Biography & Autobiography : Business

With the distillation of a life's worth of wisdom and insight into an elegant expression of a coherent worldview, this book will stand as Greenspan's personal and intellectual legacy. more...

Price: $17.00

In this magnificent biography, celebrated historian David Nasaw brings to life the fascinating rags- to-riches story of one of our most iconic business legends—Andrew Carnegie, America’s first modern titan. From his first job as a bobbin boy at age thirteen to his status as the richest man in the world upon retirement, Carnegie was the embodiment of the American dream and the prototype of today’s billionaire. Drawing on a trove of new material, Nasaw brilliantly plumbs the core of this fascinating and complex man, at last fixing him in his rightful place as one of the most compelling, elusive, and multifaceted personalities of the twentieth century. more...

Price: $20.00

In his wry and funny memoir, Edward Ugel tells the story of America's addiction to the lottery from an astonishing angle. At age twenty–six, Ed found himself broke, knee–deep in gambling debt, and moving back into his parents' basement. It all changed, however, when he serendipitously landed a job as a salesman for The Firm – a company that offered up–front cash to lottery winners in exchange for their prize money, often paid in agonizingly small annual payments, some lasting up to twenty–five years. For the better part of the ensuing decade, Ed spent his time closing deals with lottery winners, making a lucrative and legitimate – if sometimes not–so–nice – living by taking advantage of their weaknesses... weaknesses he knew all too well. Ed met hundreds of lottery winners and saw up–close the often hilarious, sometime sad outcome when great wealth is dropped on ordinary people. Once lottery winners realized their "dream–come–true" multimillion jackpots were not all that they were cracked up to be, Ed would knock on their door, offering them the cash they wanted–and often desperately need. This cash sometimes came at a high price, but winners were rarely in a position to walk the other way. As Ed learned, few of them had the financial savvy to keep up with the lottery–winner lifestyle. In fact, some just wanted their old lives back. A charmingly neurotic gambler, Ed traveled deep into the heart of the country where he discovered the American Dream looks a lot like a day at the casino. And Ed knows casinos. In fact, his own taste for gambling gave him a unique insight into lottery winners: he intimately understood their mindset, making it that much easier to relate to them. And like lottery winners, Ed struggled to find balance in his own life as his increasing success earned him a bigger and bigger salary. Even as he relished his accomplishments, he grappled with th more...

Price: $11.95

From humble beginnings as the son of a working-class family in suburban Washington state to one of the world’s richest men, Paul Allen’s life story reads like the American dream come true. But if Allen’s story is as familiar to us as any rags-to-riches tale, Allen himself has remained a curious enigma. more...

Price: $27.95

Any short list of the world’s most admired business people would include Andy Grove, the chairman and CEO of Intel during its years of explosive growth. During Grove’s career, Intel became the model for Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley became the model for the world. And Grove became Time’s Man of the Year—an icon of the promise of the American life. Born in Hungary in 1936, Grove survived the Holocaust only to face the Soviet invasion. He escaped to New York, penniless, at age twenty, and embraced America, putting himself through college and graduate school. He joined Intel at its founding in 1968, rose to CEO in 1987, then led the company into the stratosphere, with compound annual profit growth at 34 percent for the next eleven years. Despite decades of media scrutiny and six of Grove’s own books, there remains a powerful element of mystery about him. This definitive biography, by a Harvard Business School professor with unprecedented access, finally cracks the code of who Andy Grove really is, how his mind works, how he attacks impossible problems, and how he leads others to exceed their own expectations of themselves. more...

Price: $18.00