Revolution, and Joshua Cooper Ramo explains how to survive. If you find yourself longing for a disconnected world where information is not always at your fingertips, you may eventually be as useful as the carriage maker post-Henry Ford. It's practically impossible to know where the marriage of imagination and technology will take us (sorry, Betamax and Kodak), and the only certainty is that in the networked world we will only become more intertwined. Is it possible not to become hopelessly tangled? Joshua Cooper Ramo, a policy expert who has advised the most powerful nations and corporations, says yes - if you are ready to ride the disruption. Drawing on examples from business, science, and politics, Ramo illuminates our transformative world. Start by imagining a near future when America's greatest power is not its military or its economy but its control of the Internet. Read more

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThe New Yorker Best Books of 2022 • Financial Times Best Books of 2022 • The Economist Best Books of 2022The dramatic rise—and unimaginable fall—of America's most iconic corporation by New York Times bestselling author and pre-eminent financial journalist William D. CohanNo company embodied American ingenuity, innovation, and industrial power more spectacularly and more consistently than the General Electric Company. GE once developed and manufactured many of the inventions we take for granted today, nearly everything from the lightbulb to the jet engine. GE also built a cult of financial and leadership success envied across the globe and became the world’s most valuable and most admired company. But even at the height of its prestige and influence, cracks were forming in its formidable foundation.In a masterful re-appraisal of a company that once claimed to “bring good things to life,” pre-eminent financial journalist William D. Cohan argues that the incredible story of GE’s rise and fall is not only a paragon, but also a prism through which we can better understand American capitalism. Beginning with its founding, innovations, and exponential growth through acquisitions and mergers, Cohan plumbs the depths of GE's storied management culture, its pioneering doctrine of shareholder value, and its seemingly hidden blind spots, to reveal that GE wasn't immune from the hubris and avoidable mistakes suffered by many other corporations. In Power Failure, Cohan punctures the myth of GE, exploring in a rich narrative how a once-great company wound up broken and in tatters—a cautionary tale for the ages. Read more

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER "If you’re in any kind of leadership role—whether at a company, a non-profit, or somewhere else—there’s a lot you can learn here."—Bill Gates, Gates NotesHow could General Electric—perhaps America’s most iconic corporation—suffer such a swift and sudden fall from grace? This is the definitive history of General Electric’s epic decline, as told by the two Wall Street Journal reporters who covered its fall. Since its founding in 1892, GE has been more than just a corporation. For generations, it was job security, a solidly safe investment, and an elite business education for top managers. GE electrified America, powering everything from lightbulbs to turbines, and became fully integrated into the American societal mindset as few companies ever had. And after two decades of leadership under legendary CEO Jack Welch, GE entered the twenty-first century as America’s most valuable corporation. Yet, fewer than two decades later, the GE of old was gone. ​Lights Out examines how Welch’s handpicked successor, Jeff Immelt, tried to fix flaws in Welch’s profit machine, while stumbling headlong into mistakes of his own. In the end, GE’s traditional win-at-all-costs driven culture seemed to lose its direction, which ultimately caused the company’s decline on both a personal and organizational scale. Lights Out details how one of America’s all-time great companies has been reduced to a cautionary tale for our times.   Read more

From humble beginnings to developing five-star resorts on the shores of Mexico, Perry's journey is a testament to the power of determination, resilience, and relentless pursuit of dreams.“I'm telling you, get this book and read it. It will change your life.”-Byron Scott, 3 Time NBA Champion & NBA Coach of the YearGrowing up in a modest military family in rural New England, Owen Perry didn't have wealth or connections to pave his way to success. But instead of waiting for a lucky break, he took matters into his own hands, embarking on a journey from minimum-wage jobs to creating luxury resorts in Mexico—one deliberate step at a time.From dreamer to doer, Perry shares his remarkable story and invaluable insights, offering practical advice and step-by-step strategies for those seeking to carve out their own path to success.What you will learn:Embrace Resilience: Learn to navigate setbacks and failures with grace, turning challenges into opportunities for growth. When Plan A fails, Perry advises, move on to Plan B—then to Plan C, D, and even Plan ESeek Mentorship: Discover the importance of learning from the successes and failures of others, whether it's Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, or everyday self-made entrepreneurs like Perry.Adopt a Growth Mindset: Discover the importance of continuous learning and self-improvement in achieving long-term success.Take Action: Move beyond dreaming and into doing, leveraging step-by-step strategies to turn aspirations into achievements.Whether you're a budding entrepreneur, a career changer, or someone simply seeking inspiration to overcome obstacles, Plan E offers practical advice and actionable steps to help you carve out your own path to success. Don't wait for opportunities to come to you—experience the power and exhiliration of self-made success today.Equip Yourself with:Insider tips for overcoming obstacles and achieving goalsStrategies for leveraging resources and seizing opportunitiesTools to cultivate resilience, determination, and a growth mindsetWith determination and perseverance, anything is possible. Start your journey to success today.“Get a copy of the book, read it cover to cover, and learn everything you can about how to be successful, you won't regret it! -Don Felder, Lead Guitarist for the Eagles Read more

“The cannabis industry will be talking about this book for a long time.” —Forbes "An absolutely fascinating read from cover to cover . . . one of the most unusual and riveting contemporary memoirs ever penned." —Michael Dunford, Reviewer, Midwest Book Review From the cofounder of MedMen comes the unfiltered tale of the mainstreaming of an outlaw industry: the growers, dealers, lobbyists, tycoons, and titans of the industry that created corporate cannabis.Adam Bierman wasn’t planning on selling weed—or developing a network of cannabis stores, or safeguarding his money in shoeboxes, or facing off with gangs in dark corners of parking lots, or taking on the public markets and justice system itself. But, of course, not everything goes according to plan. Weed Empire is an inside look at the story behind MedMen, America’s first cannabis unicorn and the world’s first globally recognized cannabis brand. It’s the underdog story of how a kid from the suburbs entered the cannabis scene and later reimagined weed for the mainstream, jumping at an opportunity to shift the conversation about legalizing marijuana. It’s also the tale of how a one-room studio dispensary eventually turned into a public company valued at more than $2 billion, led by a CEO with no college degree—with politicians, entertainment moguls, and Wall Street heavyweights on his team. An unconventional but intensely authentic memoir, Weed Empire is a cautionary tale of the high cost of ambition, documenting MedMen’s decade-long rise as well as all the slog of passing cannabis legislation, and the exhausting battle to start a public company, bring a dream to the world, and hold a family—and himself—together through the madness. Read more

William Greider’s groundbreaking bestseller reveals how the mighty and mysterious Federal Reserve operates—and manipulates and the world’s economy.This ground-breaking best-seller reveals for the first time how the mighty and mysterious Federal Reserve operates—and how it manipulated and transformed both the American economy and the world's during the last eight crucial years. Based on extensive interviews with all the major players, Secrets of the Temple takes us inside the government institution that is in some ways more secretive than the CIA and more powerful than the President or Congress. Read more

PRODUCING MORE DOES NOT MEAN MAKING MORE.  Are you tired of struggling to make your dental practice profitable and enjoyable? Are you worried about the rising costs of staff and supplies? Are you burned out and ready to give up?  If you have been pushing yourself to the brink of exhaustion, take heart.                                           There is another way. Profit Over Production is your guide to create and sustain a financially profitable practice via easy-to-follow systems created and adapted specifically for the dental industry by Dr. Julie C. Woods.                    After having her highest production year ever to date,                   Dr. Woods almost walked away from dentistry.  Despite record growth, she had little to show for it. That's when she realized that "producing more" did not lead to success. Five years later, Dr. Woods spends less time producing, understands her business, and is more profitable than ever. Read more

We’ve all read the cybersecurity horror stories: a prominent company exposes the private information of their customers only to scramble after the fact to apologize and safeguard the data. Cybersecurity is often an afterthought, a much lower priority than profit―until a data breach threatens the bottom line anyway. In The Cyber-Elephant in the Boardroom, data security expert and CEO Mathieu Gorge, along with a host of guests, shows why protecting a company’s data should be top of mind for C-suites and corporate boards. With the innovative 5 Pillars of Security Framework, any C-level executive can understand their organization’s cyber risk and the steps they need to take to protect their information. There’s a cyber-elephant in the boardroom and it needs to be addressed! Read more

The small business guru behind Duct Tape Marketing shares his most valuable lesson: how to get your customers to do your best marketing for you. The power of glitzy advertising and elaborate marketing campaigns is on the wane; word- of-mouth referrals are what drive business today. People trust the recommendation of a friend, family member, colleague, or even stranger with similar tastes over anything thrust at them by a faceless company. Most business owners believe that whether customers refer them is entirely out of their hands. But science shows that people can't help recommending products and services to their friends-it's an instinct wired deep in the brain. And smart businesses can tap into that hardwired desire. Marketing expert John Jantsch offers practical techniques for harnessing the power of referrals to ensure a steady flow of new customers. Keep those customers happy, and they will refer your business to even more customers. Some of Jantsch's strategies include: -Talk with your customers, not at them. Thanks to social networking sites, companies of any size have the opportunity to engage with their customers on their home turf as never before-but the key is listening. -The sales team is the most important part of your marketing team. Salespeople are the company's main link to customers, who are the main source of referrals. Getting them on board with your referral strategy is critical. -Educate your customers. Referrals are only helpful if they're given to the right people. Educate your customers about whom they should be talking to. The secret to generating referrals lies in understanding the "Customer Referral Cycle"-the way customers refer others to your company who, in turn, generate even more referrals. Businesses can ensure a healthy referral cycle by moving customers and prospects along the path of Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, and Refer. If everyone in an organization keeps this sequence in mind, Jantsch argues, your business will generate referrals like a well-oiled machine. This practical, smart, and original guide is essential reading for any company looking to grow without a fat marketing budget. Read more

A visionary, maverick, and genuine American business hero, Ken Iverson is one of the most closely-watched business leaders in the world. Credited with single-handedly rejuvenating the rapidly declining American steel industry to the status of world-class producer, Iverson is one of the most successful and, as he likes to point out, one of the lowest-paid CEOs in the U.S. In his long-awaited book, Ken Iverson shares his ideas, observations, and the lessons he's learned about what it takes to grow a super-competitive, world-class organization. Read more

Clean water, paved roads, public transit, electricity and gas, sewers, waste processing, telecommunication, even the Internet – all this infrastructure is what makes cities work and powers our lives, often seamlessly and silently. Virtually everything we do and consume depends on infrastructure. Yet, most people have little to no idea how these systems work. How is water treated? How do cities manage rainwater? Why do traffic jams exist? How is electricity generated and distributed? What happens to trash after it is picked up? How does the Internet work?In The Infrastructure Book, world-renowned urban engineering expert Sybil Derrible reveals the behind-the-scenes machinations of the foundational systems that make our societies function. Visiting sixteen cities around the world and their unique approaches to organizational challenges – from water distribution in Hong Kong to waste management in Tokyo, and from Chicago’s power grid to low Earth orbit satellites in space – this highly readable book uses fascinating case studies and historical detours to show how infrastructure works – and, sometimes, doesn’t.With large-scale infrastructure repairs looming and the need for existing infrastructure to be transformed, the book also shows how infrastructure can be more sustainable and resilient. After reading The Infrastructure Book, readers will never look at a city the same way. Read more

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER‘A radical book that speaks out accessibly’ BONO‘Indispensable … This is the essential handbook’ CHRISTINE LAGARDE‘A remarkably good read’ GILLIAN TETT, Financial Times‘A landmark achievement’ WILL HUTTON, ObserverThis is a pivotal moment in our economy. With the markets in free-fall, financial challenges are growing for us all. A winter of inflation and spiralling energy costs looms. But it doesn’t have to be this way. As former Governor for the Bank of England Mark Carney said to the BBC: ‘The message from the financial markets is there’s a limit to unfunded spending and unfunded tax cuts in this environment.’His book is essential reading for today’s economic crisis and provides answers to your questions as well as solutions for the future.In Value(s), Carney offers a roadmap out of this chaos and towards a better, fairer society. This moment could be an opportunity for change, for overhaul. We cannot go on as we have, something must change. Drawing on a truly international perspective, this book offers a blueprint for how we can channel the dynamism of the market to transform intractable global problems into opportunities. And in so doing build a better world for all.Read as one of the great global thinkers of our time examines how what we value has become misaligned and how we can rethink and rebuild before it is too late. Read more

From its inception in 1957, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), headquartered in Maynard, Massachusetts, carved itself a role in American business unlike any other company. Launched by Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineer Ken Olsen with a $70,000 investment from the country's first venture capital firm, DEC rapidly became a pioneer in computer technology. In its heyday, DEC had a valuation of more than $12 billion and employed approximately one hundred twenty thousand people worldwide, making it second only to IBM. Its people and technology contributed to making computers increasingly affordable, which led directly to the advent of the personal computer, the first computer games, and computer networks. DEC was also a leader in the Internet revolution, claiming the dubious distinction of launching the first spam mailing and registering one of the first commercial domain names.Through photographs of people, events, and machines, Digital Equipment Corporation tells the story of the unassuming computer revolutionaries who reshaped the technological world. It is written for anyone who is interested in how the present era of computing ubiquity has evolved since the 1940s, when IBM chairman Thomas Watson predicted that the whole world might need no more than five computers. Read more