Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Business Leaders

In 2011, Tim Cook took on an impossible task - following in the footsteps of one of history's greatest business visionaries, Steve Jobs. Facing worldwide scrutiny, Cook (who was often described as shy, unassuming and unimaginative) defied all expectations. Under Cook's leadership Apple has soared: its stock has nearly tripled to become the world's first trillion-dollar company. From the massive growth of the iPhone to new victories like the Apple Watch, Cook is leading Apple to a new era of success.

Steve Coll investigates the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States, revealing the true extent of its power. ExxonMobil’s annual revenues are larger than the economic activity in the great majority of countries. In many of the countries where it conducts business, ExxonMobil’s sway over politics and security is greater than that of the United States embassy. In Washington, ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress and the White House than almost any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is a black box.

South African-born Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity. Musk wants to save our planet; he wants to send citizens into space, to form a colony on Mars; he wants to make money while doing these things; and he wants us all to know about it. He is the real-life inspiration for the Iron Man series of films starring Robert Downey, Jr.

Japan’s Masayoshi Son has made and lost several fortunes, investing or controlling assets worth $1trn in the past two decades through his media-tech giant, SoftBank. He bankrolled Alibaba, China’s internet colossus, before the world had heard about it; plotted with Steve Jobs to turn the iPhone into a wonder product; and financed hundreds of tech start-ups, fuelling the biggest boom Silicon Valley has ever seen. This book takes you on Masa’s wild ride, from his birthplace in a Korean slum in post-war Japan to the modern-day temples of power.

Rising star New York Times technology reporters, Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, tell for the first time the full and shocking inside story of Elon Musk’s unprecedented hostile takeover of Twitter and the forty-four-billion-dollar deal’s seismic political, social, and financial fallout. This is the defining story of our time told with uncommon style and peerless rigor. In a world of viral ideas and emotion, who gets to control the narrative, who gets to be heard, and what does power really cost?

Frustrated by the high costs and difficulty of accepting credit card payments, McKelvey joined his friend Jack Dorsey (the cofounder of Twitter) to launch Square, a startup that would enable small merchants to accept credit card payments on their mobile phones. The Innovation Stack is a thrilling business narrative that's much bigger than the story of Square. It is an irreverent first-person look inside the world of entrepreneurship, and a call to action for all of us to find the entrepreneur within ourselves and identify and fix unsolved problems - one crazy idea at a time.

Self-made billionaire Sam Zell consistently sees what others don't. From finding a market for overpriced Playboy magazines among his junior high classmates, to buying real estate on the cheap after a market crash, to investing in often unglamorous industries with long-term value, Zell acts boldly on supply and demand trends to grab the first-mover advantage. And he can find opportunity virtually anywhere - from an arcane piece of legislation to a desert meeting in Abu Dhabi.

Based on years of reporting on Samsung for the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and Time from his base in South Korea and his countless sources inside and outside the company, Geoffrey Cain offers the first deep look behind the curtains of the biggest company nobody knows. How has this happened? Forty years ago, Samsung was a rickety Korean agricultural conglomerate that produced sugar, paper, and fertiliser.

Ever since he was a kid, kicking broken footballs on the streets of East London in the shadow of Canary Wharf's skyscrapers, Gary wanted something better. Something a whole lot bigger. Then he won a competition run by a bank: 'The Trading Game'. The prize: a golden ticket to a new life, as the youngest trader in the whole city. A place where you could make more money than you'd ever imagined. Where your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths, yet they start to feel like family.

John Paulson, a softly spoken hedge-fund manager who still took the bus to work, seemed unlikely to stake his career on one big gamble. But he did - and The Greatest Trade Ever is the story of how he realised that the sub-prime housing bubble was going to burst, making $15 billion for his fund and more than $4 billion for himself in a single year. It's a tale of folly and wizardry, individual brilliance versus institutional stupidity.

The CEO of the Walt Disney Company shares the ideas and values he has used to reinvent one of the most beloved companies in the world, and inspire the people who bring the magic to life. In 2005, Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company during a difficult time. Morale had deteriorated, competition was more intense, and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company's history. Twelve years later, Disney is the largest, most respected media company in the world counting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox among its properties.

Felix Dennis is an expert at proving people wrong. Starting as a college dropout with no family money, he created a publishing empire, founded Maxim magazine, made himself one of the richest people in the UK, and had a blast in the process. How to Get Rich is different from any other book on the subject because Dennis isn't selling snake oil, investment tips, or motivational claptrap. He merely wants to help people embrace entrepreneurship, and to share lessons he learned the hard way.

Available exclusively in audio, Losing and Finding My Virginity is both of Sir Richard Branson’s multi-million-copy bestselling autobiographies in one combined edition, fully revised and updated, and read for you by the author in full for the first time. From living on a houseboat to a paradise island home, growing a small business into the global Virgin brand, turning a childhood dream of flying to space into a reality, and building a better world through business, this is an account of almost six decades of entrepreneurship, overcoming the odds and reaching for the stars.

In his long-awaited memoir, Yvon Chouinard - legendary climber, businessman, environmentalist, and founder of Patagonia, Inc. - shares the persistence and courage that have gone into being head of one of the most respected and environmentally responsible companies on earth. From his youth as the son of a French Canadian blacksmith to the thrilling, ambitious climbing expeditions that inspired his innovative designs for the sport's equipment.

Jim Simons is the greatest moneymaker in modern financial history. His record bests those of legendary investors, including Warren Buffett, George Soros and Ray Dalio. Yet Simons and his strategies are shrouded in mystery. The financial industry has long craved a look inside Simons's secretive hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies and veteran Wall Street Journal reporter Gregory Zuckerman delivers the goods.

The Dealmaker is a frank and honest account of how a severely dyslexic child who struggled at school went on to graduate from Oxford and become a serial entrepreneur. It describes Guy Hand's career in private equity, first at Nomura and then as head of his own company, Terra Firma. It looks in detail at the huge deals that Terra Firma has done over the years, involving everything from cinema chains and pubs to waste management, aircraft leasing and green energy.

In 2008, Elon Musk's SpaceX became the first private company to build a low-cost rocket that could reach orbit. Suddenly Silicon Valley, not NASA, was the epicentre of the new Space Age. Start-ups and investors began to realise that the heavens - ungoverned and unregulated - were open for business. When the Heavens Went on Sale tells the remarkable, unfolding story of this frenzied race to control access to outer space. Ashlee Vance follows four pioneering companies - Astra, Firefly, Planet Labs and Rocket Lab - as they attempt to launch thousands of low-cost rockets and satellites into orbit.

In Lost and Founder Rand Fishkin reveals the mostly awful, sometimes awesome truth about startup culture with the transparency and humour that his hundreds of thousands of blog readers have come to love. Fishkin's hard-won lessons are applicable to any kind of business environment and this audiobook can help solve your problems, and make you feel less alone for having them.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of #Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso, read by Sarah Jes Austell. The first thing Sophia Amoruso sold online wasn't fashion. It was a stolen book. At age 17 she was a dumpster-diving, shoplifting anarchist. By 29 she was the founder and CEO of Nasty Gal, a $100 million-plus fashion empire. Filled with brazen wake-up calls ("You are not a special snowflake"), frank observations ("Failure is your invention"), and behind-the-scenes stories....

Elon Musk is among the most controversial titans of Silicon Valley. To some, he's a genius and a visionary, and to others, he's a mercurial huckster. Billions of dollars have been gained and lost on his tweets, and his personal exploits are the stuff of tabloids. But for all his outrageous talk of mind-uploading and space travel, his most audacious vision is the one closest to the ground: the electric car.