Best Business Books

PayPal was founded by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel in 1998. It went public in 2002 and soon afterwards finally was sold to eBay. Most managers and key persons of PayPal then left the company and launched various further business ventures, such as Youtube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Slide, Yelp, Geni, Yammer, Anchor Intelligence, TradeVibes, HourTown, Room 9 Entertainment and also SpaceX, Tesla Motors, Clarium Capital Management and The Founders Fund. Regarding this, the New York Times mentioned it'd 'Pay off to have Pals in Silicon Valley'. Obviously, there's something special with those PayPal-people and that's why it is so interesting to read more about the PayPal story.

Eric Jackson was one of the first PayPal employees when in 1999 Peter Thiel, the then CEO of PayPal, draw him from Arthur Andersen into the tiny startup company. A short time after the successful Going Public and the sell out to eBay, Jackson left PayPal - as most of the earlier managers. He then wrote "The PayPal Wars", the true story about how they made PayPal growing against all odds and beat all competitors.

There were good reasons why this book turned out to be a bestseller among business books and even former Mc'Kinsey Guru Tom Peters named it a page turner. It's true what people say: It reads like a spy novell.

Very strongly recommended for all startup teams in all branches !

The Chernobyl atomic-plant explosion, observes Dorner, was entirely due to human error involving the breaking of safety rules by a team of experts who reinforced one another's puffed-up sense of competence. This German psychology professor believes people court failure through sloppy or ingrained mental habits, whether the mistakes involve cleaning dead fish out of a garden pool, adding rooms to a schoolhouse, launching economic development programs in Africa or forecasting oil prices or the scope of the AIDS epidemic.

Things go wrong, according to Dorner, because we focus on just one element in a system complicated by interrelationships; we apply corrective measures too aggressively or too timidly; we ignore basic premises, overgeneralize, follow blind alleys, overlook potential side effects and narrowly extrapolate from the moment, basing our predictions of the future on those aspects of the present that bother or delight us the most. This ingenious manual will assist problem-solvers in all fields. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly
Most books on game theory either focus on specialized applications (cardplaying, business, nuclear war) or bore with mathematics and jargon. Free of formulas and argot, this refreshing exception distills the principles, concepts, tools and techniques--brinkmanship, bargaining, unconditional moves, vicious circles, etc.--with an astonishing diversity of illustrative examples drawn from political campaigns, baseball, neighborhood dynamics of segregation, the military draft, speed limits, childrearing and so forth.

In helping strategists anticipate rivals' responses and win the game, economics professors Dixit and Nalebuff (who teach game theory at Princeton and Yale, respectively) provide managers, negotiators, athletes, parents and other game-players with a formidable weapon. Drawings. BOMC, Fortune Book Club and QPB selections. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A fascinating new book that can be read with real pleasure....The problem is, of course, that if Dixit and Nalebuff can improve your strategic IQ, they can improve your competitor's as well (Washington Post).

Carl von Clausewitz was a 19th-century Prussian general and is considered by many to be the millennium's preeminent strategist. Clausewitz on Strategy is a newly translated collection of sections from Clausewitz's classic work On War that's aimed at helping 21st-century executives and entrepreneurs grapple with the unpredictability of today's business climate.

The Strategy Institute of The Boston Consulting Group, which pens an insightful essay introducing and connecting Clausewitz's thinking to the realities of today's business environment and which also supplements the book with historical notes and excerpts, thinks Clausewitz is cool. After reading this book, you may think so as well. --Harry C. Edwards

Some cites from the book:

On strategic genius
"If the mind is to survive this constant battle with the unexpected, two qualities are indispensable: first, an intellect that even in this moment of intense darkness retains some trace of the inner light that will lead it to the truth, and second, the courage to go where that faint light leads."

On the role of strategic theory
". . . all principles, rules, and methods increasingly lack universality and absolute truth the moment they become a positive doctrine. They are there to present themselves for use. Judgment must always be free to determine whether or not they are suitable. Criticism must never use these results of theory as laws and standards, but only as a person acting in war should also do: as aids to judgment."

On risk
"It is not true that we should always choose the case with the least uncertainty. That would be a terrible mistake, as all of our theoretical deliberations show. There are instances in which the most daring course of action is the wisest choice."

On leadership qualities
"The further we go up the chain of command, the more necessary it becomes for boldness to go hand in hand with the superior mind . . ."

On strategy
"Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not make everything easy."

We're constantly negotiating in our lives, whether it's convincing the kids to do their homework or settling million-dollar lawsuits. For those who need help winning these battles, Roger Fisher has developed a simple and straightforward five-step system for how to behave in negotiations. Narrated soothingly by NPR announcer Bob Edwards, Fisher adds the meaty portions of the material with a sense of playfulness.

Strongly recommended !

Richard Branson is - of course well known - an iconic businessman and has achieved many remarkable things in his life. In "Screw It, Let's Do It", he shares the secrets of his success and the invaluable lessons he has learned over the course of his remarkable career.

As the world struggles with the twin problems of global recession and climate change, Richard explains why it is up to big companies like Virgin to lead the way in finding a more holistic and environmentally friendly approach to business. He also looks to the future and shares his plans for taking his business and his ideas to the next level. Richard reveals the new and exciting areas into which Virgin is currently moving, including biofuels and space travel, and brings together all the important lessons, good advice and inspirational adages that have helped him along the road to success.

This is a fantastic motivational book in which every reader will find inspiration to help them achieve their own dreams.

Underlined by all major experts in the world of business and university, these both books by Michael E. Porter are the ultimate basic works on developing competitive strategies and forming competitive advantages. Basic knowledge for everybody from startup entrepreneur to trust leaders.

Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance @ amazon.com
Wettbewerbsvorteile. Spitzenleistungen erreichen und behaupten.: Spitzenleistungen erreichen und behaupten @ amazon.de

Harvard Business Review's Review of The Next Global Stage:

In the early 1900s, German physicist Werner Heisenberg laid the foundations for quantum mechanics, a set of rules showing that at the subatomic level Newtonian physics was irrelevant.

Just as quantum mechanics upstaged Newton, says strategist Kenichi Ohmae, a radical new model is upending old notions about the global economy. In this sprawling book, Ohmae warns that governments, businesses, and leaders that cling to their Newtonian approaches will become irrelevant themselves.

The heart of Ohmae's thesis will be familiar to readers of his previous books, including The Borderless World (1990) and The Invisible Continent (2000): In the new global economy, the nation-state, and the protectionist economic thinking that goes with it, is obsolete. Nation-states have borders, armies, flags, currencies, and a development-stifling instinct to protect their economies from the outside world. As global economic players, they're being displaced by "region states"-borderless centers of vibrant economic activity that welcome global trade and investment, like the Shutoken metropolitan area of Japan and Guangzhou in China.

If the rules of the old economy no longer apply, Ohmae ventures, then neither do the old rules of business. Fair enough. The problem is, he says, no one knows, or can know, what the new rules are: "By the time any rule book or user's manual appears...the 'new rules' will already be obsolete." What business leaders can be sure of, Ohmae argues, is that massive change without requires massive change within. That means wall-to-wall rethinking of corporate mission, strategy, and organization. Companies must cut loose from their "ancestry" and, for instance, compete by selling the very products that threaten them. Clinging to the core, as Kodak did in the face of predation by digital-camera makers, is a recipe for failure in this new age.

Companies must cast off their sentimental attachment to the nation-states where they're headquartered and jettison their hierarchies and old approaches to markets. Their leaders must become visionary facilitators without preconceived attitudes about their roles-ready to embrace even the idea that the best leader may be a team, not an individual. There can be no half measures in this radical transformation, Ohmae says, no testing the waters before taking the plunge.

It's a strong prescription. Unfortunately, this lively book can't, by its own admission, give business readers what they want most: practical advice for competing in the global economy. But it does remind executives to pry their gaze from the present and set it firmly on the future. As Heisenberg well understood, the more doggedly you map where a moving target is, the less you know about where it's headed.

-Gardiner Morse

Richard Florida, professor at George-Mason-University and american Guru of city development, published a new book "The Rise of the creative class". His interesting findings: Not the mega cities are the places by which the creative class will be attracted.

The new textbook "B2B Brand Management" of Philip Kotler and Waldemar Pfoertsch about an important - but nevertheless up to now untended - topic is available since a few months.