by Ernst Malmsten with Erik Portanger & Charles Drazin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2003
Despite the preening tone, a useful business history and a panoramic view of the foolhardy excesses of the late 1990s.
Riches-to-rags tale of an innovative European Internet concern.
Malmsten, co-founder of online fashion and sports retailer boo.com, wrote this warts-and-all account because he realized it “could serve to capture all the broken dreams of the dot.com era.” In 1993 he began working with childhood friend and former model Kajsa Leander to promote Nordic literary events in New York. This led to their establishing a Swedish publishing house, then an early bookselling Web site that they sold for millions, instilling the desire to do “something really ambitious.” They seized upon the idea of a fashion website, since consumers spend more on clothes than on entertainment, with higher profit margins, and finding cutting-edge sportswear was at the time difficult in much of Europe. Malmsten depicts what followed in exhaustive detail. The partners had great success in developing a business plan and site prototype to attract high-end funding but didn’t realize the pitfalls that lay ahead. Well before their technology platform was established, let alone the 3-D imaging capability that lured investors, they’d hired more than a hundred people in London, established offices in New York, Stockholm, Paris, and Munich, and started a fully staffed online magazine. The site’s launch was repeatedly delayed, yet the “street” valuation of the company kept skyrocketing. But then bankers delayed the IPO due to diminished confidence, which resulted in the first round of mass layoffs, and eventually ceased the large cash infusions that sustained the profligate company. This cautionary tale illuminates how youthful Internet visionaries secured pie-in-the-sky infusions of capital from companies like J.P. Morgan and LVMH. However, they must also endure endless besotted recollections of the good life and heedless overspending; Malmsten’s obsessive name-dropping of luxury brands and yearning recollections of the snooty club/hotel scene indicate just what the so-called “revolution” was all about for him.
Despite the preening tone, a useful business history and a panoramic view of the foolhardy excesses of the late 1990s.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-09-941837-1
Page Count: 385
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
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by Enrico Moretti ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2012
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's...
A fresh, provocative analysis of the debate on education and employment.
Up-and-coming economist Moretti (Economics/Univ. of California, Berkeley) takes issue with the “[w]idespread misconception…that the problem of inequality in the United States is all about the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99 percent.” The most important aspect of inequality today, he writes, is the widening gap between the 45 million workers with college degrees and the 80 million without—a difference he claims affects every area of peoples' lives. The college-educated part of the population underpins the growth of America's economy of innovation in life sciences, information technology, media and other areas of globally leading research work. Moretti studies the relationship among geographic concentration, innovation and workplace education levels to identify the direct and indirect benefits. He shows that this clustering favors the promotion of self-feeding processes of growth, directly affecting wage levels, both in the innovative industries as well as the sectors that service them. Indirect benefits also accrue from knowledge and other spillovers, which accompany clustering in innovation hubs. Moretti presents research-based evidence supporting his view that the public and private economic benefits of education and research are such that increased federal subsidies would more than pay for themselves. The author fears the development of geographic segregation and Balkanization along education lines if these issues of long-term economic benefits are left inadequately addressed.
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's more profound problems.Pub Date: May 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-75011-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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by Eric Schmidt ; Jonathan Rosenberg with Alan Eagle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 2014
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.
Two distinguished technology executives share the methodology behind what made Google a global business leader.
Former Google CEO Schmidt (co-author: The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, 2013) and former senior vice president of products Rosenberg share accumulated wisdom and business acumen from their early careers in technology, then later as management at the Internet search giant. Though little is particularly revelatory or unexpected, the companywide processes that have made Google a household name remain timely and relevant within today’s digitized culture. After several months at Google, the authors found it necessary to retool their management strategies by emphasizing employee culture, codifying company values, and rethinking the way staff is internally positioned in order to best compliment their efforts and potential. Their text places “Googlers” front and center as they adopted the business systems first implemented by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who stressed the importance of company-wide open communication. Schmidt and Rosenberg discuss the value of technological insights, Google’s effective “growth mindset” hiring practices, staff meeting maximization, email tips, and the company’s effective solutions to branding competition and product development complications. They also offer a condensed, two-page strategy checklist that serves as an apt blueprint for managers. At times, statements leak into self-congratulatory territory, as when Schmidt and Rosenberg insinuate that a majority of business plans are flawed and that the Google model is superior. Analogies focused on corporate retention and methods of maximizing Google’s historically impressive culture of “smart creatives” reflect the firm’s legacy of spinning intellect and creativity into Internet gold. The authors also demarcate legendary application missteps like “Wave” and “Buzz” while applauding the independent thinkers responsible for catapulting the company into the upper echelons of technological innovation.
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1455582341
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Business Plus/Grand Central
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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