Business Memoirs

By day he made thousands of dollars a minute. By night he spent it as fast as he could. From the binge that sank a 170-foot motor yacht and ran up a $700,000 hotel tab, to the wife and kids waiting at home and the fast-talking, hard-partying young stockbrokers who called him king, here, in Jordan Belfort's own words, is the story of the ill-fated genius they called the Wolf of Wall Street.

This inside story of WeWork and its CEO tells the remarkable saga of one of the most audacious, and improbable, rises and falls in American business history. Veteran journalist Reeves Weideman dives deep into WeWork and its CEO's astronomical rise, from the marijuana and tequila-filled board rooms to cult-like company summer camps and consciousness-raising with Anthony Kiedis. Billion Dollar Loser is a character-driven business narrative that captures, through the fascinating psyche of a billionaire founder and his wife and co-founder, the slippery state of global capitalism. \

Weijian Shan's Out of the Gobi is a powerful memoir and commentary that will be one of the most important books on China of our time, one with the potential to re-shape how Americans view China, and how the Chinese view life in America. Shan, a former hard laborer who is now one of Asia's best-known financiers, is thoughtful, observant, eloquent, and brutally honest, making him well-positioned to tell the story of a life that is a microcosm of modern China, and of how, improbably, that life became intertwined with America.

The riveting third edition of this New York Times bestseller blows the whistle on China’s economic hit man (EHM) strategy, exposes corruption on an international scale, and offers much-needed solutions for curing the degenerative Death Economy. In this shocking exposé, former EHM John Perkins gives an insider view into the corrupt system that cheats and strong-arms countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars and ultimately causes staggering income inequality and ecological devastation.

How did a child of immigrants, starting with no background in the hotel business, create the world's most admired and successful hotel brand? And how has Four Seasons grown so dramatically, over nearly half a century, without losing its focus on exceptional quality and unparalleled service? Isadore Sharp answers these questions in his inspiring memoir. He started out in Toronto, the son of a modest builder from Poland, but ambition and fate rapidly took him beyond his father's three-man construction business.

The financial establishment---banks and investment bankers, such as Citigroup, Bear Stearns, Lehman, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley---were the cowboys, recklessly assuming risks, leveraging up to astronomical levels, and driving the economy to the brink of disaster.

Larry Williams has never backed away from authority, especially government authority - the US government or any other, including two battles all the way to the Supreme Court. Libertarian, trader, would-be politician, and Indiana Jones-like adventurer, Larry has gone wherever his spirit moved him and bucked state constraints whenever he found them stifling.

Real estate titan, best-selling author, and TV impresario Donald J. Trump reveals the secrets of his success. Over the years, everyone has urged Trump to write on this subject, but it wasn't until NBC and executive producer Mark Burnett asked him to star in The Apprentice that he realized just how hungry people are to learn how great personal wealth is created and first-class businesses are run.

When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly 60 years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the 19th century with a 21st-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades.

In just a decade and a half, Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded Alibaba and built it into one of the world's largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba's $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever. A Rockefeller of his age who is courted by CEOs and presidents around the world, Jack is an icon for China's booming private sector.

No family in the past two centuries has been as constantly at the center of Europe's great events, has featured such varied and spectacular personalities, has had anything close to the wealth of the Rothschilds. To this day they remain one of the most powerful and wealthy families in the world. In Frederic Morton's classic tale, the family is brought vividly to life.

A unique memoir that weaves together stories of personal triumph, love, loss, and lessons learned, Notes for the Children follows Patrick Priestner throughout his life as a son, a brother, a car salesman, an award-winning automotive entrepreneur—and his most rewarding roles, as a husband and a father.

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. Reimagining 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.

Pour la première fois, Reed Hastings le co-fondateur et président de Netflix nous révèle comment il a bâti la plateforme vidéo dont les films et les séries sont plébiscités dans le monde entier. Créé en 1997, Netflix a révolutionné l'industrie de la distribution et de la production audiovisuelle par sa créativité et sa technologie.

What does it mean to be smart? To be human? What do we really want from life and the intelligence we have, or might create? With deep and exclusive reporting, across hundreds of interviews, New York Times Silicon Valley journalist Cade Metz brings you into the rooms where these questions are being answered. Where an extraordinarily powerful new artificial intelligence has been built into our biggest companies, our social discourse, and our daily lives, with few of us even noticing.

In this illuminating memoir, McChrystal frankly explores the major episodes and controversies of his eventful career. He delves candidly into the intersection of history, leadership, and his own experience to produce a book of enduring value. Joining the troubled post-Vietnam army as a young officer, McChrystal witnessed and participated in some of our military’s most difficult struggles. He describes the many outstanding leaders he served with and the handful of bad leaders he learned not to emulate.

For a dozen years as one of the world’s most admired CEOs, Indra Nooyi redefined what it means to be an exceptional leader. The first woman of color and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company - and one of the foremost strategic thinkers of our time - she transformed PepsiCo with a unique vision, a vigorous pursuit of excellence, and a deep sense of purpose. Now, in a rich memoir brimming with grace, grit, and good humor, My Life in Full offers a firsthand view of Nooyi’s legendary career and the sacrifices it so often demanded.

Undercurrents: Channeling Outrage to Spark Practical Activism brings the perspective of experienced global social innovation leader, scholar and speaker, Steve Davis, to bear on some of the most powerful and helpful macrotrends rippling through society today. The book teaches listeners how to harness their outrage and capitalize on global trends to instigate and encourage change across the world.

If you had the resources to accomplish something great in the world, what would you do? Legendary investor Warren Buffett posed this challenge to his son in 2006, when he announced he was leaving the bulk of his fortune to philanthropy. So, Howard G. Buffett set out to help the most vulnerable people on Earth - nearly a billion individuals who lack basic food security. And Howard has given himself a deadline: 40 years to put more than $3 billion to work on this challenge.

Microsoft's CEO tells the inside story of the company's continuing transformation, tracing his own personal journey from a childhood in India to leading some of the most significant technological changes in the digital era. As much a humanist as engineer and executive, Nadella concludes with his vision for the coming wave of intelligent technologies and a distinct call to action for leaders everywhere.