Business Narratives -- the best kind of "business book"
Not all “business books” deliver value. There are lots of bullshit brand-builders or 1-idea books with 200 pages of filler. Even some well-intentioned business books just fail to stick lessons in my mind because there is no over-arching story.
This is a little collection of books that are top-tier at teaching valuable business lessons and telling an amazing story — which makes both more useful and more enjoyable.
If you have recommendations or love these too, comment on this post!
Shoe Dog - Phil Knight
I was deeply hesitant about reading yet another polished founding story, but this one is raw and real and fascinating. Phil Knight was a very average importer of very average Japanese sneakers... until he was screwed by a supplier and forced to take the risk of innovation or watch his company implode.
He created his own brand (Nike) and started to sell a new kind of shoe for an emerging market — runners. Phil’s story is a perfect example of applying Specific Knowledge to building your business. His personal experience as a runner and relationship with the legendary track program at University of Oregon were the ‘secret sauce’ of this success story.
Made In America - Sam Walton, Founder of Wal-Mart
The story of Sam Walton, and the building of Wal-mart. A plain-talk, straightforward book from the greatest discount retailer in history. Sam didn’t start Wal-mart until he was 44 years old, but he was an operator in grocery his whole life preior.
The common narrative that Wal-mart is a MegaCorp that destroys mom-and-pop businesses is painfully ironic. Sam Walton IS a small-town mom-and-pop business... the best one who ever lived. He was an obsessive, ambitious, demanding leader who pushed harder and harder to get (and give) lower prices.
The most interesting part was the end, where he expresses his main regret, how he treated the associates in the stores (as expenses), and how he could have shared the gains of the value of wal-mart more deeply (equity to store managers).
The Fish that Ate the Whale - Rich Cohen
This book reads like fiction. The impossible story of Sam Zemurray, a penniless immigrant who started his career fishing individual bananas out of the water in the harbor and selling them on the street. He ended his career as the chairman of United Fruit.
Along the way, he did every job in the banana supply chain, lost his brother to some horrific tropical disease, and hired mercenaries to overthrow governments in Central America. (Yes, governments. Plural.)
This book is history, biography, geopolitics, and a business memoir all in one. I learned why bananas are so cheap, how they were marketed, and how one man at the head of one company can move the pieces of the world.
Every time I eat a banana, I now marvel at the depth of the interconnectedness of our world, and of the life of Sam Zemmuray. You can have an incredible career anywhere, since our reality has as surprising amount of detail.
Red Notice - Bill Browder
Bill Browder has lived a life. The only American living and investing in Russia in the 90s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He achieved truly incredible returns… while enduring some pretty unprecedented risks.
This book perfectly captures the “no such thing as easy money” idea. It begins with a young man on a career path through finance, becomes a tale of entrepreneurship, then suddenly you are reading a geopolitical thriller about an international battle with legal, financial, and physically violent fronts.
Without their Permission - Alexis Ohanian, Founder of Reddit
The scrappy story of the founding of Reddit by Alexis Ohanian. I loved finding out how this company grew from such a small start, and such hustle. Snoo (the alien mascot) was sketched on a napkin. Early users were the founders having fake arguments to create active forums. It was a great story of the hustle + grind that created one of the top 10 websites in the world, underrated to this day!