Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street

I read Bill Gates's July 12, 2014 review of this book in The Wall Street Journal, and watched the embedded video, just as I was deciding what book to assign my undergraduate business ethics class, consisting mostly of seniors majoring in management. I read the Xerox essay that Mr. Gates made available on his website before the book was republished in August. That convinced me that this was the right book. The essays are exceptionally well-written. Yes, they come from a different era, and not all of the essays were usable for my purpose. But most of the essays focused on issues that are very much with us today. With little effort, I was able to bring the lessons to life in my interactive class by drawing connections to current issues in the business press, sometimes simply by referring to recent developments in the companies covered in the essays. The Xerox essay was useful to illustrate the role of corporations in politics and public policy. I updated the discussion of that company by addressing the company's 2014 report on Corporate Global Citizenship. We discussed the Xerox essay not long after The New York Times reported on the relationship between state attorneys general and companies under investigation. One of the companies in the Times article was 5-Hour Energy Drink -- a company to which any undergraduate can relate. Other current hot topics covered in the book include the ethics of corporate communication (enabling the class to compare the GE wink in the "Impacted Philosophers" essay, on the one hand, to the GM nod and salute now in the news, on the other hand); insider trading; the use of trade secrets by former employees; and the role of the shareholder gadfly in corporate governance. I sometimes used published obituaries of those profiled in the essays to show how the behavior Mr. Brooks chronicled affected the individuals' ethical legacy. The point is that the core lessons in the essays transfer nicely and practically, even if many of the details of the stories are bounded by the time in which they occurred. The cost of the book is about $15. As a guide to the 21st century business student or the 21st century businessman or businesswoman of any age, the book is priceless.

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 big sell offs. In the Piggly Wiggly case, the author brings to light the idea of corners in the stock market and how they impact businesses. Personally, this was a very interesting topic to delve into and learn more about as the book reveals how one wealthy businessman was able to upheave the stock market for a period of time and go so far as to create his own little private stock market (which consisted entirely of stocks for his company). In this very same case, the author also explains how Piggly Wiggly was the first instance of what is known as the modern day supermarket, another fact which really stood out when reading this chapter. Another great point to mention about Business Adventures is the fact that the stories are presented in a very casual and interesting way. When Piggly Wiggly’s owner is described as carrying wads of money in his pockets because his suitcase was too full, a slight sense of comedy arises. This is one of the better features of the book as it keeps the reader hooked by entertaining them rather than throwing a bunch of tedious factual information about various companies and their successes/failures. Weaknesses. As mentioned earlier, most of the companies featured would be recognized by those who were baby boomers or older. Readers looking to learn about newer companies will need to look elsewhere. There are a few companies that are acknowledged in the text that do stand out even today. However, all of the information being provided about those companies is outdated. At times the book can get bogged down into minute details that do not add to the development of the chapter. This happens quite a few times in the Edsel chapter when the author goes into details of the many key players in the Edsel’s development and failure. This can also be seen in the G.E. chapter where there is constant mention of the “wink” which represents how lax the company was about its corporate policy 20.5. Some people may not appreciate the style of the book as it explores the successes and failures of many different corporations rather than sticking to just one specific case. However, the stories of this carry enough lessons that even readers today can gain insight from it. Evidence of this is that it is recommended by a founder of a tech company (Bill Gates) and holding company focusing on large cap companies (Warren Buffet).

This is a glimpse into the Golden 60's when American Industry provided a good prospect and promise for the middle class. The 1960's saw US leadership in technology, winning with the Race to the Moon, and a revolution in Women & Civil rights. Mr. Brooks spot lighted a series of case studies featuring US companies and stock market events from that Era. It's interesting that a copy machine made by Xerox cost the price of a stately home, and required a skilled technician to operate it. Also a fire extinguisher was provided as a standby if it caught on fire. Yet Xerox was a top line growth company that made its investors big returns. I like this book for the following reasons: it's speaks to America Innovation and investors who had the courage to hang in there and bear the up and downs. 2) It demonstrates the fact that leadership requires set- backs & those companies that accepted the risk will learn and succeed. 3) it gives me hope that stock market investors will learn from the in depth analysis Mr. Brooks brought forward that investing in truly motivated companies with the guts to innovate are worth putting forth your money & time to invest in. Finally it's a lesson into studying & seeking companies focused on producing leading edge products regardless of the quarterly bottom line, and weekly up & downs of global events. The early printings of this book are impossible to find. Therefore, Mr. Buffet & Gates have come forth to reveal this lost treasure providing lessons from our past, and hopefully will instill a new (but old) way of thinking on how to seek and invest in top businesses. Reading this book has change my perspective on investing (maybe long term investing in the right companies is the way to go), and I truly feel it's worth the read if you plan to invest in the stock market. Also, it reads very well and is simply enjoyable.

Never underestimate the ability for leadership to mess up. Some of the brightest, smartest, most talented people have the ability to completely overestimate one's ability to lead successfully into the future. This book is rather famous. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett often recommend this book to people. Gates, who is an avid reader, considers this book to be the best business book of all time. Though, sadly, I disagree with him. This breaks my heart because Buffett and Gates are business geniuses, and the fact that I disagree causes me to realize that I am not one. These guys think over my head. The book is a great lesson in business failures and overconfidence. This spirit can reign in churches and in corperate offices. No one is above these type of mistakes. Sometimes that goes for and against the book is the dating of the material. The material is rather dated, which is positive because you see that issues in leadership and business is a common problem through the ages, but the dating also causes you to wish for more up to date examples. The chapters are rather long, and can be super detailed. You have to have a long attention span to digest the book. It is not light reading too. The book does give a ton of valuable lessons in leading an organization. Sometimes, people lead because of a sunken cost fallacy. Leaders fall into this trap, and churches do too. Think about all of the programs that you have to create energy for, but you have little energy for yourself. You are kind of forcing the ministry through personality. In cases like this, you are draining the congregation from other works that empower people. The book is good, though, in my limited mind, not great. It was a little too detailed for me.

This is an exceptionally well written work with lessons more applicable today than ever before. It is the product of an insightful, knowledgeable, and intelligent journalist. It provides a level of depth not found in the current crop of business books that are characterized by Jack Welch style self-aggrandizing or pithy catch phrases intended to magically transform you into a leader. This book goes to the heart of what makes a company not only profitable, but great. It touches on issues too often forgotten, or simply given lip service to, in modern business. Things like tenacity, investing for the long term, fair distribution of wealth, R&D, customer care. and social responsibility. I was particularly struck by a comment from the then CEO of Xerox who said, "The whole matter of committing the company to taking stands on major public issues raises questions that make us examine ourselves all the time. It's a matter of balance. You can't just be bland, or you throw away your influence. But you can't take a stand on every major issue, either. We don't think it's a corporation's job to take stands on national elections, for example. ..." In an age of inversions, private equity, greed is good, and the Koch brothers, there are many valuable lessons to be learned here. Many of those have to do with the business ethics which too many modern companies have forgotten.

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) fines."), reticulated ("having the shape or appearance of a web"), gelid ("extremely cold, frosty"), expatiate ("to speak or write at great length on a topic"), ukase ("originally, an edict from a Russian tsar having the force of law, now more generally an arbitrary command"), etc. One can easily imagine how much John Brooks would have loved writing about the abuses in modern markets, such as the 2008 corner that Porsche ran on the shares of Volkswagen, or about LIBOR manipulation by big banks, or Harbinger capital and its disastrous investment in Lightsquared Inc.

Regarded as Bill Gates favorite business book after reading this book you will be able to tell why. The book is comprised of twelve articles or stories that John Brooks wrote. These stories offer deep insight into the business world and bring to light events that have shaped the economies of the world as a whole. My favorite stories were the more suspenseful ones. I liked the stories including the British pound sterling and speculation, I also liked the Saunders story also dealing with speculation and cornering, the Ira Haupt and Co. story dealing with fraud and the Exchange stepping in to help. Among two others I liked were the stories about the Federal income tax which I think is very important and how Xerox grew from near failure to one of the biggest and best corporations in the world. This book is a must read for anyone interested in big business, economics, investing, or taxation. The centralized themes in some of the stories to name a few are: market fluctuations, communication, insider trading, trade secrets, shareholder meetings, business history, exc. This book will not disappoint you, it's an amazing read!

I have not quite finished reading this book, but already about a third of the way through I just love the writing and what are amazingly timely article especially since they are 50+ years old. It is now kind of obvious to me why such luminaries as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have cited this book as one of the most important business books ever. One of my favorite sections of the book is the article on Tax reform. You could change the dates to 2014 and hear the same arguments being said about what to do about reform, the most important to me being simplifying the way the US collects taxes. Our tax code is Byzantine and designed to create work for attorneys and accountants, which the middle class cannot afford to put to work for them. But the well off could do this in 1950 and in the present day. The debate on taxes has gone nowhere since the 1950's, what has happened is that we have created an even more complex system with huge numbers of loopholes, exemptions, etc. Brooks seems prescient in his writing and thinking in so many ways; his words flow well and are entertaining to read if this genre is up your alley. Highly recommended!