Business Memoirs

This printing of Men and Rubber: The Story of Business by Harvey S. Firestone is part of the Farnam Street Timeless Classics Series, where we continue with our goal of "mastering the best of what other people have figured out".

Peter Lynch, one of the most successful investors of all time, shows you how to use what you already know to make money in the market. You'll discover why smart money is not so smart - and why you may be a better stock picker than the pros, how to follow your hunches and back them up with facts, how to disregard reports on the economy and pick your own time to buy and sell, and how to determine which types of stocks are right for you. Lynch is the former manager of the $9 billion Fidelity Magellan Fund, where he earned investors a $190,000 return on a $10,000 investment.

America has been through the biggest financial crisis since the great Depression, unemployment numbers are frightening, median wages have been flat since the 1970s, and it is common to expect that things will get worse before they get better. Certainly, the multidecade stagnation is not yet over. How will we get out of this mess?

In the streaming reality series Selling Sunset, Mary Fitzgerald Bonnet is the charismatic, calm, and level-headed agent who effortlessly lands multi-million-dollar homes while sidestepping the drama of a cutthroat business in one of the wealthiest and most glamorous places in the world. Often thought of as the “big sister” of her co-stars for her compassionate advice and uplifting attitude, Mary is admired for her unwavering kindness. But behind her sunny personality is a remarkable story of resilience, forged by a life filled with profound challenges.

Mark H. McCormack, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in American business, is widely credited as the founder of the modern-day sports marketing industry. On a handshake with Arnold Palmer and less than a thousand dollars, he started International Management Group and, over a four-decade period, built the company into a multimillion-dollar enterprise with offices in more than forty countries. To this day, McCormack’s business classic remains a must for executives and managers at every level.

The prize-winning and best-selling author of Say Nothing presents a grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling.

As Wall Street swooned and boomed through the last decade, our livelihoods have—now more than ever—come to rely upon the good sense and risk appetites of a few standout investors. And amidst the BlackRocks, Vanguards, and Berkshire Hathaways stands arguably the most iconoclastic of them all: SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son. In Gambling Man, the first Western biography of Son, the self-professed unicorn hunter, we go behind the scenes of the world’s most monied halls of power in New York, Tokyo, Silicon Valley, Saudi Arabia, and beyond.

The Monopolists reveals the unknown story of how Monopoly came into existence, the reinvention of its history by Parker Brothers and multiple media outlets, the lost female originator of the game, and one man's lifelong obsession to tell the true story about the game's questionable origins.

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.

Three titans of finance predicted the current economic crisis several years ago, but their warnings went unheeded. A New York Times best-selling author distills the wisdom of all three.

Throughout the violent financial disruptions of the past several years, three men have stood out as beacons of judgment and wisdom: Warren Buffett, George Soros, and Paul Volcker.

Following in the footsteps of her best-selling Warren Buffett Speaks - written in a conversational style that successfully captures the essence of these business leaders - Janet Lowe reveals the amazing story behind one of the most important new companies of our time by exploring the people and philosophies that have made Google a global phenomenon in less than 15 years.

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.

Samantha Wills started her self-titled jewellery company on the kitchen table of her share house in the eastern suburbs of Sydney when she was just 21 years old. While her rise to the global stage looked meteoric to many, Samantha has said 'It took me 12 years to become an overnight success.' Following Samantha's journey, from being named a breakout star by The New York Times to barely being able to breathe on a hotel room floor, Of Gold and Dust is so much more than a business memoir.

Indira Nooyi's meteoric rise and success has been charted by every newspaper and business journal in the world, but how many of us know the person behind the image? The Secret of Success: The Story of Indira Nooyi gives us a rare insight into Nooyi's life, her childhood, the choices she made, the struggles she faced and the lessons she learnt on her way to the top.

While working together at a Los Angeles boutique, Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor became fast and furious friends over the impossibility of finding the perfect T-shirt. Following their vision of comfortable, fitted T-shirts, they set up shop in Gela’s one-bedroom Hollywood apartment with $200 and one rule: Whatever they did, they both had to be obsessed by it. Pam and Gela eventually sold their company to Liz Claiborne for $50 million, but not before they created a whole new genre of casual clothing that came to define California cool.

A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P.Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece.

Paul Van Doren is the founder of Vans - the shoe company beloved by skateboarders, creatives, and fans everywhere for its laid-back, colorful SoCal vibe, and famous for its people-oriented company culture. How did Van Doren establish a family shoe business that evolved into a globally recognized brand with annual revenue of more than four billion dollars? A blue-collar kid with no higher education and zero retail experience, Van Doren leveraged a knack for numbers, a genius for efficiency, and the know-how to make a great canvas tennis shoe into an all-American success story.

Through useful lessons, lively stories, and vivid examples, this book shows you how to employ Serhant's principles to increase profits and achieve success. Your measure of a good day will no longer depend on one deal or one client, wondering what comes next; the next deal is already happening. And Serhant's practical guidance will show you how to juggle multiple deals at once and close all of them. Every. Single. Time.

In her eye-opening memoir, Georganne Chapin exposes the business of medical circumcision. This unnecessary and most common pediatric surgery in the United States permanently reduces the size and alters the function of a boy’s penis for the rest of his life. Every year, nearly 1.5 million baby boys are assaulted in American hospitals and doctors’ offices, subjecting them to pain, functional and psychological damage, and a forever-altered sexual experience.

From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic.