Billion Dollar Loser

Author: Reeves Wiedeman
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316461342
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
A Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller: This "vivid" inside story of WeWork and its CEO tells the remarkable saga of one of the most audacious, and improbable, rises and falls in American business history (Ken Auletta). Christened a potential savior of Silicon Valley's startup culture, Adam Neumann was set to take WeWork, his office share company disrupting the commercial real estate market, public, cash out on the company's forty-seven billion dollar valuation, and break the string of major startups unable to deliver to shareholders. But as employees knew, and investors soon found out, WeWork's capital was built on promises that the company was more than a real estate purveyor, that in fact it was a transformational technology company. Veteran journalist Reeves Weideman dives deep into WeWork and it CEO's astronomical rise, from the marijuana and tequila-filled board rooms to cult-like company summer camps and consciousness-raising with Anthony Kiedis. Billion Dollar Loser is a character-driven business narrative that captures, through the fascinating psyche of a billionaire founder and his wife and co-founder, the slippery state of global capitalism. A Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller “Vivid, carefully reported drama that readers will gulp down as if it were a fast-paced novel” (Ken Auletta)

The Cult of We

Author: Eliot Brown
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0593237129
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 473

Book Description
WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • A FINANCIAL TIMES, FORTUNE, AND NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • “The riveting, definitive account of WeWork, one of the wildest business stories of our time.”—Matt Levine, Money Stuff columnist, Bloomberg Opinion The definitive story of the rise and fall of WeWork (also depicted in the upcoming Apple TV+ series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway), by the real-life journalists whose Wall Street Journal reporting rocked the company and exposed a financial system drunk on the elixir of Silicon Valley innovation. LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD WeWork would be worth $10 trillion, more than any other company in the world. It wasn’t just an office space provider. It was a tech company—an AI startup, even. Its WeGrow schools and WeLive residences would revolutionize education and housing. One day, mused founder Adam Neumann, a Middle East peace accord would be signed in a WeWork. The company might help colonize Mars. And Neumann would become the world’s first trillionaire. This was the vision of Neumann and his primary cheerleader, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son. In hindsight, their ambition for the company, whose primary business was subletting desks in slickly designed offices, seems like madness. Why did so many intelligent people—from venture capitalists to Wall Street elite—fall for the hype? And how did WeWork go so wrong? In little more than a decade, Neumann transformed himself from a struggling baby clothes salesman into the charismatic, hard-partying CEO of a company worth $47 billion—on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras, the six-foot-five Israeli transplant looked the part of a messianic truth teller. Investors swooned, and billions poured in. Neumann dined with the CEOs of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, entertaining a parade of power brokers desperate to get a slice of what he was selling: the country’s most valuable startup, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and a generation-defining moment. Soon, however, WeWork was burning through cash faster than Neumann could bring it in. From his private jet, sometimes clouded with marijuana smoke, he scoured the globe for more capital. Then, as WeWork readied a Hail Mary IPO, it all fell apart. Nearly $40 billion of value vaporized in one of corporate America’s most spectacular meltdowns. Peppered with eye-popping, never-before-reported details, The Cult of We is the gripping story of careless and often absurd people—and the financial system they have made.

Aiming High

Author: Atsuo Inoue
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 152933859X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
'I have no intention of making small bets' - Masayoshi Son In order to understand what's happening in Silicon Valley, you just need to look at Masayoshi Son. __________ There is no one in the world right now who is in a better position to influence the next wave of technology than Masayoshi Son. Not Jeff Bezos, not Mark Zuckerberg, not Elon Musk. They might have the money, but they lack Masa's combination of ambition, imagination, and nerve. Masayoshi Son is the most powerful person in Silicon Valley. As CEO and founder of the Japanese investment firm, SoftBank, 'Masa' has invested in some of the most exciting and influential tech companies in recent memory - Uber, WeWork, ByteDance, Slack, and many others. Prior to that, he was known as one of the first investors in Alibaba and Yahoo! He has an audacious vision for the future and one that is unmatched in the tech industry. Aiming High provides insight into this charismatic and visionary leader. Originally published in Japan, this book charts Son's rise from a Korean immigrant who dropped out of high school to becoming one of the wealthiest people in the world. With unprecedented access to Son, including exclusive interviews, this book creates an authoritative account of how SoftBank and it's visionary and charismatic CEO is shaping the future of tech. __________

Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Fall of WeWork

Author: Reeves Wiedeman
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1529385091
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 441

Book Description
*THE SUNDAY TIMES BUISNESS BOOK OF THE YEAR* The remarkable inside story detailing the rise and fall of WeWork, perfect for readers of Too Big to Fail, The Smartest Guys in the Room, Liar's Poker and Apple TV's WeCrashed Readers are loving Billion Dollar Loser 'Incredible story' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Would recommend this book to anyone.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Hard to put down; a rollicking tale where fact surpasses fiction' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Brilliant. Unputdownable.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ __________ 'A satisfying ticktock of the company's rapid rise and crash.' New York Times 'Exposes the sheer madness of WeWork.' Sunday Times In its earliest days, WeWork promised the impossible: to make the workplace cool. Adam Neumann, an immigrant determined to make his fortune in the United States, landed on the idea of repurposing surplus New York office space for the burgeoning freelance class. Over the course of ten years, WeWork attracted billions of dollars from some of the most sought-after investors in the world, while spending it to build a global real estate empire. Based on more than two hundred interviews, Billion Dollar Loser chronicles the breakneck speed at which WeWork's CEO built and grew his company. Culminating in a day-by-day account of the five weeks leading up to WeWork's botched IPO and Neumann's dramatic ouster, Reeves Wiedeman exposes the story of the company's desperate attempt to secure the funding it needed in the final moments of a decade defined by excess. With incredible access and piercing insight into the company, Billion Dollar Loser tells the full, inside story of WeWork and its CEO Adam Neumann who together came to represent the most audacious, and improbable, rise and fall in business. 'A frisky dissection of how a rickety real-estate leasing company tricked the world into seeing it as an immensely valuable, society-shifting tech unicorn.' WIRED __________ *A Sunday Times Best Business Book of the Year* *Fortune Best Book of the Year* *New York Times' Books to Watch* *WIRED Books to Read This Fall* *Bloomberg's Nonfiction Title to Know this Fall* *Newsweek's Must Read Fall Nonfiction* *Publishers Weekly Top Ten for Business & Economics* *InsideHook's Best Books for October*

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber

Author: Mike Isaac
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393652254
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 594

Book Description
Now a SHOWTIME® original series starring Emmy winners Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Kyle Chandler and Academy Award nominee Uma Thurman. Now streaming – Only on SHOWTIME. Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, Fortune, Bloomberg, Sunday Times A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice “If you want to understand modern-day Silicon Valley, you need to read this book.” —John Carreyrou, New York Times best-selling author of Bad Blood Hailed as the definitive book on Uber and Silicon Valley, Super Pumped is an epic story of ambition and deception, obscene wealth, and bad behavior that explores how blistering technological and financial innovation culminated in one of the most catastrophic twelve-month periods in American corporate history. Backed by billions in venture capital dollars and led by a brash and ambitious founder, Uber promised to revolutionize the way we move people and goods through the world. What followed would become a corporate cautionary tale about the perils of startup culture and a vivid example of how blind worship of startup founders can go wildly wrong.

The Platform Delusion

Author: Jonathan A. Knee
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593189442
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
An investment banker and professor explains what really drives success in the tech economy Many think that they understand the secrets to the success of the biggest tech companies: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. It's the platform economy, or network effects, or some other magical power that makes their ultimate world domination inevitable. Investment banker and professor Jonathan Knee argues that the truth is much more complicated--but entrepreneurs and investors can understand what makes the giants work, and learn the keys to lasting success in the digital economy. Knee explains what really makes the biggest tech companies work: a surprisingly disparate portfolio of structural advantages buttressed by shrewd acquisitions, strong management, lax regulation, and often, encouraging the myth that they are invincible to discourage competitors. By offering fresh insights into the true sources of strength and very real vulnerabilities of these companies, The Platform Delusion shows how investors, existing businesses, and startups might value them, compete with them, and imitate them. The Platform Delusion demystifies the success of the biggest digital companies in sectors from retail to media to software to hardware, offering readers what those companies don't want everyone else to know. Knee's insights are invaluable for entrepreneurs and investors in digital businesses seeking to understand what drives resilience and profitability for the long term.

Blood and Oil

Author: Bradley Hope
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0306846659
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 362

Book Description
From award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters comes a revelatory look at the inner workings of the world's most powerful royal family, and how the struggle for succession produced Saudi Arabia's charismatic but ruthless Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS. 35-year-old Mohammed bin Salman's sudden rise stunned the world. Political and business leaders such as former UK prime minister Tony Blair and WME chairman Ari Emanuel flew out to meet with the crown prince and came away convinced that his desire to reform the kingdom was sincere. He spoke passionately about bringing women into the workforce and toning down Saudi Arabia's restrictive Islamic law. He lifted the ban on women driving and explored investments in Silicon Valley. But MBS began to betray an erratic interior beneath the polish laid on by scores of consultants and public relations experts like McKinsey & Company. The allegations of his extreme brutality and excess began to slip out, including that he ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While stamping out dissent by holding 300 people, including prominent members of the Saudi royal family, in the Ritz-Carlton hotel and elsewhere for months, he continued to exhibit his extreme wealth, including buying a $70 million chateau in Europe and one of the world's most expensive yachts. It seemed that he did not understand nor care about how the outside world would react to his displays of autocratic muscle—what mattered was the flex. Blood and Oil is a gripping work of investigative journalism about one of the world's most decisive and dangerous new leaders. Hope and Scheck show how MBS' precipitous rise coincided with the fraying of the simple bargain that had been at the head of US-Saudi relations for more than 80 years: oil, for military protection. Caught in his net are well-known US bankers, Hollywood figures, and politicians, all eager to help the charming and crafty crown prince. The Middle East is already a volatile region. Add to the mix an ambitious prince with extraordinary powers, hunger for lucre, a tight relationship with the White House through President Trump's son in law Jared Kushner, and an apparent willingness to break anything—and anyone—that gets in the way of his vision, and the stakes of his rise are bracing. If his bid fails, Saudi Arabia has the potential to become an unstable failed state and a magnet for Islamic extremists. And if his bid to transform his country succeeds, even in part, it will have reverberations around the world. Longlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

Black Edge

Author: Sheelah Kolhatkar
Publisher:
ISBN: 0812995805
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
"The rise over the last two decades of a powerful new class of billionaire financiers marks a singular shift in the American economic and political landscape. Their vast reserves of concentrated wealth have allowed a small group of big winners to write their own rules of capitalism and public policy. How did we get here? ... Kolhatkar shows how Steve Cohen became one of the richest and most influential figures in finance--and what happened when the Justice Department put him in its crosshairs"--Amazon.com.

Built on a Lie

Author: Owen Walker
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241468221
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Book Description
He was the most celebrated and successful British investor of his generation - but it was all built on a lie. Neil Woodford spent years beating the market; betting against the dot com bubble and the banks before the financial crash in 2008, making blockbuster returns for investors and earning himself a reputation of 'the man who made Middle England rich'. But, in 2019, Woodford's asset management company collapsed, trapping hundreds of thousands of rainy-day savers in his flagship fund and hanging £3.6 billion in the balance. In Built on a Lie, Financial Times reporter Owen Walker reveals the disastrous failings of Woodford, the greed at the heart of his operation and the full, jaw-dropping story of Europe's biggest investment scandal in a decade. 'Vital financial journalism with heart' Emma Barnett, broadcaster 'This is a must read!' Vince Cable, former leader of the Liberal Democrats 'Reads like a rip roaring tale of a corporate high wire act' John McDonnell, former Shadow Chancellor 'Should be sold with a bottle of blood-pressure pills' Edward Lucas, The Time

Billion Dollar Whale

Author: Bradley Hope
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0316436488
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 395

Book Description
Named a Best Book of 2018 by the Financial Times and Fortune, this "thrilling" (Bill Gates) New York Times bestseller exposes how a "modern Gatsby" swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in "the heist of the century" (Axios). Now a #1 international bestseller, Billion Dollar Whale is "an epic tale of white-collar crime on a global scale" (Publishers Weekly), revealing how a young social climber from Malaysia pulled off one of the biggest heists in history. In 2009, a chubby, mild-mannered graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business named Jho Low set in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude--one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Over a decade, Low, with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, siphoned billions of dollars from an investment fund--right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs. Low used the money to finance elections, purchase luxury real estate, throw champagne-drenched parties, and even to finance Hollywood films like The Wolf of Wall Street. By early 2019, with his yacht and private jet reportedly seized by authorities and facing criminal charges in Malaysia and in the United States, Low had become an international fugitive, even as the U.S. Department of Justice continued its investigation. Billion Dollar Whale has joined the ranks of Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves, and Bad Blood as a classic harrowing parable of hubris and greed in the financial world.