Tarzan Economics

Eight Principles for Pivoting Through Disruption

By: Will Page

Narrated by: Angus King

Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Taking the lessons learned from his years studying the rise and fall of the modern music industry, Spotify's chief economist has crafted “a compelling and generous read” (Scott Galloway) that provides the tools to recognize and adapt to disruption in any industry.

As the chief economist at Spotify, Will Page has had the best seat in the house for witnessing - and harnessing - the power of disruptive change. Music has often been the canary in the coal mine for major technological and societal shifts, and if there’s one thing Page learned from the digital revolution, it’s that businesses must be ready to pivot.

Drawing practical lessons from a variety of fresh case studies covering Radiohead, Starbucks, and even Groucho Marx, Page examines the eight principles that disruption has thrown into sharp relief as keys to survival in any sector. Businesses need to be ready and willing to change and, if necessary, be prepared to rebuild entire organizations and business models to do so. Pivoting through disruption has everything to do with being able to see the revolutionary changes around the corner, recognizing your strengths, and having the confidence to let go of the old vine of doing business and grab onto the new.

A rare book of economics offering actionable takeaways in easy-to-understand language, Tarzan Economics is the must-listen book for anyone staring at their own Napster moment and wishing they knew how to fail-safe their business.

©2021 Will Page (P)2021 Little, Brown & Company

Critic reviews

"As the chief economist at Spotify, Will Page didn’t just react to disruption - he anticipated it and helped to fuel it. His experience in the music industry is full of takeaways for riding waves of change instead of being bowled over by them.” (Adam Grant, number one New York Times best-selling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife)

“This book carries lessons on two essential concepts in today’s world: the attention economy and the difference between builders and farmers. The takeaways are as relevant to running a large corporation as they are to starting your own business. A compelling and generous read.” (Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern, best-selling author of The Four and Post Corona, cohost of the Pivot podcast)

"Quite a few business books are about digital disruption. Others are insider's guides filled with juicy stories. A precious few are actually fun to read. Tarzan Economics is all three of these, and more. It will make you smarter about what's been happening. And what's about to." (Andrew McAfee, cofounder of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy; coauthor of The Second Machine Age and author of More from Less)

Learn to think ahead by measuring what you can't

Will is a gifted economist who helps you zoom in on various scenarios that help you see the old vine of business from the new ones in front of you. How do you measure what you can't? When things change in your vertical, how will you know and be prepared before the industry transforms without you? All this and a lot more in the book. Will writes about the transformation of the music industry but it's applicable in all industries. Highly recommended read.

Love for Music, Economics and Business? Read This!

The writer works for Spotify and he knows how to capture an audience in our ADD society! So so so very interesting and entertaining! It’s a good buy too because at 10 hours run time, you don’t feel like you’re getting jipped for using a whole credit!

Lots of great material but sometimes lecturing

The book does a great job of painting a picture of how the digital economy works and how classical economics needs an update. For instance, wikipedia provides a world of good, but doesn't show up as GDP. Or, user attention is an important metric, which isn't captured in classical economics. If you worry your industry is or will be disrupted by the digital economy, this book is for you.

The author also mixes in humor along the way quite effectively. For instance, we are taught that monopolies are bad, but it isn't as clear cut in the tech world. To illustrate his point, he quotes a British politician, who says "Why is the competition authority a monopoly?"

While the author articulates his points well, he has a habit of creating strawmen, be it caricatures of the music industry in the late 1990s (yes, they were wrong, but it would have been nice to get to know what their pre-disruption lives were like) or Net Promoter Score (Few people I know treat it as "the only metric you need to know"). He also comes across as lecturing, forgetting that some of his audience is already doing the right thing.

The narrator is Scottish and speaks similar to the author (whom I've heard). However, the accent is a bit strong, and so try the sample before committing to the audiobook. I also listened at 1.25x speed because the narrator was a bit slow for me.

Despite the bit of lecturing, I would recommend the book to understand the economics of the times we live in, something that is absent from mainstream discourse.