Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. Eric Ries defines a startup asan organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on ';validated learning,' rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneursin companies of all sizesa way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it's too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world.Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response toand approach forovercoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with ';strategy.' In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of ';bad strategy' and awakens an understanding of the power of a ';good strategy.' He introduces nine sources of powerranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growththat are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 200708 financial crisis.Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt's decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.
Longlisted for the National Book AwardNew York Times BestsellerA former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life and threaten to rip apart our social fabricWe live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our liveswhere we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insuranceare being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated.But as Cathy O'Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: If a poor student can't get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), he's then cut off from the kind of education that could pull him out of poverty, and a vicious spiral ensues. Models are propping up the lucky and punishing the downtrodden, creating a ';toxic cocktail for democracy.' Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.Tracing the arc of a person's life, O'Neil exposes the black box models that shape our future, both as individuals and as a society. These ';weapons of math destruction' score teachers and students, sort resumes, grant (or deny) loans, evaluate workers, target voters, set parole, and monitor our health.O'Neil calls on modelers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, it's up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives. This important book empowers us to ask the tough questions, uncover the truth, and demand change. Longlist for National Book Award (Non-Fiction) Goodreads, semi-finalist for the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards (Science and Technology) Kirkus, Best Books of 2016 New York Times, 100 Notable Books of 2016 (Non-Fiction) The Guardian, Best Books of 2016 WBUR's "e;On Point,"e; Best Books of 2016: Staff Picks Boston Globe, Best Books of 2016, Non-Fiction
NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER *;Learn the negotiation model used by Google to train employees worldwide, U.S. Special Ops to promote stability globally (';this stuff saves lives'), and families to forge better relationships.A 20% discount on an item already on sale. A four-year-old willingly brushes his/her teeth and goes to bed. A vacationing couple gets on a flight that has left the gate. $5 million more for a small business; a billion dollars at a big one.Based on thirty years of research among forty thousand people in sixty countries, Wharton Business School Professor and Pulitzer Prize winner Stuart Diamond shows in this unique and revolutionary book howemotional intelligence, perceptions, cultural diversity and collaborationproduce four times as much value as old-school, conflictive, power, leverage and logic.As negotiations underlie every human encounter, this immediately-usable advice works in virtually any situation: kids, jobs, travel, shopping, business, politics, relationships, cultures, partners, competitors.The tools are invisible until you first see them. Then they're always there to solve your problems and meet your goals.
In The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau shows you how to lead of life of adventure, meaning and purpose and earn a good living. Still in his early thirties, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth he's already visited more than 175 nations and yet he's never held a ';real job' or earned a regular paycheck. Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back. There are many others like Chris those who've found ways to opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue what they find meaningful. Sometimes, achieving that perfect blend of passion and income doesn't depend on shelving what you currently do. You can start small with your venture, committing little time or money, and wait to take the real plunge when you're sure it's successful. In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he's chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies. In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment. Here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who've learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment. It's all about finding the intersection between your ';expertise' even if you don't consider it such -- and what other people will pay for. You don't need an MBA, a business plan or even employees. All you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid. Not content to talk in generalities, Chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick. Among Chris's key principles: if you're good at one thing, you're probably good at something else; never teach a man to fish sell him the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins. In ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold. Today, we know that it's up to us to change our lives. And the best part is, if we change our own life, we can help others change theirs. This remarkable book will start you on your way.
Reworkshows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business.Most business books give you the same old advice: Write a business plan, study the competition, seek investors, yadda yadda. If you're looking for a book like that, put this one back on the shelf.Read it and you'll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don't need outside investors, and why you're better off ignoring the competition.The truth is, you need less than you think. You don't need to be a workaholic. You don't need to staff up. You don't need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don't even need an office. Those are all just excuses. What you really need to do is stop talking and start working. This book shows you the way. You'll learn how to be more productive, how to get exposure without breaking the bank, and tons more counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you.With its straightforward language and easy-is-better approach, Rework is the perfect playbook for anyone who's ever dreamed of doing it on their own. Hardcore entrepreneurs, small-business owners, people stuck in day jobs they hate, victims of "e;downsizing,"e; and artists who don't want to starve anymore will all find valuable guidance in these pages.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *;';Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.'TheNew York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITH BOOK PRIZE *; SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE *; NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post *; Time *; Foreign Affairs *; WBUR *; PasteDonald Trump's presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we'd be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bangin a revolution or military coupbut with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one. Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies dieand how ours can be saved.Praise for How Democracies Die';What we desperately need is a sober, dispassionate look at the current state of affairs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two of the most respected scholars in the field of democracy studies, offer just that.'TheWashington Post';Where Levitsky and Ziblatt make their mark is in weaving together political science and historical analysis of both domestic and international democratic crises; in doing so, they expand the conversation beyond Trump and before him, to other countries and to the deep structure of American democracy and politics.'Ezra Klein,Vox';If you only read one book for the rest of the year, readHow Democracies Die. . . .This is not a book for just Democrats or Republicans. It is a book for all Americans. It is nonpartisan. It is fact based. It is deeply rooted in history. . . . The best commentary on our politics, no contest.'Michael Morrell, former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (via Twitter)';A smart and deeply informed book about the ways in which democracy is being undermined in dozens of countries around the world, and in ways that are perfectly legal.'Fareed Zakaria,CNN
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *; NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST';The most important book on decision making since Daniel Kahneman'sThinking, Fast and Slow.'Jason Zweig,TheWall Street Journal Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week's meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts' predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight, and Tetlock has spent the past decade trying to figure out why. What makes some people so good? And can this talent be taught? In Superforecasting, Tetlock and coauthor Dan Gardner offer a masterwork on prediction, drawing on decades of research and the results of a massive, government-funded forecasting tournament. The Good Judgment Project involves tens of thousands of ordinary peopleincluding a Brooklyn filmmaker, a retired pipe installer, and a former ballroom dancerwho set out to forecast global events. Some of the volunteers have turned out to be astonishingly good. They've beaten other benchmarks, competitors, and prediction markets. They've even beaten the collective judgment of intelligence analysts with access to classified information. They are "e;superforecasters."e; In this groundbreaking and accessible book, Tetlock and Gardner show us how we can learn from this elite group. Weaving together stories of forecasting successes (the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound) and failures (the Bay of Pigs) and interviews with a range of high-level decision makers, from David Petraeus to Robert Rubin, they show that good forecasting doesn't require powerful computers or arcane methods. It involves gathering evidence from a variety of sources, thinking probabilistically, working in teams, keeping score, and being willing to admit error and change course. Superforecasting offers the first demonstrably effective way to improve our ability to predict the futurewhether in business, finance, politics, international affairs, or daily lifeand is destined to become a modern classic.
The captivating, untold story of Hermann Rorschach and his famous inkblot testNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYNPR *;New York Post*;Sunday Times(UK)*;Irish IndependentIn 1917, working alone in a remote Swiss asylum, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an experiment to probe the human mind: a set of ten carefully designed inkblots. For years he had grappled with the theories of Freud and Jung while also absorbing the aesthetic movements of the day, from Futurism to Dadaism. A visual artist himself, Rorschach had come to believe that who we are is less a matter of what we say, as Freud thought, than what we see.After Rorschach's early death, his test quickly made its way to America, where it took on a life of its own. Co-opted by the military after Pearl Harbor, it was a fixture at the Nuremberg trials and in the jungles of Vietnam. It became an advertising staple, a cliche in Hollywood and journalism, and an inspiration to everyone from Andy Warhol to Jay Z. The test was also given to millions of defendants, job applicants, parents in custody battles, and people suffering from mental illness or simply trying to understand themselves better. And it is still used today.In this first-ever biography of Rorschach, Damion Searls draws on unpublished letters and diaries and a cache of previously unknown interviews with Rorschach's family, friends, and colleagues to tell the unlikely story of the test's creation, its controversial reinvention, and its remarkable enduranceand what it all reveals about the power of perception. Elegant and original, The Inkblots shines a light on the twentieth century's most visionary synthesis of art and science.Praise for The Inkblots';Impressively thorough . . . part biography of Herman Rorschach, psychoanalytic super sleuth, and part chronicle of the test's afterlife in clinical practice and the popular imagination . . . Searls is a nuanced and scholarly writer . . . genuinely fascinating.'TheNew York Times Book Review';A marvelous book about how one man and his enigmatic test came to shape our collective imagination. The Rorschach test is a great subject andThe Inkblotsis worthy of it:beguiling, fascinating, and full of new discoveriesevery time you look.'David Grann, author ofThe Lost City of Z
Learning German Has Never Been Easier! Whether you are studying the language in school, planning a trip to Germany or Austria, or trying to learn the basics of the language closest to English, German Made Simple is the perfect book for any self-learner. Void of all nonessentials and refreshingly easy to understand, German Made Simple includes: Basics of German grammar Modern German vocabulary German pronunciation guide German reading exercises German economic information Common German expressions Review exercises Complete answer key German-English dictionary
The acclaimed New York Times bestseller by Sue Klebold, mother of one of the Columbine shooters, about living in the aftermath of Columbine.On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve students and a teacher and wound twenty-four others before taking their own lives. For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan's mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. How could her child, the promising young man she had loved and raised, be responsible for such horror? And how, as his mother, had she not known something was wrong? Were there subtle signs she had missed? What, if anything, could she have done differently? These are questions that Klebold has grappled with every day since the Columbine tragedy. InA Mother's Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts. Filled with hard-won wisdom and compassion,A Mother's Reckoningis a powerful and haunting book that sheds light on one of the most pressing issues of our time. And with fresh wounds from the Newtown and Charleston shootings, never has the need for understanding been more urgent. All author profits from the book will be donated to research and to charitable organizations focusing on mental health issues.Washington Post, Best Memoirs of 2016
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