Culture First

Microsoft: First Generation uncovers the range of surprising success secrets behind the upstart company that defined the Age of Information - and reveals, once and for all, exactly what makes Microsoft tick.

In the 21st century, many of the most successful companies focus on the development, success, and happiness of their own employees first. That's because they know engaged employees will enthusiastically take ownership of selling products and serving customers. Not surprisingly, they also know that in the end strong sales and profitability will follow. Are you ready to re-prioritize your people?

What began as a modest start-up partnership only 25 years ago has already surpassed all the giants of contemporary capitalism. How did Microsoft achieve all of this in so short a time? Cheryl Tsang steps inside the famous culture of loyalty, the storied “maniacal work ethic”, and the hardcore world of reckless risk-taking to reveal, once and for all, exactly what makes Microsoft tick.

You care what's happening in the world - but you can't help feeling you missed the part where the key stuff got explained. What's a budget deficit? How does voting actually work? What's the deal with the UN? And what does net zero mean again? Thankfully, No Silly Questions is here to lay out the facts and principles behind the day's headlines. Zara Seidler and Sam Koslowski, creators of The Daily Aus - Australia's leading social-first news service - are like your super well-informed mates who you can rely on to quickly bring you up to speed.

Take Your Shoes Off First is a fast and entertaining listen that illustrates how easy it is to limit what is possible in your life - without knowing you are doing it. You will be pulled into a thought-provoking story about an executive who finds a better path forward through a challenging situation by embracing one simple idea. As he learns to see himself and the world more clearly, you will be inspired to do the same.

Charles Lindbergh was a fearless aviator, inventor, environmental activist, and explorer. He lived a very busy yet highly fulfilling life. What adventures will his story tell you? What great achievements did he accomplish? You can learn about his life within this biography book for young listeners. Do you think you can be as great as Charles Lindbergh someday?

When 16-year-old Alex's parents ask him to deliver a mysterious package to their animal research camp in the Nepali jungle, he and his 12-year-old brother James do not know the trouble they are about to face. An unsuccessful ransom payment leads to an arduous journey through the crisp forests of the Wild West of Nepal in pursuit of the thugs who have kidnapped their parents. Even with the help of their friend Atti, how can three children rescue the parents from armed kidnappers?

Who was the first Roman emperor? The creation of an empire begins with a leader. In this book, you will be learning about how emperors are made and what their young lives were lie. Learning about the past will lead you to answers about the present and maybe a peek into the future too. Get a copy of this book today!

Alan Meckler was the first person to start a venture in the commercial internet space in October, 1990. There were few means to connect to the internet back then. Yet Meckler anticipated that the internet would be a "black swan event" and that it would revolutionize all aspects of personal and commercial life. The book is a history, but also a very personal memoir of a career entrepreneur and all the difficulties one encounters with raising funds, dealing with cash flow shortages, personnel, and getting people to believe in the next big thing.

In this book, we’re going to continue our discussion of the Great Depression, but with focus on President Roosevelt’s First and Second New Deals. What were these deals? What did they entail, and how did the economy benefit from them? Open this book to listen about the answers today!

The Legends Collection Volume Series is an ongoing collection of books, designed to teach about some of the guiding stories that help shape humanity into what it is today. This book teaches lessons and give warning, and even a scare or two to keep it interesting.

By winning the state high school basketball championship in 1955, ten teens from an Indianapolis school meant to be the centerpiece of racially segregated education in the state shattered the myth of their inferiority. Their brilliant coach had fashioned an unbeatable team from a group of boys born in the South and raised in poverty. Anchored by the astonishing Oscar Robertson, a future college and NBA star, the Crispus Attucks Tigers went down in history as the first state champions from Indianapolis and the first all-black team in U.S. history to win a racially open championship tournament.

Sheroes: Women hold up half the sky and, most days, do even more of the heavy lifting, including childbearing and child-rearing - all after a long day at the office. Women have always been strong, true heroes - sheroes, oftentimes unacknowledged. As we shake off the last traces of a major patriarchal hangover, women are coming into their own. In the 21st century, all women can fully embrace their fiery fempower and celebrate their no-holds-barred individuality. It is time to acknowledge the successful women of the world.

Look out, London! Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose are thrilled to see Big Ben, ride the London Eye, and tour Madame Tussauds wax museum. Then big news hits - someone has stolen Queen Elizabeth’s jewels right outside Windsor Castle! The friends head to the castle to check for clues. But can three kids from Green Lawn find evidence that Scotland Yard has missed?

This is the story of the web's first viral hit. Bert Is Evil, a website created in 1997, "collected incriminating images and documents that prove that Bert is not the lovable harmless geek he so successfully makes us think he is." Bill Meeks tells the story of Dino Ignacio, a college student who rocked the online world with his satirical look at Bert from Sesame Street. Ignacio dodges the Children's Television Workshop and suffers attacks from journalists as one of the web's first superstars.

Long before Superman or Batman made their first appearances, there was Zorro. Born on the pages of the pulps in 1919, Zorro fenced his way through the American popular imagination, carving his signature letter Z into the flesh of evildoers in Old Spanish California. Zorro is the original caped crusader, the first hero to have a band called the Avengers, and the character who laid the blueprint for the modern American superhero. In Zorro's Shadow, historian and Latin American studies expert Stephen J. C. Andes investigates the legends behind the mask of Zorro.

An audiobook about Champ and Major, President-elect Joe Biden's two adorable dogs! Major will be the first shelter dog in the White House, and Champ can't wait to show him around.

This is the story of how America's first women soldiers helped win World War I, earned the vote, and fought the US Army. In 1918 the US Army Signal Corps sent 223 women to France. They were masters of the latest technology: the telephone switchboard. General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, demanded female "wire experts" when he discovered that inexperienced doughboys were unable to keep him connected with troops under fire.

The news media is filled with reports of mass shootings, child molestation, road rage, vandalism, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. We instinctively assume that men are the likely perpetrators, and in the vast majority of cases, they are. The incidence of war, rape, crime, torture, genocide, and terrorism are mostly at the hands of men.

Florence Maybrick was the first American woman to be sentenced to death in England - for murdering her husband, a crime she almost certainly didn't commit. Her 1889 trial was presided over by an openly misogynist judge who was later declared incompetent and died in an asylum. Hours before she was to be hanged, Queen Victoria reluctantly commuted her sentence to life in prison. In her opinion, a woman who would commit adultery, as Maybrick had admitted, would also kill her husband. Her children were taken from her; she never saw them again. Her mother worked for years to clear her name.