Letter from Bezos to Shareholders (from 1997)
An in-depth study of Bezos' letter to shareholders reveals the 4 stages of Amazon's borderless empire: testing, building, accelerating, and scaling; and summarizes the 14 growth rules that keep Amazon growing rapidly, such as applying long-term thinking, obsessing with customers, betting on big dreams and generating quick decisions, encouraging "successful failures," practicing dynamic inventions and innovations, and believing that it will always be the first day.
"The Difficulty of Entrepreneurship" ben Horowitz
In "The Difficulty of Entrepreneurship", Ben Horowitz starts from his own entrepreneurial experience, and with his nearly 20 years of entrepreneurial, management and investment experience in Silicon Valley, he unreservedly presents his own experience in the establishment, operation, talent selection, corporate culture, sales, and relationship between CEOs and boards of directors of startups (especially Internet technology companies). He also talked about his experiences with silicon Valley CEOs and investors like Bill Campbell, Andy Lacherev, Michael Owitz, and other top Silicon Valley CEOs and investors, the valuable lessons he learned from them, and how he and Mark Anderson, the perfect partner, were able to work together so well for 18 years.
Lean Startup by Eric Rice
Entrepreneurship is about innovating products or services in a situation of uncertainty. Startups don't yet know what their products should look like and where their customers are. Plans and forecasts can only be based on a long, stable operating history and a relatively static environment. And these conditions are not available for start-ups. Sometimes we ourselves think that the product will be very popular, so we spend a lot of energy polishing on various small issues, and as a result, after the product is pushed to the market, the consumer cruelly says that they don't need this thing. If our business itself is not needed by the market, the sooner we fail, the better, which means we spend less money and energy on the wrong things.
The Nature of Business by Jack Welch
The Nature of Business is Jack Welch's reflection and summary of the business changes of the past decade or so. He pointed out that the technological revolution has brought great changes and many noises to the market, but as a manager, you can't lose sight of the most core things in business. In today's new business environment, if you want to "win", you must follow the rules of business and return to the essence of business.
The Nature of Business does not talk about empty theories and concepts, because in reality, the key to business success lies in properly solving the endless, life-and-death, and inevitable dilemmas. In The Essence of Business, Welch combines a large number of real-world cases and business dilemmas of enterprises to give practical solutions, especially for the economic downturn, proposing six major breakthroughs for enterprises to achieve rapid growth, including: synergy, leadership, key data affecting performance and costs, rapid and agile strategy development process, organizational structure optimization and the psychological quality of leaders. At the same time, Welch also specially analyzed China's economic situation in the book, and made comments and prospects for the development of Chinese enterprises.
From 0 to 1 peter till, Blake Masters
Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal and Facebook's first outside investor, details his entrepreneurial journey and experience in this book, including how to avoid competition, how to monopolize, and how to discover new markets. "From 0 to 1" will also take you through the diverse fields of philosophy, history, economy and so on, interpret the context of the operation of the world, share the logic of business and future development, help you think about the secrets from 0 to 1, and find value and opportunities in unexpected places.
The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
There are companies, but not ordinary companies, but those known for their management adeptness, which are the envy of most managers and try their best to emulate, known for their strong ability to innovate and execute, but unable to maintain their bellwether position in the face of certain market or technological changes. How does a successful company ensure that its products are not squeezed out of the market by new technologies? How can you successfully leverage innovation to gain an edge?
In this book, the author shows us several companies that have successfully applied new technologies to gain a competitive advantage. These new technologies are redefining the meaning of competition in their respective fields. The authors point out that even the best-run companies, despite their attention to customer needs and constant investment in the development of new technologies, can be affected by a new industry and lead to failure.
"Complex" by Michelle Waldrop
Understanding complex systems requires a completely new approach. It is necessary to go beyond traditional scientific reductionism and redefine the boundaries of disciplines. Drawing on her work experience and interdisciplinary approach at the Santa Fe Institute, Michelle, a pioneering scientist in complex systems, introduces the study of complex systems with a clear line of thought, spanning the fields of biology, technology and sociology, and exploring the universal laws of complex systems, while also exploring the relationship between complexity and evolution, artificial intelligence, computing, genetics, information processing and other fields.
Refresh: Rediscovering Business and the Future, Satya Nadella
Microsoft, the overlord of the Internet era, has missed a series of innovation opportunities. But in the age of intelligence, the tech company staged an unexpected "elephant dance." In 2017, Microsoft's market capitalization has exceeded $600 billion, second only to Apple and Google among technology companies, and higher than Amazon and Facebook. In addition to the software field where Microsoft has traditionally had a competitive advantage, Microsoft has also gained strong competitiveness in cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other fields. Through the acquisition of LinkedIn, Microsoft also entered the field of social networking.
Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, Microsoft's market capitalization has doubled, surpassing its highs since the dot-com bubble. "Refresh" panorama reviews Satya's path of change, such as investment in hardware Surface computers, strategic layout in the three major areas of mixed reality, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, etc.; the system summarizes his core management ideas, that is, any organization and individual, when they reach a certain critical point, need to refresh themselves. To meet the challenges of the intelligent age, he proposes three key steps to self-renewal: embracing empathy, cultivating a "learn-to-learn" curiosity, and building a growth mindset.
Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Before the discovery of black swans in Australia, Europeans believed that swans were all white, and that "black swan" had been an idiomatic phrase in their speech and writing to refer to things that could not exist, but when the first black swans appeared, this unshakable belief collapsed. The existence of black swans, alluding to unpredictable major rare events, often brings unexpected major shocks, but people are always blind and accustomed to explaining them in terms of their limited life experience and fragile beliefs, and are eventually defeated by reality. From the financial crisis to the Sichuan earthquake, from the sinking of the Titanic to the "9-11" terrorist attacks, black swans exist in various fields, whether it is financial markets, business, economy or personal life, they cannot escape its control. Black Swan: How to Deal with the Unpredictable Future (Upgraded Edition) (New Edition) provides an in-depth introduction to the nature and laws of black swan events, unearths the true value behind what we don't know, and teaches us how to understand how this society works, how to avoid the major losses caused by small probability events, and how to take advantage of opportunities in an uncertain world. After the publication of Black Swan, edited by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the black swan event that shocked the world, the financial crisis, broke out. After 3 years of publication, the author added a new afterword after 3 years of precipitation and thinking, deeply analyzing the application of black swan theory in modern society, and how we can really evaluate and use the opportunities brought by black swans to benefit from it. Black Swan will subvert our usual thinking and let you regain control of your destiny.
Antifragility by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Why does the most stable country in the world have no government?
Why is debt bad for you, and why is what we usually call "efficiency" lacking efficiency at all?
Why do government and social policies protect the strong but hurt the weak?
Why should you write a resignation letter before you even start?
Why did the sinking of the Titanic save more lives?
Nietzsche famously said, "What cannot kill me makes me stronger." "Just as human bones become stronger under stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to suppress them, so many things in life benefit from stress, chaos, volatility, and uncertainty."
Leadership and The New Science by Margaret Wheatley
Leadership and New Science (3rd Edition) tells the story of the mechanical worldview, which is the culprit of manufacturing management problems, and quantum physics, self-organizing systems, and chaos theory bring enlightenment to management. Leadership and New Science (3rd Edition) has been translated into 17 languages and sold more than 300,000 copies worldwide in English, and is a classic by Margaret Wheatley, the master of organization and management.
"Crossing the S Curve" by Paul Newness
Even the most successful companies face a lack of room to expand their business. For many businesses, this will lead to stagnant revenue growth. Once this happens, the chances of a business fully returning to its original level are generally less than 10%.
Some companies break this cycle and successfully leapfrog from one business peak to the next, avoid stagnation in time, and then successfully promote the development of new business.