Career Memoirs

Silicon Valley visionary John Chambers shares the lessons that transformed a dyslexic kid from West Virginia into one of the world's best business leaders and turned a simple router company into a global tech titan.

With $1,500 and no business experience, Mel and Patricia Ziegler turned a wild idea into a company that would become the international retail colossus Banana Republic. Reimagining military surplus as safari and expedition wear, the former journalist and artist created a world that captured the zeitgeist for a generation and spoke to the creativity, adventure, and independence in everyone.

By accepting the CEO job at Hewlett-Packard, an iconic company that had lost its way, Carly Fiorina confirmed her status as the most powerful businesswoman in America. But she also made herself a target for everyone who disliked her bold leadership style and resented her rapid rise. For six years, as she led HP through drastic changes and a controversial merger, Fiorina was the subject of endless analysis, debate, and speculation.

After Steve Jobs was unceremoniously dismissed from Apple, he turned his attention to a little-known graphics art company that he owned called Pixar. One day, out of the blue, Jobs called Lawrence Levy, a Harvard-trained lawyer and Silicon Valley executive to whom he had never spoken before, in the hope of persuading Levy to help him get Pixar on the right track. What Levy found in Pixar was a company on the verge of failure. To Pixar and Beyond is the extraordinary story of what happened next.

Ready to break through the six-figure plateau? Discover an actionable strategy to cross over the million-dollar milestone with grace and ease. Honorary PhD and award-winning Inc. 5000 CEO Dr. Darnyelle Jervey Harmon has used her seven-figure coaching enterprise to help hundreds of her clients leverage the Move to Millions® Method and move closer to and beyond the million-dollar mark.

From its creation as a mail-order record company to the literal launch of Virgin Galactic, today Virgin is one of the premier 'way-of-life' brands in the world, trusted and enjoyed by many millions of people. In Business Stripped Bare, Sir Richard Branson shares the inside track on his life in business and reveals the incredible truth about his most risky, brilliant, and audacious deals.

When André de Ruyter took over as Eskom CEO in January 2020, he quickly realised why it was considered the toughest job in South Africa. Aside from neglected equipment, ageing power stations and an eroded skills base, he discovered that Eskom was crippled by corruption on a staggering scale. De Ruyter takes the listener inside the boardrooms and government meetings where South Africa’s future is shaped, with ministers often pulling in conflicting directions, and candidly reflects on his three years at the power utility.

Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just 16 years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling as a college student, he met a young boy begging on the streets of India. When Braun asked the boy what he wanted most in the world, he simply answered, "A pencil." This small request became the inspiration for Pencils of Promise, the organization Braun would leave a prestigious job at Bain & Company to start with just $25 at the age of 24.

In 2001, General Motors hired Bob Lutz out of retirement with a mandate to save the company by making great cars again. He launched a war against penny pinching, office politics, turf wars, and risk avoidance. After declaring bankruptcy during the recession of 2008, GM is back on track thanks to its embrace of Lutz's philosophy. When Lutz got into the auto business in the early sixties, CEOs knew that if you captured the public's imagination with great cars, the money would follow.

So You Want to Start a Brewery? is the first-person account of Tony Magee's gut-wrenching challenges and heart-warming successes in founding Lagunitas Brewing Company. In just 20 years, the company has grown from a seat-of-the-pants, one-man operation to be the fifth largest--and the fastest growing--craft brewer in the United States.

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.

The much-anticipated and inspiring memoir by Indra Nooyi, the trailblazing former CEO of PepsiCo, offering clear-eyed insight and a call to action for how our society can really blend work and family - and advance women - in the 21st century. For more than a dozen years as one of the world's most admired CEOs, Indra Nooyi redefined what it means to be an exceptional leader. The first woman, person of colour and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company, Nooyi transformed PepsiCo with a unique vision, a vigorous pursuit of excellence and a deep sense of purpose.

Kym Gold's mantra - "never settle for a no, always look for a yes" - is what led her to co-create True Religion Brand Jeans, a major retail clothing company that she sold for close to a billion dollars in 2013. In Gold Standard, she finally gives her side of the story of how the once fledgling jeans company that nobody wanted,went on to become a giant, revolutionizing player in the fashion industry.

Founder of The Boston Beer Company, brewer of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, and a key catalyst of the American craft beer revolution, Jim Koch offers his unique perspective when it comes to business, beer, and turning your passion into a successful company or career.

With its unprecedented convocation of 18 of the world’s greatest spiritual thinkers, writers, and scientists, including Maya Angelou, Deepak Chopra, Paulo Coelho, and Eckhart Tolle, this spiritual guide - which ties into a film of the same name - reveals how you can overcome limitations and fulfill your highest potential.

As little girls, we dream of one day becoming a ballerina, a doctor; or a lawyer. We dream of having it all - a wonderful husband, beautiful children, a dog, the perfect house with a picket white fence. You know, the classic fairy-tale that most little girls fantasize about with their friends. This might not be your story, but is definitely mine. Maybe you can relate to some things or none at all. The end result of this story is an unhealthy, unhappy relationship that mutates into abuse.

The 1980s was the most outrageous and turbulent era in the financial market since the crash of ’29, not only on Wall Street but around the world. Michael Lewis, as a trainee at Salomon Brothers in New York and as an investment banker and later financial journalist, was uniquely positioned to chronicle the ambition and folly that fueled the decade. In these trenchant, often hilarious true tales we meet the colorful movers and shakers who commanded the headlines and rewrote the rules.

Civil War historian Earl J. Hess presents a compelling biography of Braxton Bragg, the commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee from the summer of 1862 to the end of 1863.

Robert E. Lee scholar H. W. Crocker III is an esteemed Civil War historian. Skillfully summarizing Lee’s life, Crocker clearly extracts leadership lessons from the storied career of the South’s beloved leader and applies them to today’s business worldUnder General Lee’s management, a rag-tag army of poor farmers—vastly outnumbered, outgunned, under-supplied, and under-fed—consistently routed Union troops. Brilliantly seizing strategic opportunities, Lee stunned his foes and inspired his soldiers. He was decisive, focused, and humble.

Imagine a company where people love coming to work and are highly productive on a daily basis. Imagine a company whose top executives, in a quest to create the most "fun" workplace ever, obliterate labor-management divisions and push decision-making responsibility down to the plant floor. Could such a company compete in today's bottom-line corporate world? Could it even turn a profit?