The Rebel Allocator

By: Jacob Taylor

Narrated by: Barrett Leddy

Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

Good capital allocation is the secret sauce of business success and investment returns. How could what you spend money on inside a business not be of utmost importance? 

I looked for a business person's guide to effective capital allocation for years. I thought, "What a nice gift to send to the CEOs of my portfolio companies!" as visions of outsized returns danced in my head. To my dismay, the search came up dry. I decided I'd have to write my own. 

I started at the individual customer transaction level and built all the way up to M&A, share buybacks, and beyond. To keep from boring you, I wrapped the lessons in a coming-of-age story of a college grad crossing paths with a wealthy Midwesterner. Imagine if The Karate Kid's Mr. Miyagi was modeled after a certain well-known Oracle. (OK, it's not The Brothers Karamazov, but I'm not the most original guy.) 

This audiobook is for you if: 

• You're a business decision-maker who was never taught good capital allocation and you're wondering what you're missing. These lessons apply to small business people and Fortune 100 titans, and everyone in between. It doesn't matter if you're public or private, this book will help.
• You're building or advising start-ups. Today's disrupter is tomorrow's capital allocator. Learn it early and save yourself a ton of headache. 
• You're an investor who appreciates the studies finding good capital allocators outperform the S&P 500 by 20x (no joke), and you want an easy way to help management and board members make better decisions. This book will also aid you in spotting those doing capital allocation right - such a huge advantage. (This was my original itch I wanted scratched. Part of me wanted to keep this book to myself and only send it to the management teams in my portfolio.) 
• You're fresh out of school and want to learn the good, and sometimes bad, sides of business. Or you might want to kindle an appreciation for the wonders of capitalism. (Please don't send a copy of this audiobook to Bernie Sanders.)

And perhaps most importantly, your journey will be less painful when mixed with a splash of humor and movie-like pacing. Even if you're like me and consume non-fiction almost exclusively, you're going to be glad you took a chance on this one. This is fiction for the non-fiction listener. 

Yours in improving capital allocation, 
Jake

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Jacob Taylor (P)2019 Jacob Taylor

This book is a poor place to allocate your capital

Where do I begin...

This book was horrible. Poorly written, poorly edited and a story that could have been told in 30 minutes instead of 6 hours. As far as a financial book goes, spend your money elsewhere, you won’t learn anything new. Seriously, you can learn more from just reading a few quotes from Buffet and Munger.

I feel sorry for the narrator, it wasn’t that his performance was bad, he did the best he could with the story.

I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone unless you have a desire to waste time and money. This is a fiction story book and shouldn’t be read/listened to by those who actually want to learn about asset allocation.

Basics of Business Explained

The writer took time to explain the basics of business in an easy to understand way. Would recommend this for anyone who finds it hard to read business books.

Buffet Basics: The Book

The author does a wonderful job taking concepts obscure to the beginning investor or business man and explains them wonderfully. It's not a terribly sophisticated story, but functions well as a set of business parables.
Take note of the PDF if you are listening on audible. It really makes the info much more digestible

A book to learn and savor important concepts of capital allocation

A wonderfully written book with uses the story telling to drive home important concepts to understand in capital allocation - zero based budgeting; relationship between value, price, cost, profit and brand; scale of economies; ROIC; franchising, capital allocation to name a few. Warren Buffet quotes sprinkled and explained all through the course of the book was very valuable to add wisdom from the legend. It was enjoyable to hear the audio book because of the production as well! Using unique voice modulation gravitates the listeners into the content. I feel Jacob has indeed made Mr.X proud and the rock dropped is causing ripples to travel far. Thanks for all the effort in sharing knowledge on capital allocation to through well written book!! Would definitely recommend and gift this book to my friends!! Great book to read to view world through a different lens!

An instant classic!

Many fiction books on business have been written but I find this one to be the best! You truly get immersed in the characters and the business concepts are put into laymen terms. This book goes into the Re-read category for sure.

The reader did an excellent job with the characters as well and I never became bored with his voice.

I would recommend this book to anybody starting out on their understanding of capitalism, or a seasoned pro!

A young adult read packed with investing wisdom

A young adult read packed with investing wisdom, a mix of Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger quotes

Nice story about serious topic.

It is a nice story about capital allocation which is written in an easy form with lots of jokes. It is especially good for beginners in investment.

full of incredible wisdom. smart guy

I normally don't read fiction. but I'm glad I did with this one. the audio version is great for driving, and you will learn slot about investing without even noticing

narrator is perfect

narrator is perfect. how he is making different voices for different characters. also the story is good.

Great Lessons and Fun Story

I enjoyed listening. The story is fun, a little predictable, but that isn't a big problem because the real purpose of this story are the lessons on capital allocation. Going through each lesson with the main character was a great way to permanently learn the principles. Even with some of the things I already learned, I still benefited because the creative ways they were explained gave me new ways of looking at the challenges and solutions when running great businesses. Many of the criticisms I keep seeing seem to be about the reader being let down due to book being simple, which I don't understand. I see it as crucial core principles broken down into an easy to understand and remember story. With the way some people are investing and running their businesses, I think there are many out there who need to read this book, because I bet this is a lot more advanced than whatever they learned somewhere else.

Loved it

Great interesting story. Combines a lot of lessons from the greats. Combines a lot of lessons from the greats.