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The success of Starbucks is one of the most remarkable business stories in decades. Since 1987, the coffee merchant has grown from a single retail store on Seattle's waterfront to a company with more than 1,000 stores nationwide and a new one opening somewhere every business day. According to Fortune magazine, Starbucks "has changed everything...from our tastes to our language to the face of Main Street."
During his storied career as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson won more championships than any coach in the history of professional sports. This is the story of a preacher's kid from North Dakota who grew up to be one of the most innovative leaders of our time. Eleven times, Jackson led his teams to the ultimate goal: the NBA championship - six times with the Chicago Bulls and five times with the Los Angeles Lakers. This book is full of revelations.
Meet a genuine American folk hero cut from the homespun cloth of America's heartland: Sam Walton, who parlayed a single dime store in a hardscrabble cotton town into Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world. The undisputed merchant king of the late 20th century, Sam never lost the common touch. Here, finally, inimitable words. Genuinely modest, but always sure of his ambitions and achievements. Sam shares his thinking in a candid, straight-from-the-shoulder style. In a story rich with anecdotes and the "rules of the road" of both Main Street and Wall Street, Sam Walton chronicles the inspiration, heart, and optimism that propelled him to lasso the American Dream.
Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now.
In just a decade and a half, Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded Alibaba and built it into one of the world's largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba's $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever. A Rockefeller of his age who is courted by CEOs and presidents around the world, Jack is an icon for China's booming private sector.
In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company's early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world's most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.
The success of Starbucks is one of the most remarkable business stories in decades. Since 1987, the coffee merchant has grown from a single retail store on Seattle's waterfront to a company with more than 1,000 stores nationwide and a new one opening somewhere every business day. According to Fortune magazine, Starbucks "has changed everything...from our tastes to our language to the face of Main Street."
During his storied career as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson won more championships than any coach in the history of professional sports. This is the story of a preacher's kid from North Dakota who grew up to be one of the most innovative leaders of our time. Eleven times, Jackson led his teams to the ultimate goal: the NBA championship - six times with the Chicago Bulls and five times with the Los Angeles Lakers. This book is full of revelations.
Meet a genuine American folk hero cut from the homespun cloth of America's heartland: Sam Walton, who parlayed a single dime store in a hardscrabble cotton town into Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world. The undisputed merchant king of the late 20th century, Sam never lost the common touch. Here, finally, inimitable words. Genuinely modest, but always sure of his ambitions and achievements. Sam shares his thinking in a candid, straight-from-the-shoulder style. In a story rich with anecdotes and the "rules of the road" of both Main Street and Wall Street, Sam Walton chronicles the inspiration, heart, and optimism that propelled him to lasso the American Dream.
Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now.
In just a decade and a half, Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded Alibaba and built it into one of the world's largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba's $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever. A Rockefeller of his age who is courted by CEOs and presidents around the world, Jack is an icon for China's booming private sector.
In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company's early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world's most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.
In this, his first audiobook, Tony Hsieh - the widely admired CEO of Zappos, the online shoe retailer -explains how he created a unique culture and commitment to service that aims to improve the lives of its employees, customers, vendors, and backers. Using anecdotes and stories from his own life experiences, and from other companies, Hsieh provides concrete ways that companies can achieve unprecedented success.
You already know the Starbucks story. Since 1992, its stock has risen a staggering 5,000 percent! The genius of Starbucks success lies in its ability to create personalized customer experiences, stimulate business growth, generate profits, energize employees, and secure customer loyalty-all at the same time. The Starbucks Experience contains a robust blend of home-brewed ingenuity and people-driven philosophies that have made Starbucks one of the world's "most admired" companies, according to Fortune magazine.
While building the Virgin Group over 40 years, Richard Branson has never shied away from seemingly outlandish challenges that others (including his own colleagues on several occasions) considered sheer lunacy. He has taken on giants like British Airways and won, and monsters like Coca-Cola and lost. Now Branson gives an inside look at his strikingly different swashbuckling style of leadership.
Howard Behar is one of three top executives who have helped shape one of the most recognized companies in the world: Starbucks. A widely acclaimed leader, Behar, with his signature energy, smarts, high expectations, and belief in people, has become a symbol of the soul and candor of the Starbucks culture.
Ray Dalio, one of the world's most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he's developed, refined, and used over the past 40 years to create unique results in both life and business - and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals.
Google Executive Chairman and ex-CEO Eric Schmidt and former SVP of Products Jonathan Rosenberg came to Google over a decade ago as proven technology executives. At the time, the company was already well-known for doing things differently, reflecting the visionary - and frequently contrarian - principles of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. If Eric and Jonathan were going to succeed, they realized they would have to relearn everything they thought they knew about management and business.
This is the remarkable behind-the-scenes story of the creation and growth of Airbnb, the online lodging platform that has become, in under a decade, the largest provider of accommodations in the world. At first just the wacky idea of cofounders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb has disrupted the $500 billion hotel industry, and its $30 billion valuation is now larger than that of Hilton and close to that of Marriott.
Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran is internationally renowned for uncovering answers to the deep and quirky questions of human nature that few scientists have dared to address. His bold insights about the brain are matched only by the stunning simplicity of his experiments - using such low-tech tools such as cotton swabs, glasses of water, and dime-store mirrors.
In the spirit of Steve Jobs and Moneyball, Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary life of one of Silicon Valley's most exciting, unpredictable, and ambitious entrepreneurs - a real-life Tony Stark - and a fascinating exploration of the renewal of American invention and its new makers.
In Finding My Virginity, Sir Richard Branson shares the secrets that have seen his family business grow from a student magazine into a global brand, his dreams of private citizens flying to space develop from a childhood fantasy to the brink of reality, and his focus shift from battling bigger rivals to changing business for good.
Built from Scratch is the story of how two incredibly determined and creative people - and their associates - built a business from nothing to 761 stores and $30 billion in sales in a mere 20 years. Built from Scratch tells many colorful stories associated with The Home Depot's founding and meteoric rise; shows that a company can be a tough, growth-oriented competitor, and still maintain a high sense of responsibility to the community; and provides great lessons useful to people in any business, from start-ups to the Fortune 500.
Bold is a radical, how-to guide for using exponential technologies, moonshot thinking, and crowd-powered tools to create extraordinary wealth while also positively impacting the lives of billions.
In 2008, Howard Schultz, the president and chairman of Starbucks, made the unprecedented decision to return as CEO, eight years after he stepped down from daily oversight of the company to become chairman. Concerned that Starbucks had lost its way, Schultz was determined to help it return to its core values and restore not only its financial health, but also its soul. In Onward, he shares the remarkable story of the company's ongoing transformation under his leadership, revealing how, during one of the most tumultuous economic times in history, Starbucks again achieved profitability and sustainability without sacrificing humanity.
A compelling, candid narrative documenting the maturing of a brand as well as a businessman, Onward represents Schultz's central leadership philosophy: It's not just about winning, but the right way to win.
Here's what I liked about the book:
- Written by Howard Schultz (CEO) which gives a really cool inside perspective
- Gives a really cool inside look into a well known consumer brand
- Gives a lot of insight into HS's leadership style and some of his leadership habits
- A lot of choices they made with the brand were very fascinating (closing stores, getting back to the core competency, investing in training and development, etc).
Here's what I didn't like
- I don't think it was 100% genuine. I thought it was kind of a sales job, in that CEO sales job kind of way. I'd say it seemed 75% genuine.
- Telling the results of a turnaround story before time has run it's course is ridiculous, as is the general timing of the "turnaround." Hello, we were in a major rebound after a recession.
- HS comes across as annoying - sounds to me like he believes a lot of his on BS.
- I found the book to be a couple of hours too long.
15 of 16 people found this review helpful
Howard is a bit narcissistic in his portrayal of Starbucks 2.0, but he it an excellent story teller, incredibly articulate, and I learned a lot from reading Onward. Actually, I listened to it on 2x or 3x speed, which was just perfect for the treadmill. Enjoy.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
I'm a fan of Starbucks and have great respect for what they achieved.
I was aware of the troubles they went through in 2008-2010 and it's good to hear from the CEO's perspective what happened and how they turned around. Gives us good insight on how successful CEO's think and operate and we get a better understanding of what Starbucks is about.
That said, this book could be about half the lenght... at times it goes on and on and on about things that are not relevant. For example at one point Mr Schultz rambles on about what customers might be doing at a store when the point he was trying to make was something else altogether.
Still, a good story about Starbucks' history. Enjoyed it.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
I have to admit, towards the end I was looking forward to finishing this audiobook. Sometimes the "name dropping" got long and felt purposeless although I can appreciate that Howard Schultz gives credit where credit is due.
The "story" itself is interesting and several parts felt thoroughly inspiring. I have definitely learned a great deal about Starbucks! Other than the company's navigation through its hardships though, the reader (or better yet, the listeners) can also read, between the lines, a great many lessons. From change management, to marketing, to branding and ultimately, to giving a company a soul, this audiobook covers an interesting array of challenges that a company faces. Definitely an interesting listen!
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
If this was available in an abridged format, I would recommend. The issues, commercial and philosophical are interesting, but over a 12-13 hour time frame were very redundant.
What does Stephen Bowlby bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Nothing negative against narrator, but I would prefer the printed version so I could skim and be done with the story in an hour or two. This isn't a story to savor, but basic points are good conversation topics.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
The audience of this book is people who work for Starbucks. It's a way to reinforce corporate dogma. For everyone else (like me) it's hours and hours of sitting through a corporate sales meeting. Very little strategy, business planning, marketing tips, or anything else. Also the book jumps back and forth through time and it all becomes very confusing. Furthermore, the narrator reads very slowly. Definitely thankful for the 2x speed on my iPhone.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
I had read Howard Schultz first book and was already a fan of Starbucks but this book made me even more of a fan. Starbucks is one of those rair companies who manages to stay true to ther roots and their small store beliefs even after they turn public and have thousands of stores. But this is the story or a turn around, of seeing the problems even before they affect the bottom line, of making hard decisions, of treating their people, and customers right. I learned a lot from this book and if your at all interested in Starbucks as a company, or if you have a company that's having trubble, then I recommend this to you. The only drawback, and it's a small one is the reading style is a little slow. I wished at times that Bowlby would speed things up a bit.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Probably a fair book if you are passionate about knowing everything about Starbucks, but not of much use if you intend to learn anything about running a business or being an entrepreneur.
7 of 9 people found this review helpful
In Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its South, Howard Schultz and Joanne Gordon tell the story of how Schultz turned Starbucks around in 2008. Working forward to the present, they relate the ups and downs associated with reviving a company in trouble. The book is revealing on a number of levels. Of course Schultz talks at length about the Starbuck’s mission and values. In addition he tells of times when the company changed strategies and the risk that was involved in implementing those strategies. I was duly reminded of the risks that businesses take often to meet the demands of the market place. Most important to me were the segments of the book dealing with how Schultz bonded workers with the Starbuck’s mission and how he built enthusiasm for the values the company represents. It is probably advisable to take the book with a grain of salt because Schultz ran it after all. However, there is much to appreciate in the book as it informs the reader page after page. The reading of Stephen Bowlby is exceptional.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Ignore the reviews about how Shultz "seems to believe what he says too much." What the heck did you expect - A CEO that doesn't believe in his own company?
For me, this book gave amazing insight into how a top CEO selects his top executives, the challenges in turning a failing company around, how he instills the right company culture and handles Wall Street all at the same time.
First class business book, IMO.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful