Business Adventures: A Collection of Classic Tales from the Financial World of Wall Street

Paola: Great book

United Kingdom on Aug 29, 2023

Jorge Borda: The cover is different, but I am satisfied with the product itself.

United States on Aug 02, 2023

brian: Not quite what I expected but really enjoyed it. The author does a wonderful job of keeping you interested and more humor than I was expecting.

United States on Jul 20, 2023

JustinHoca: Business Adventures by John Brooks

I bought this Kindle book based on the quote I saw from Bill Gates that it was recommended by Warren Buffett as "the best business book I've ever read." I now think this may in some way be apocryphal. Gates' nerdiness and odd literary tendencies have been documented elsewhere, and I could see why he might have found the "rollicking narratives" entertaining and interesting. But Gates' stating that "the prose is superb" is nonsense. The book is a series of essays that were published in The New Yorkers in the 1960s. I used to subscribe to The New Yorker and I can say that the editing of such essays has since improved dramatically as it appears these were untouched from the author to the printing press. The book wouldn't be so bad if it were cleaned up of superfluous detail, but it's two stars at it is.

I am a trained economist and avid reader of history and I found the essays document some important people and companies that help explain some modern context. Details about the tax code in the 1950s and 1960s, a collusion case, the late 1960s pressure on the Bretton Woods system (that eventually caused its collapse), a biography of David...

United States on Jul 08, 2023

S.L.: Not the most technical nor referenced book, but interesting old stories and nice storytelling

Italy on Apr 07, 2023

Jules: A fabulous insight into business and corporate life - in most cases how it used to be done, and should not be anymore.

This is so well written that each story is highly engaging and you get fully immersed right into the subject.

A great read for anyone with any commercial interests at all, looking for some lessons to add to their business acumen - or someone who just loves good stories.

Brilliant.

United Kingdom on Jul 06, 2021

Stiven Skyrah: I had heard, as I think everyone else has, that Business Adventures was a favourite book of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. I read the ebook, and I understand a print version will be forthcoming in September.

This book makes me feel as though I'm sitting at the knee of my grandfather, listening to wise recollections.
A writer of articles in the 1950's and 1960, many for the New Yorker, the author intelligently and thoughtfully steps through 12 events, one per chapter.

At first, I thought perhaps I was particularly dense and wasn't getting the message. What held these stories together? Eventually, I realized that the author is not driving home a point, selling anything, or giving advice. His observations leave room for the reader to consider events, their connections, their parallels to today, the importance of character, and the question of morality in business. It was refreshing not to be told what to think.

I enjoyed the stories of Ford's Edsel, Piggly Wiggly, Xerox, Goodrich vs Latex.

The chapter on the federal income tax is particularly relevant, given the wide-spread debate about taxes and modern conversations about the 1%.

John Brooks'...

United Kingdom on Mar 03, 2018

Neurasthenic: I read this book because I liked the idea of a collection of New Yorker articles from the 1960s and because of Bill Gate's blurb ("John Brooks is an unbelievable business writer"). And the best essays in the collection are indeed excellent. Brooks is at his best when he can tell stories through the experiences of a small number of people involved, and when he can maintain an tone of detatched amusement as he describes things going wrong. This includes the piece about Texas Gulf and advances in insider trading case law and the piece about Piggly Wiggly and stock corners, and the piece on Goodrich, Latex and intellectual property law. The wholly (or nearly wholly) respectful pieces about the Ford Edsel and the history of Xerox were also excellent. A couple of the pieces were, for me, clinkers. Unless you have a special interest in the subject matter, you may find yourself skipping the article about the history of the U.S. income tax and, similarly, the closing article about the 1964 devaluation of the British pound.

New Yorkers in the 1960s were, perhaps, smarter than me. Brooks casually uses words like mulct ("to extract money from somebody via taxes or (especially)...

United States on Oct 19, 2017

LF: While it would be easy to criticize Business Adventures, a book first published generations ago, for detailing business stories that took place generations ago, the book still gives some insight useful for today’s business world.

Strengths. This book covers many well-known companies that would probably be recognized by people who were baby boomers or older. The book covers a wide range of industries including automotive, aerospace, office equipment, and utilities.

While strategy books often cover the good decisions good companies make and the poor decisions that doom failing companies, Business Adventures also adds in some poor decisions good companies make. The Edsel chapter features Ford making a poor decision in releasing a new product. There is even a chapter about G.E., a very well known company, which is used to display how poor communication can having devastating effects on a company’s employees.

Business decisions are not made inside of a vacuum. Business Adventures provides useful information about the events leading up to decisions. When telling about the crash of ‘62, it tells how the delay in getting in orders precipitated panic that led to...

United States on Apr 26, 2016

Nicholas: Review courtesy of www.subtleillumination.com

Any book that is the favourite of both Bill Gates and Warren Buffet is self-recommending, and I feel a little second-rate saying I really liked it as well. Nevermind. Business Adventures is a great book!

What distinguishes Business Adventures from other business books is the quality of the writing. It’s a collection of New Yorker articles by John Brooks from the golden age of print journalism, and it shows. Topics include the rise and fall of Xerox (invented by accident – they just kept adding elements from the periodic table to their ink till they found one that worked, and had no idea why), the Ford Edsel (a brutal failure of a car design for Ford), income tax, cornering a market in order to destroy short sellers (sadly now illegal, which might be why short selling is so popular), the first supermarket (Piggly Wiggly Stores – the owner would become a millionaire and then go bankrupt several times), the manager of the Tennessee Valley Authority, currency crises, and a vast scope of other subjects.

For the quality of the writing, for the quality of the stories, and for the insight, it's hard to beat. It...

United Kingdom on Feb 04, 2015