Little Bosses Everywhere

How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America

De: Bridget Read

Narrado por: Nikki Massoud

A “gripping” (The Washington Post) work of history and reportage that unveils the stranger-than-fiction world of multilevel marketing: a massive money-making scam and radical political conspiracy that has remade American society.

“Reads like a thriller . . . masterfully illuminates the tricks and sleights of hand that in multilevel marketing are simply the rules of doing business.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

Companies like Amway, Mary Kay, and Herbalife advertise the world’s greatest opportunity: the chance to be your own boss via an enigmatic business model called multilevel marketing, or MLM. They offer a world of pink Cadillacs, white-columned mansions, tropical vacations, and—most precious of all—financial freedom. If, that is, you’re willing to shell out for expensive products and recruit everyone you know to buy them, and if they recruit everyone they know, too, thus creating the “multiple levels” of MLM.

Overwhelming evidence suggests that most people lose money in multilevel marketing, and that many MLM companies are pyramid schemes. Yet the industry’s origins, tied to right-wing ideologues like Ronald Reagan, have escaped public scrutiny. MLM has slithered in the wake of every economic crisis of the last century, from the Depression to the pandemic, ensnaring laid-off workers, stay-at-home moms, and teachers—anyone who has been left behind by rising inequality.

In Little Bosses Everywhere, journalist Bridget Read tells the gripping story of multilevel marketing in full for the first time, winding from sunny postwar California, where a failed salesman started a vitamin business, through the devoutly religious suburbs of Michigan, where the industry built its political influence, to stadium-size conventions where today’s top sellers preach to die-hard recruits. MLM has enriched powerful people, like the DeVos and Van Andel families, Warren Buffett, and President Donald Trump, all while eroding public institutions and the social safety net, then profiting from the chaos. Along the way, Read delves into the stories of those devastated by the majority-female industry: a veteran in Florida searching for healing; a young mom in Texas struggling to feed her children; a waitress scraping by in Brooklyn.

A wild trip down an endless rabbit hole of greed and exploitation, Little Bosses Everywhere exposes multilevel marketing as American capitalism’s stealthiest PR campaign, a cunning grift that has shaped nearly everything about how we live, and whose ultimate target is democracy itself.

©2025 Bridget Read (P)2025 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“[A] deeply reported thrill ride-slash-horror story. This book is fascinating. And scary as hell.”—Vulture

“Gripping and instructive. . . . Lucid and engaging . . . . [Bridget Read] sketches a vivid portrait of a cultish culture.”—The Washington Post

“Fascinating. . . . Read upends everything we thought we knew about multilevel marketing. . . . It may be nonfiction, but Little Bosses Everywhere reads like a work of narrative fiction.”—Katie Couric Media

Great information, meh narrator

Excellent deep dive into the history and current dystopian reality of MLMs!

I know this is non-fiction, and the narrator wasn’t bad by any measure, but the way she ended chapters was so abrupt. There was not even any change in tone when she was reading the last words of the book. When the audible guy came up saying “thank you…” I was like what?

Comprehensive history of MLM

The author ties together the financial and political aspects of MLM in a comprehensive way. The fact is that the only people who make money on MLM schemes are the people who created them. The amount of money and influence spent on avoiding and defying regulations should be criminal (spoiler -- it rarely works out that way).

The reason the performance is rated low is the reader's repeated and grating mispronunciation of the word jewelry. It's JEWEL-ry (relating to jewels) not jew-ler-y, folks.

Dream or scam

Interesting insight into MLM (multi level marketing) “ businesses and opportunities”
Something redesigned or repackaged every decade or so in response to economic situations.
Part of the pitch is living the American dream and have you done all you can do.
Where we will this go next

This is An Amazing read

This blew me away. I’ve been anti-MLM for years now, HATE the predatory business model and hoping for regulations to eliminate them but this book was such a thorough explanation of how they came to be and how they slip and slide through loopholes of legalities. Not to mention the financial devastation they leave in their wake. Very well done.

Fascinating

I find that this is well researched, but it was annoying to hear the authors personal politics in the last 40 minutes. Nevertheless I think this is a needed read for our day!

Great read totally on point.

As someone who joined Amway back in the 90s, I can vouch that this book is totally on point. As many people often do in these shady businesses, I hung on for far too long before realizing I’d been wasting my time and my life on this nonsense. Not much has changed since then. MLM’s are not a legitimate business opportunity for the VAST majority of people who join. I didn’t realize while I was involved in it, that the really wealthy people in the business – The Bill Britt’s and Dexter Yeager’s of the business, were making MOST of their money with their tool scam. When you join, they convince you that you need to “stay plugged in” and buy books, subscribe to audio (cassette tapes back in the 90s), and go to their functions. This is where most of the money is made in Amway. Very few if any distributors actually “sell” products to anyone. They convince you to get rid of “negative products” in your household, replacing them with overpriced Amway products to increase product volume while most never actually sell retail. The entire business model from Amway’s standpoint is a grift to sell their overpriced products to people dreaming of building a business as an independent businessman, while the company avoids payroll and labor law. The business model for the wealth distributors is a grift selling seminars, rallies, audio subscriptions and overpriced books because that’s where the REAL money is made, not peddling soap and vitamins. Most distributors are losing money, not making it. A friend of mine who also tried to make it in this business went into bankruptcy trying to keep it going, and they STILL stayed in for a few more years believing someday it was going to happen for him. If anyone approaches you with any MLM opportunity where you have to recruit others to “duplicate” yourself, don’t walk away, RUN!

Well researched.

Well researched. Well told. Well narrated. If this subject matter interests you, it’s a must.

Incredible insight and historical context

A book worth reading or listening to; not only informs readers of MLM companies but also the people & politics behind them.

Great book

Shows how religion, free market ideology and exploitation intertwine in America. Free market = freedom to rip off other people.

Informative, sad and agonizing

In 1999, a person I met at an IKEA relentlessly pursued me to attend an “e-commerce seminar.” I avoided him assiduously until one day, I took his call and agreed to participate in the seminar to get him off my back. It was a Quixtar meeting in a local hotel, and I vividly remember the keynote. The speaker was simply brilliant. His ability to get people to mentally spend money they didn’t have, and will likely never have, is what I remember the most about that meeting. I walked away forever wary of random strangers who try to get friendly and familiar.

This book provides excellent insight into the world behind that Quixstar meeting. It is very well written, and the narrator does a fantastic job. I am endlessly fascinated by how people are conned into such scams.

A number of other reviewers have commented negatively about the writer’s politics. I think this is unfair, as politics is so inherently linked to the business model of MLM companies and their owners. We are living through times when the regulatory state is being dismantled before our eyes, and I expect to see more such scams, crypto being another one.