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Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman
Par Jeremy Adelman. 2013
The life and times of one of the most provocative thinkers of the twentieth centuryWorldly Philosopher chronicles the times and…
writings of Albert O. Hirschman, one of the twentieth century's most original and provocative thinkers. In this gripping biography, Jeremy Adelman tells the story of a man shaped by modern horrors and hopes, a worldly intellectual who fought for and wrote in defense of the values of tolerance and change. This is the first major account of Hirschman’s remarkable life, and a tale of the twentieth century as seen through the story of an astute and passionate observer. Adelman’s riveting narrative traces how Hirschman’s personal experiences shaped his unique intellectual perspective, and how his enduring legacy is one of hope, open-mindedness, and practical idealism.How to Build a Billion-Dollar Business: On Purpose. For Profit. With Passion.
Par Radek Sali. 2024
Discover the strategies and secrets behind a billion-dollar Australian success story In How to Build a Billion-Dollar Business, former Swisse…
CEO Radek Sali unpacks how his unique approach to product, people, and branding took Swisse Wellness from an Australian favourite to a blockbuster brand that sold for $2.1 billion. At the heart of How to Build a Billion-Dollar Business is Radek’s passion for finding purpose in work. This book shares inspiring real-world strategies, stories, and insights on how to build a business that makes an astounding profit — but more than that, how to build a business that also does good. A successful business is not just about profit: it’s about culture. Inside, you’ll learn how to develop a business plan, foster loyalty and innovation in your team, build a thriving workplace culture rooted in values, and attract and retain customers who believe in your product and your mission. Build a culture of trust, openness, and respect — in your organisation as well as with your customer. Get timely and valuable insights on what it means to build a flexible business and a sustainable, responsible brand. Learn how to drive growth and sales reach by connecting with customers and driving an aspirational product or service. Build a business that makes a real social or environmental difference in your community, one that gives back and supports growth and wellness for all. From his early career days to his success as a serial entrepreneur and ethical investor, Radek Sali shares a blueprint for discovering what drives you and making your business goals a reality. How to Build a Billion-Dollar Business is a handbook for business owners everywhere, showing you how to succeed in creating positive change in your business and in the world.Rogers v. Rogers: The Battle for Control of Canada's Telecom Empire
Par Alexandra Posadzki. 2024
A riveting, deeply reported account that takes us inside the dramatic battle for control of Canada&’s largest wireless carrier, and…
paints a broader picture of the cutthroat telecom industry, the labyrinth of regulatory and political systems that govern it, and the high-stakes corporate games played by the Canadian establishment. Alexandra Posadzki&’s ground-breaking coverage in the Globe and Mail exposed one of the most spectacular boardroom and family dramas in Canadian corporate history—one that has pitted the company&’s extraordinarily powerful chairman and controlling shareholder, Edward Rogers, against not only his own management team but also the wishes of his mother and two of his sisters. Hanging in the balance is no less than the pending $20 billion acquisition of Shaw Communications, a historic deal that promises to transform Rogers into the truly national telecom empire that its late founder, Ted Rogers, always envisioned. Based on deeply sourced, investigative reporting of the iconic $30 billion publicly traded telecom and media giant, Posadzki takes us inside a company that touches the lives of millions of Canadians, challenging what we thought we knew about corporate governance and who really holds the power. Rogers v. Rogers is also a story of family legacy and succession, of an old guard pushing back at the new guard, and of a company struggling to find its footing in the wake of its legendary founder&’s death. At the heart of it all is a dispute between warring factions of the family over how they each interpret the desires of the late patriarch and the very identity of the company that bears their name.Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter
Par Zoë Schiffer. 2024
"Zoë Schiffer has written the definitive book on perhaps the weirdest business story of our time. A fast-paced and riveting…
account of a hilarious and tragic mess."— Matt Levine, Bloomberg Opinion &“Money Stuff&” columnist&“the bird is freed&”- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022When Elon Musk took over Twitter, commentators were rooting for the visionary behind Tesla and SpaceX to succeed. Here was a tough leader who could grab back power from Twitter&’s entitled workforce, motivate them to get &“extremely hardcore,&” and supercharge Twitter&’s profit and potential. And it was all out of the goodness of his own heart, rooted in his fervent belief in the necessity of making Twitter friendlier to free speech. "I didn&’t do it to make more money,&” Musk said. &“I did it to try and help humanity, whom I love.&” Once Musk charged into the Twitter headquarters, the command-and-control playbook Musk honed at Tesla and SpaceX went off the rails immediately. Distilling hundreds of hours of interviews with more than sixty employees, thousands of pages of internal documents, Slack messages, presentations, as well as court filings and congressional testimony, Extremely Hardcore is the true story of how Musk reshaped the world&’s online public square into his own personal megaphone. You&’ll hear from employees who witnessed the destruction of their workplace in real-time, seeing years of progress to fight disinformation and hate speech wiped out within a matter of months. There&’s the machine-learning savant who went all-in on Twitter 2.0 before getting betrayed by his new CEO, the father whose need for healthcare swept him into Musk&’s inner circle, the trust and safety expert who became the subject of a harassment campaign his former boss incited, and the many other employees who tried to save the company from their new boss&’s worst instincts. This is the story of Twitter, but it&’s also a chronicle of the post-pandemic labor movement, a war between executives and a workforce newly awakened to their rights and needs. Riveting, character-driven, and filled with jaw-dropping revelations, Extremely Hardcore is the definitive, fly-on-the-wall story of how Elon Musk lit $44 billion on fire and burned down Twitter. It&’s the next best thing to being there, and you won&’t have to sleep in the Twitter office to get the scoop.Robber Baron: The Life of Charles Tyson Yerkes
Par John Franch. 2006
Robber Baron is the first biography of the streetcar magnate Charles Tyson Yerkes (1837-1905), who stands alongside J.P. Morgan and Andrew…
Carnegie as one of the most colorful and controversial public figures in Gilded Age America. John Franch draws upon every available source to tell the story of the man who was the mastermind behind Chicago’s Loop Elevated and the London Underground, the namesake of the University of Chicago’s observatory, and the inspiration for Frank Cowperwood, the ruthless protagonist of Theodore Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire: The Financier, The Titan, and The Stoic. Despite various philanthropic efforts, Yerkes and his unscrupulous tactics were despised by the press and public, and he left Chicago a bitter man. While Yerkes’s enduring public works testify to his success and desire to leave a lasting impression on his world, Robber Baron also uncovers the cost of this boundless ambition.Private Equity: A Memoir
Par Carrie Sun. 2024
Named a most-anticipated book of 2024 by NPR.org, Oprah Daily, Town & Country, The Millions, Financial Times, and more.A gripping…
memoir of one woman&’s self-discovery inside a top Wall Street firm, and an urgent indictment of privilege, extreme wealth, and work cultureWhen we meet Carrie Sun, she can&’t shake the feeling that she&’s wasting her life. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Carrie excelled in school, graduated early from MIT, and climbed the corporate ladder, all in pursuit of the American dream. But at twenty-nine, she&’s left her analyst job, dropped out of an MBA program, and is trapped in an unhappy engagement. So when she gets the rare opportunity to work at one of the most prestigious hedge funds in the world, she knows she can&’t say no. Fourteen interviews later, she&’s in.Carrie is the sole assistant to the firm&’s billionaire founder. She manages his work life, becoming the right hand to an investor who can move mountains and markets with a single phone call. Eager to impress, she dives headfirst into the firm&’s culture, which values return on time above all else. A luxury-laden world opens up for her, and Carrie learns that money can solve nearly everything.Playing the game at the highest levels, amid the ultimate winners in our winner-take-all economy, Carrie soon finds her identity swallowed whole by work. With her physical and mental health deteriorating, she begins to rethink what it actually means to waste one&’s life. A searing examination of our relationship to work, Carrie&’s story illuminates the struggle for balance in a world of extremes: efficiency and excess, status and aspiration, power and fortune. Private Equity is a universal tale of self-invention from a dazzling new voice, daring to ask what we&’re willing to sacrifice to get to the top—and what it might take to break free and leave it all behind.Taking Aviation to New Heights: A Biography of Pierre Jeanniot
Par Jacqueline Cardinal, Laurent Lapierre. 2013
To chart the inspiring journey of Pierre Jeanniot is to trace the remarkable development of the air transport industry. In…
his youth, Jeanniot survived the bombing of Rome, the occupation of France, and was a witness to the Resistance in the Jura Mountains. In 1963, after the Sainte-Thérèse air tragedy and the threat of finding himself jobless, Jeanniot was inspired to create the famous Black Box, which has since become a pillar of aviation security. Under his direction, Air Canada chose the Airbus rather than the Boeing to renew its fleet, in the midst of a highly visible political crisis. Against all odds, Jeanniot also orchestrated the successful privatization of the airline. His visionary speech at Amman, delivered when he was at the helm of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), laid out modern aviation’s most urgent priorities regarding accident prevention, protection of the environment, and technological progress. A master of logistics, he successfully negotiated the impasse in the skies following the September 11 terrorist attacks and handled the many complications that came in their wake. Pierre Jeanniot’s influence has been felt far beyond the aviation world. His longstanding desire to facilitate access to higher learning led him to participate actively in the founding of the Université du Québec. A skilled diplomat, he also helped to resolve political problems in Iran, Libya, North Korea, and the Middle East. Taking Aviation to New Heights is the story of a great leader who has left an indelible mark on his milieu. He has truly piloted aviation to new heights. - This book is published in EnglishSaisir sa chance: Mémoires de David M. Culver (Biographies et mémoires)
Par David M. Culver, Alan Freeman. 2018
David Culver, figure clé tant du milieu des affaires que du milieu culturel canadien, raconte son enfance à Montréal, ses…
études aux universités McGill et Harvard et son service militaire pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Il décrit surtout sa spectaculaire ascension au sein d’Alcan, jusqu’à accéder au poste de président-directeur général, devenant du coup le chef d’une des plus grandes sociétés multinationales du Canada, dont le siège social était à Montréal. Ces mémoires lèvent le voile sur la gestion d’une multinationale bien enracinée en sol québécois. Il propose des conseils pragmatiques sur la manière de cultiver le talent, développer la technologie et surmonter les défis au sein d’une entreprise qui opère aux quatre coins de la planète. Au fil de délicieuses anecdotes et d’inoubliables rencontres avec des grands du XXe siècle – dont Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger et Jawaharlal Nehru – David Culver se révèle un imposant leader aux intérêts et aux talents multiples. Dans ses mémoires, David Culver médite sur sa passion pour l’architecture – et ses initiatives de protection du patrimoine montréalais par l’entremise de la Maison Alcan – et l’importance de la musique et du sport dans sa vie. Saisir sa chance témoigne de l’optimisme de Culver, qui a de tout temps cru que les choses les plus extraordinaires peuvent arriver lorsqu’on s’y attend le moins.What I Wish I Had Told My Children (Biography and memoirs)
Par Michel Bastarache, Antoine Trépanier. 2023
In this intimate volume, Michel Bastarache reveals details of his youth in Acadia and his multiple professional roles before becoming…
the first Acadian justice to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada. In a letter addressed to his two children who died from an incurable disease, Me. Bastarache recounts his constant fight for equality between francophone and anglophone communities. He reminisces on his commitment among groups protecting francophones outside Québec, then on his careers as teacher, civil servant, lawyer, and judge.In this story, Bastarache takes the reader backstage to his most important causes and he reveals some of the secrets of the highest court in Canada. Me. Bastarache weighs in on the controversy surrounding the Inquiry Commission on the process for appointing judges of the Court of Québec, as well as his mediator work for reconciliation and compensation of alleged victims of sexual abuse by ex-priests in New Brunswick.Michel Bastarache: Ce que je voudrais dire à mes enfants (Biographies et mémoires)
Par Michel Bastarache, Antoine Trépanier. 2019
Dans une lettre qu’il adresse à ses deux enfants, morts d’une maladie incurable, Michel Bastarache se rappelle son enfance en…
Acadie puis sa carrière, jusqu’à devenir le premier juge acadien à siéger à la Cour suprême du Canada. Me Bastarache raconte sa constante lutte pour l’égalité des communautés francophone et anglophone. Il revient sur son engagement au sein des groupes de défense des francophones hors Québec, puis sur sa carrière de professeur, de fonctionnaire, d’avocat et de juge. Dans ce récit, il amène le lecteur dans les coulisses de ses plus importantes causes et révèle certains secrets du plus haut tribunal canadien. Me Bastarache réagit également à la polémique entourant la Commission d’enquête sur le processus de nomination des juges du Québec et sur son travail à titre de médiateur dans le processus de réconciliation et de compensation pour les victimes alléguées d’agressions sexuelles par d’anciens prêtres au Nouveau-Brunswick. Ce livre est publié en français. - In this intimate volume, Michel Bastarache reveals details of his youth in Acadia and his multiple professional roles before becoming the first Acadian justice to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada. In a letter addressed to his two children who died from an incurable disease, Me. Bastarache recounts his constant fight for equality between francophone and anglophone communities. He reminisces on his commitment among groups protecting francophones outside Québec, then on his careers as teacher, civil servant, lawyer, and juge. In this story he takes the reader backstage to his most important causes and he reveals some of the secrets of the highest court in Canada. Me. Bastarache weighs in on the controversy surrounding the Inquiry Commission on the process for appointing judges of the Court of Québec, as well as his mediator work for reconciliation and compensation of alleged victims of sexual abuse by ex-priests in New Brunswick. This book is published in French.The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived: Tom Watson Jr. and the Epic Story of How IBM Created the Digital Age
Par Ralph Watson McElvenny, Marc Wortman. 2023
The enduring story of Thomas Watson Jr.—a figure more important to the creation of the modern world than Rockefeller, Vanderbilt,…
and Morgan Nearly fifty years into IBM&’s existence, Thomas Watson Jr. undertook the biggest gamble in business history when he &“bet the farm&” on the creation of the IBM System/360, the world&’s first fully integrated and compatible mainframe computer. As CEO, Watson drove a revolution no other company—then or now—would dare, laying the foundation for the digital age that has transformed every society, corporation, and government. The story of Watson being &“present at the creation&” of the digital age is intertwined with near-Shakespearean personal drama. While he put IBM and its employees at risk, Watson also carried out a family-shattering battle over the future of the company with his brother Dick. This titanic struggle between brothers led to Dick&’s death and almost killed Watson Jr. himself. Though he was eventually touted by Fortune magazine as &“the greatest capitalist who ever lived,&” Watson&’s directionless, playboy early years made him an unlikely candidate for corporate titan. How he pulled his life together and, despite personal demons, paved the way for what became a global industry is an epic tale full of drama, inspiration, and valuable lessons in leadership, risk-taking, and social responsibility.The Marathon Don't Stop: The Life and Times of Nipsey Hussle
Par Rob Kenner. 2020
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThis &“beautiful tribute to a legendary artist&” (Quincy Jones) is the first in-depth biography of Nipsey…
Hussle, the hip-hop mogul, artist, and activist whose transformative legacy inspired a generation with his motivational lyrics and visionary business savvy—before he was tragically shot down in the very neighborhood he was dedicated to building up. For Nipsey Hussle, &“The Marathon&” was more than a mixtape title or the name of a clothing store; it was a way of life, a metaphor for the relentless pursuit of excellence and the willpower required to overcome adversity day after day. Hussle was determined to win the race to success on his own terms, and he wanted to see his whole community in the winner&’s circle with him. A moving and powerful exploration of an extraordinary artist, The Marathon Don&’t Stop places Hussle in historical context and unpacks his complex legacy. Combining on-the-ground reporting and candid interviews, &“Rob Kenner has given us the book the world—and hip-hop and pop culture—has been waiting for…one that should be celebrated alongside the best biographies ever about iconic figures we have loved—and lost&” (Kevin Powell, author of When We Free the World).Wild Company: The Untold Story of Banana Republic
Par Mel Ziegler, Patricia Ziegler. 2012
In the tradition of Pour Your Heart Into It and How Starbucks Saved My Life, a surprising and inspiring memoir…
from the founders of Banana Republic.With $1,500 and no business experience, Mel and Patricia Ziegler turned a wild idea into a company that would become the international retail colossus Banana Republic. Re-imagining military surplus as safari and expedition wear, the former journalist and artist created a world that captured the zeitgeist for a generation and spoke to the creativity, adventure, and independence in everyone. In a book that&’s honest, funny, and charming, Mel and Patricia tell in alternating voices how they upended business conventions and survived on their wits and imagination. Many retail and fashion merchants still consider Banana Republic&’s early heyday to be one of the most remarkable stories in fashion and business history. The couple detail how, as &“professional amateurs,&” they developed the wildly original merchandise and marketing innovations that broke all retail records and produced what has been acclaimed by industry professionals to be &“the best catalogue of all time.&” A love story wrapped in a business adventure, Wild Company is a soulful, inspiring tale for readers determined to create their own destiny with a passion for life and work and fun.Dealings: A Political and Financial Life
Par Felix Rohatyn. 2010
It was a German soldier’s chance decision to reach for a cigarette and absently wave a car through a checkpoint…
outside Marseille in 1940 that allowed Felix Rohatyn and his Jewish family to escape from Nazi-occupied France. In the States, a chance summer job led him to the small, private investment bank of Lazard Frères, where he came under the tutelage of legendary financier André Meyer. The summer job turned into an extraordinary fifty-year career. Hailed as "the preeminent investment banker of his generation," Rohatyn was a creator of the merger-and-acquisition business that revolutionized investment banking and transformed the worlds of finance and entertainment. In this very personal account, Rohatyn takes us behind the headlines to offer readers a telling look at some of the era’s most renowned figures in the worlds of finance, entertainment, and politics. We are alongside Rohatyn as he meets Steve Ross in the back of the funeral parlor Ross is managing as they strategize to take control of Warner Brothers, and in André Meyer’s art-filled apartment as they negotiate with Frank Sinatra. We are with Rohatyn as he assists Harold Geneen of ITT weather a series of congressional investigations, and as he stays one step ahead of the canny Michael Ovitz as Matsushita attempts to win control of Lew Wasserman’s Universal Pictures. We also watch Rohatyn defending shareholders’ interests as the RJR-Nabisco buyout becomes a cautionary tale of executive greed. We have a front-row seat as Rohatyn and Governor Hugh Carey forge a desperation plan to save New York City from bankruptcy. And we accompany Rohatyn when he returns to Paris as the U.S. ambassador to the country he barely escaped alive as a young boy. Full of headline-making revelations, insider stories, keen personal observations, and relevant financial wisdoms, Dealings is the page-turning story of a life well lived.Burn Book
Par Kara Swisher. 2024
From award-winning journalist Kara Swisher comes a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who…
wanted to change the world but broke it instead.While tech titans bragged they would 'move fast and break things', Kara Swisher was moving faster and breaking news. Covering the explosion of the digital sector in the early 1990s, she developed a long track record of digging up and reporting the truth of this new world order. Her consistent scoops drove one CEO to accuse her of "listening in the heating ducts" and for Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg to once say: 'It is a constant joke in the Valley when people write memos for them to say, "I hope Kara never sees this."'Burn Book is part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech's most powerful players. This is the inside story we've all been waiting for of modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world.While still in college, Swisher got her start at The Washington Post, where she became one of the few people in journalism interested in the emerging field of tech. She was among the first to recognize the potential of the internet, accurately predicting that 'everything that could be digitized, would be digitized.' She went on to work for The Wall Story Journal, joining with Walt Mossberg to start the groundbreaking AllThingsD conference, as well as pioneering online tech sites.It's only a slight exaggeration to say Swisher has interviewed everyone. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Bob Iger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few who Swisher made sweat-figuratively and, in one famous case, literally.Despite the damage she chronicles, Swisher remains optimistic about tech's potential to help solve problems and not just create them. She calls upon the industry to make better, more thoughtful choices, even as a new set of powerful AI tools are poised to change the world yet again. At its heart, this book is a love story to, for, and about tech from someone who knows it better than anyone.Burn Book includes soaring tales of innovation and brilliant entrepreneurs, as well as Silicon Valley's much more complex history of striving, success, and failure. The book details how the commercial internet came into being and how, for all it has given the world, it now sits at the center of global power, creating a clear and present danger to humanity.Burn Book
Par Kara Swisher. 2024
From award-winning journalist Kara Swisher comes a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who…
wanted to change the world but broke it instead.While tech titans bragged they would 'move fast and break things', Kara Swisher was moving faster and breaking news. Covering the explosion of the digital sector in the early 1990s, she developed a long track record of digging up and reporting the truth of this new world order. Her consistent scoops drove one CEO to accuse her of "listening in the heating ducts" and for Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg to once say: 'It is a constant joke in the Valley when people write memos for them to say, "I hope Kara never sees this."'Burn Book is part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech's most powerful players. This is the inside story we've all been waiting for of modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world.While still in college, Swisher got her start at The Washington Post, where she became one of the few people in journalism interested in the emerging field of tech. She was among the first to recognize the potential of the internet, accurately predicting that 'everything that could be digitized, would be digitized.' She went on to work for The Wall Story Journal, joining with Walt Mossberg to start the groundbreaking AllThingsD conference, as well as pioneering online tech sites.It's only a slight exaggeration to say Swisher has interviewed everyone. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Bob Iger, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Meg Whitman, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg are just a few who Swisher made sweat-figuratively and, in one famous case, literally.Despite the damage she chronicles, Swisher remains optimistic about tech's potential to help solve problems and not just create them. She calls upon the industry to make better, more thoughtful choices, even as a new set of powerful AI tools are poised to change the world yet again. At its heart, this book is a love story to, for, and about tech from someone who knows it better than anyone.Burn Book includes soaring tales of innovation and brilliant entrepreneurs, as well as Silicon Valley's much more complex history of striving, success, and failure. The book details how the commercial internet came into being and how, for all it has given the world, it now sits at the center of global power, creating a clear and present danger to humanity.The Style Strategy: A Less-Is-More Approach to Staying Chic and Shopping Smart
Par Nina Garcia. 2009
From Nina Garcia—fashion judge on Bravo’s hit Project Runway and the New York Times bestselling author of The One Hundred…
and The Little Black Book of Style—comes Style Strategy: a perfect primer on achieving the best fashion look possible, with a strong emphasis on saving money in the process.Wall Street Meat: My Narrow Escape from the Stock Market Grinder
Par Andy Kessler. 2004
Wall Street is a funny business. All you have is your reputation. Taint it and someone else will fill your…
shoes. Longevity comes from maintaining that reputation. Ask Jack Grubman, the All-Star telecom analyst from Salomon Smith Barney; uber-banker Frank Quattrone at CS First Boston; Morgan Stanley's Mary "Queen of the Net" Meeker; or Merrill Lynch's Henry Blodget.Well, they probably won't tell you anything. But have I got some great stories for you. Successful hedge fund manager Andy Kessler looks back on his years as an analyst on Wall Street and offers this cautionary tale of the intoxicating forces loose in the world of finance that overwhelmed sober analysis.Drinking with Strangers: Music Lessons from a Teenage Bullet Belt
Par Butch Walker, Matt Diehl. 2011
Rolling Stone magazine called Butch Walker one of “America’s best singer-songwriters” and voted him a “Producer of the Year.” An…
American music industry giant, Walker has worked with some of today’s hottest talent, including Weezer, Katy Perry, Dashboard Confessional, Pink, Tommy Lee, Fall Out Boy, and The Donnas to name but a few. In his riveting memoir, Drinking with Strangers, Walker tells the fascinating story of his life and remarkable career, taking readers on a breakneck ride from his Georgia roots to the Hollywood music scene, and giving us a close up insider’s view of life behind closed recording studio doors.The White Sharks of Wall Street: Thomas Mellon Evans and the Original Corporate Raiders
Par Diana B. Henriques. 2000
It almost seems that Thomas Mellon Evans was a man so far ahead of his contemporaries that he had moved…
into the shadows before the full force of his business style had dawned on the rest of corporate America. At every step in his career, he was barging in where few would follow -- at first. But follow they did, at last." -- from the PrologueThe first in-depth portrait of the life and times of the trailblazing financier Thomas Mellon Evans -- the man who pursued wealth and power in the 1950s with a brash ruthlessness that forever changed the face of corporate America. Long before Michael Milken was using junk bonds to finance corporate takeovers, Thomas Mellon Evans used debt, cash, and the tax code to obtain control of more than eighty American companies. Long before investors began to lobby for "shareholder's rights," Evans was demanding that public companies be run only for their shareholders -- not for their employees, their executives, or their surrounding communities. To some, Evans's merciless style presaged much that is wrong with corporate life today. To others, he intuitively knew what was needed to keep America competitive in the wake of a global war. In The White Sharks of Wall Street, New York Times investigative reporter Diana Henriques provides the first biography of this pivotal figure in American business history. She also portrays the other pioneering corporate raiders of the postwar period, such as Robert Young and Louis Wolfson, and shows how these men learned from one another and advanced one another's takeover tactics. She relates in dramatic detail a number of important early takeover fights -- Wolfson's challenge to Montgomery Ward, Young's move on the New York Central Railroad, the fight for Follansbee Steel -- and shows how they foreshadowed the desperate battle waged by Tom Evans's son, Ned Evans, to keep the British raider Robert Maxwell away from his Macmillan publishing empire during the 1980s. Henriques also reaches beyond the business arena to tally the tragic personal cost of Evans's pursuit of success and to show how the family dynasty shattered when his sons were driven by his own stubbornness and pride to become his rivals. In the end, the battling patriarch faced his youngest son in a poignant battle for control at the Crane Company, the once-famous Chicago plumbing and valve company that Tom Evans had himself seized in a brilliant takeover coup twenty-five years earlier. The White Sharks of Wall Street is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary man, whose career blazed across the sky and then sank into obscurity -- but not before he had provided the template for how American business would operate for the next four decades.