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.

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 Smart

Author: Fredrik deBoer
Publisher: All Points Books
ISBN: 1250200385
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
Named one of Vulture’s Top 10 Best Books of 2020! Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform. Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: Academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved. In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability. Since cognitive talent varies from person to person, our education system can never create equal opportunity for all. Instead, it teaches our children that hierarchy and competition are natural, and that human value should be based on intelligence. These ideas are counter to everything that the left believes, but until they acknowledge the existence of individual cognitive differences, progressives remain complicit in keeping the status quo in place. This passionate, voice-driven manifesto demands that we embrace a new goal for education: equality of outcomes. We must create a world that has a place for everyone, not just the academically talented. But we’ll never achieve this dream until the Cult of Smart is destroyed.

The Cult of the Amateur

Author: Andrew Keen
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 0385520816
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement. Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors. In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented. The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While no Luddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions. Offering concrete solutions on how we can reign in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us.

The Cult of the Customer

Author: Shep Hyken
Publisher: Sound Wisdom
ISBN: 1640951547
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Book Description
In today’s competitive business climate, you can’t just satisfy your customers. You have to be better than that, giving them experiences that they won’t forget. Author Shep Hyken has spent thirty years studying great companies and the evangelists they create. In The Cult of the Customer, Hyken shows how to design a strategy that leads both customers and employees through five distinct cultural phases – from "uncertainty" to "amazement." By presenting dozens of case studies that show how great companies made this journey, Hyken identifies the critical internal and external changes that allowed them to build a Cult of the Customer – and shows how you can do it too. Hyken’s message is both powerful and timely: the happier your customers and employees are, the more successful your company will be. The Cult of the Customer is your guide to creating a customer-focused culture that turns satisfied customers into customer evangelists.

The Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition

Author: Leander Kahney
Publisher: No Starch Press
ISBN: 1593279140
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Book Description
It's been nearly fifteen years since Apple fans raved over the first edition of the critically-acclaimed The Cult of Mac. This long-awaited second edition brings the reader into the world of Apple today while also filling in the missing history since the 2004 edition, including the creation of Apple brand loyalty, the introduction of the iPhone, and the death of Steve Jobs. Apple is a global luxury brand whose products range from mobile phones and tablets to streaming TVs and smart home speakers. Yet despite this dominance, a distinct subculture persists, which celebrates the ways in which Apple products seem to encourage self-expression, identity, and innovation. The beautifully designed second edition of The Cult of Mac takes you inside today's Apple fandom to explore how devotions--new and old--keep the fire burning. Join journalists Leander Kahney and David Pierini as they explore how enthusiastic fans line up for the latest product releases, and how artists pay tribute to Steve Jobs' legacy in sculpture and opera. Learn why some photographers and filmmakers have eschewed traditional gear in favor of iPhone cameras. Discover a community of collectors around the world who spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy, restore, and enshrine Apple artifacts, like the Newton MessagePad and Apple II. Whether you're an Apple fan or just a casual observer, this second edition of The Cult of Mac is sure to reveal more than a few surprises, offering an intimate look at some of the most dedicated members in the Apple community.

They Called Us a Cult

Author: Buddy Dawson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780942507782
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
Unexpectedly, I no longer felt as if I had stumbled into some kind of private cult. Instead, I began to feel ugly and unclean, like a beggar in a palace or a stain on the front of a wedding dress. I knew I did not belong, but I knew I had to stay. The atmosphere was charged with an indescribable feeling of holiness and purity. As I sat with my head in my hands, suddenly, I felt the presence of someone standing behind me. Fear came up into my throat making me too afraid to turn and face my would-be captor, but realizing I had been discovered, I slowly sat up in the seat, not knowing what would happen next.

The Cult

Author: Max Ehrlich
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780553123999
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
John Morse kidnaps young followers from The Souls for Jesus cult.

Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing

Author: LAUREN. HOUGH
Publisher: Coronet
ISBN: 9781529382525
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description

The Cult Called Freedom House

Author: Stephanie Evelyn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781708273620
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
Everyone but Sophia and Cyrus were going to die. They were all goners well before they knew it. And they certainly thought whatever was happening, they were helping others and saving the world doing it. Samantha was only fourteen and looking for what every fourteen-year-old looks for-- freedom. She wanted to be as far away from her substance-riddled mother and abusive home as possible, but she never asked for anything like this. It always starts with just one person and one fucked up idea. This is the story about Samantha and the cult called Freedom House.A psychological horror thriller, this book will frustrate you, scare you, disturb you, and at times, it will make you want to be ill. Are you ready to learn what's going on behind the doors of Freedom House?"You're not going to want to miss this one. It's dark, creepy, disgusting, emotional, and I couldn't put it down. An amazing debut that I'll be thinking about for a long time." - Matt Redmon, Team Redmon Reads and Nightworms Reviewer"I'm now going to go bundle myself in a cozy blanket, hug my pets, and rock myself to sleep." - Steve Gomzi, Horror Reviewer