Business Bio

Paul Van Doren is the founder of Vans - the shoe company beloved by skateboarders, creatives, and fans everywhere for its laid-back, colorful SoCal vibe, and famous for its people-oriented company culture. How did Van Doren establish a family shoe business that evolved into a globally recognized brand with annual revenue of more than four billion dollars? A blue-collar kid with no higher education and zero retail experience, Van Doren leveraged a knack for numbers, a genius for efficiency, and the know-how to make a great canvas tennis shoe into an all-American success story.

The Scottish-born son of a failed weaver and a mother who supported the family by binding shoes, Andrew Carnegie was the embodiment of the American dream. In his rise from a job as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory to being the richest man in the world, he was single-minded, relentless and a major player in some of the most violent and notorious labor strikes of the time. The prototype of today's billionaire, he was a visionary in the way he earned his money and in the way he gave it away.

The first-person account of the family that changed the American retail landscape that Dave Ramsey calls a must-read. Longtime Dollar General CEO Cal Turner, Jr. shares his extraordinary life as heir to the company founded by his father, Cal Turner, Sr., and his grandfather, a dirt farmer turned...

In the late 1930s, legendary financier, philanthropist, and society figure Alfred Lee Loomis gathered the most visionary scientific minds of the 20th century at his state-of-the-art laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York. He established a top-secret defense laboratory at MIT and personally bankrolled pioneering research into new, high-powered radar detection systems that helped defeat the German Air Force and U-boats. With Ernest Lawrence, he pushed Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fund research in nuclear fission, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.

A rags-to-$9-billion-riches story. A crash course in Burger King history and fast food in America, The Burger King is McLamore's candid and conversational memoir. Written before his death in 1996, he talks of his life, the birth of the Whopper, and the rise of Burger King. McLamore's account of Burger King offers an instructive and inspiring tale to young entrepreneurs. Here's a story of entrepreneurship development from one of the top entrepreneurs of fast food chains.

From the founders of the international health-care behemoth Johnson & Johnson in the late 1800s to the contemporary Johnsons of today, such as billionaire New York Jets owner Robert Wood "Woody" Johnson IV, all is revealed in this scrupulously researched, unauthorized biography by New York Times best-selling author Jerry Oppenheimer.

Stirringly evocative, thought provoking, and often jaw dropping, The Operator ranges across SEAL Team Operator Robert O'Neill's awe-inspiring 400-mission career that included his involvement in attempts to rescue "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain Richard Phillips and culminated in those famous three shots that dispatched the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden.

J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields". The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world.

Ever dreamed of launching your own biotech company but felt overwhelmed by the science, the regulations, or the money maze? What if you could skip the years of confusion, expensive consultants, and trial-and-error, and get a step-by-step guide that shows you exactly how to turn your idea into a profitable business? How to Start a Biotech Company With AI Help: From Idea to Profitable Business is your founder-friendly roadmap to building a biotech startup that actually works. No PhD required, no jargon-heavy textbooks, no wasted time. You’ll learn how to validate ideas, map the market, ...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “The most authoritative portrait of one of the most important American investors of our time.”—Los Angeles Times “Even people who don’t care a whit about business will be intrigued. . . . A side of the Oracle of Omaha that has rarely been seen...

Go for the win! Achieve excellence and be better than you’ve ever been! In his years as a professional ice-skater, Olympic Gold Medalist Scott Hamilton learned to embrace the mind-set of working hard to “beat” the competition. But it seems competition has gotten a bad rap these days...

In the fall of 1980, Genentech, Inc., a little-known California genetic engineering company, became the overnight darling of Wall Street, raising over $38 million in its initial public stock offering. Lacking marketed products or substantial profit, the firm nonetheless saw its share price escalate from $35 to $89 in the first few minutes of trading. Coming at a time of economic recession and declining technological competitiveness in the United States, the event ignited a period of speculative frenzy over biotechnology.

Jack Welch knows how to win. During his forty-year career at General Electric, he led the company to year-after-year success around the globe, in multiple markets, against brutal competition. His honest, be-the-best style of management became the gold standard in business, with his relentless...

The Apples, Amazons and Googles of the next few decades will be biotech companies. The tech companies of the last few years have changed how we do things but the businesses driving the biotech revolution are about making life better. These companies will solve many of our most intractable problems: cancer, dementia, diabetes, elderly care, mental health challenges, even power generation and agricultural production. The audiobook explains what biotech is, what is coming next, and in a final section, how interested investors can profit from it.

The incredible true story of the card-counting mathematics professor who taught the world how to beat the dealer and, as the first of the great quantitative investors, ushered in a revolution on Wall Street. A child of the Great Depression, legendary mathematician Edward O. Thorp invented card...

“Vintage Iacocca . . . He is fast-talking, blunt, boastful, and unabashedly patriotic. Lee Iacocca is also a genuine folk hero. . . . His career is breathtaking.”—Business Week He’s an American legend, a straight-shooting businessman who brought Chrysler back from the brink and in the...

From entrepreneur and celebrity hairstylist Jen Atkin comes a smart and spirited guide to finding your voice and creating the life and career you deserve—along with a behind-the-scenes look into Jen’s own wild and wonderful road to success. Hailed by the New York Times as “the most...

When Ted Turner started out in business, he owned a small billboard company in rural Georgia. Over the decades, he built a multi-billion empire that included CNN, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), MGM studios, and the Atlanta Braves. Risk-taking, careful planning, and steely determination are the hallmarks of this brash, outspoken, and wildly successful media mogul. On the other side of the world, his counterpart—Australian-born Rupert Murdoch—began with one small newspaper and parlayed it into more than 100 newspapers and magazines around the globe.

Build an iconic shopping experience that your customers love--and a work environment that your employees love being a part of--using this blueprint from Trader Joe’s visionary founder, Joe Coulombe. Infuse your organization with a distinct personality and culture that draws customers in a way...

The story of how a little-known junior senator fought wartime corruption and, in the process, set himself up to become vice president and ultimately President Harry Truman. Months before Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that the United States was on the verge of entering another world...