Archives de catégorie : Business

NUMBER GO UP de Zeke Faux

The harrowing, highly entertaining inside chronicle of how FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and a cast of fellow nerds and hustlers convinced the world to send trillions of dollars of real money to buy useless virtual coins—from a Bloomberg Businessweek writer.

NUMBER GO UP:
Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall
by Zeke Faux
Currency/PRH, September 2023

After years on the financial world’s margins, crypto went mainstream in 2021. Giant investment funds were buying it, celebrities like Tom Brady and Justin Bieber endorsed it, and Washington bigwigs debated new regulations. It seemed like everyone knew someone who was bragging about their returns from Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and other bizarrely named “digital assets.” FOMO spread: Was crypto the new path to financial freedom? Unspoken was that hardly anyone knew how it worked. To borrow a phrase from crypto parlance, the only thing that mattered was “number go up.”
Observing this mania, Zeke Faux decided to embark on a quest to pull back the curtain on the wizards behind this new financial machinery. He first sets his sights on Tether, a digital currency dreamed up by a former child actor from the 1992 Disney film The Mighty Ducks. Tether had become crypto’s de facto bank, with $69 billion pouring into it. Each Tether was supposedly backed by one dollar. But where was the money?
As he chases this mystery around the globe, Faux is driven by a nagging question: Is it all just a global confidence game of epic proportions? In the Bahamas, he meets Tether’s biggest customer: Sam Bankman-Fried, a schlubby 29-year-old who Fortune once suggested was “the next Warren Buffett.” In El Salvador, he discovers what happens when a country decides to gamble its treasury on Bitcoin. A spam text message leads him to a crypto-fueled human-trafficking ring in Cambodia. And in Lugano, Switzerland, he finally tracks down the mysterious former plastic surgeon who runs Tether.
Then, in 2022, the crypto bubble burst, and Tether’s biggest customers started collapsing one by one. It culminated in November, when Bankman-Fried’s FTX failed in spectacular fashion. Faux returns to the Bahamas and takes readers inside the glittering sadness, lies and delusion of SBF’s luxury loft in the days after FTX’s implosion, revealing the emptiness at the center of the crypto industry. Fueled by the absurd details and authoritative reporting that earned Faux the title “our great poet of crime” (Matt Levine), NUMBER GO UP is a riveting account of the biggest financial mania the world has ever seen.

Zeke Faux is an investigative reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg News in New York. He’s a winner of the Gerald Loeb award for explanatory business journalism and the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel award, and a finalist for a National Magazine Award. Faux lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and their three children.

THE ALGEBRA OF WEALTH de Scott Galloway

The book that Scott’s fans have been waiting for—the distillation of thirty years of lessons learned about careers, investments, and the search for economic security.

THE ALGEBRA OF WEALTH
A Simple Formula for Financial Security
by Scott Galloway
‎ Portfolio, April 2024
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

The practical advice gleaned from thirty years of mentorship and mentoring, a lifetime of studying how people make money, how they lose it, and what it takes to come out ahead. THE ALGEBRA OF WEALTH will be quintessential Scott: provocative, insightful, rooted in data and science, but also profane and profound in equal measure.
THE ALGEBRA OF WEALTH will build on the fundamental principles of personal finance to account for the challenges facing today’s young (and not so young) readers. The world of work is changing around us, and young people face very different career challenges than those entering the workforce decades ago. There are new and seductive spending pitfalls, from the ever-expanding array of streaming services to Buy Now Pay Later options, all of which prey on the unsophisticated. The investment marketplace now tempts us 24/7 with crypto, zero commission stock trades, and virtual banks. Even the very notion of “retirement,” the final boss of every personal finance book, is undergoing a profound rethink, as our lifespans extend and our relationship with work evolves.

Scott Galloway is a professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business and a serial entrepreneur. In 2012, he was named one of the world’s best business school professors by Poets & Quants. He has founded nine companies, including Prophet Brand Strategy, RedEnvelope, L2, and Section4. He is the New York Times bestselling author of The Four, The Algebra of Happiness, and Post Corona. His fourth book, Adrift: America in 100 Charts, was published on September 20, 2022.
Scott has served on the boards of directors of The New York Times Company, Urban Outfitters, UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Panera Bread, and Ledger. He commands six-figure speaking fees for fast-paced, data-rich presentations that he gives regularly at major conferences and to board and management teams at Global 500 companies. His Prof G and Pivot podcasts, No Mercy / No Malice blog, and The Prof G Show YouTube channel reach millions. He has won multiple Webby and Best Business Podcast awards.

WORKING TO RESTORE d’Esha Chhabra

Dispatches from the regenerative landscape, where pioneering entrepreneurs use their businesses as catalysts of change to go beyond sustainability and solve social and environmental problems. From international journalist and recipient of multiple fellowships from the Pulitzer Centeron Crisis Reporting, Esha Chhabra

WORKING TO RESTORE:
Harnessing the Power of Regenerative Business to Heal the World
by Esha Chhabra
‎ Beacon Press, March 2023

Political upheaval and social turmoil have peeled back the glitzy layers of capitalism to reveal an uncomfortable truth: historically, businesses have sourced materials from remote corners of the globe and moved millions of people and tons of cargo around the clock—all in the name of profit. Yet many of today’s startups are rewriting the rules of business: how it’s done, by whom, and, most importantly, for what purpose. Journalist Esha Chhabra draws on her decades of reporting to explore not only the “feel good, do good” factors of these restorative enterprises but also the nuanced realities and promise of regenerative business operations.
WORKING TO RESTORE examines revolutionary approaches in nine areas: agriculture, waste, supply chain, inclusivity for the collective good, women in the workforce, travel, health, energy, and finance. The companies profiled are solving global issues: promoting responsible production and consumption, creating equitable opportunities for all, encouraging climate action, and more. Chhabra highlights how their work moves beyond the greenwashed idea of “sustainability” into a new era of regeneration and restoration.
We meet and learn from people like:

• Marius Smit, founder of Plastic Whale, the first company to build boats entirely out of plastic waste removed from our oceans and waterways
• Sébastien Kopp and François-Ghislain Morillion, cofounders of Veja, a shoe brand whose mission it is to make the most ecologically sensitive shoes possible
• and many more innovators based out of many countries, including India, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, and Mexico.

WORKING TO RESTORE highlights our most innovative entrepreneurs yet, those who understand that we cannot expect to create radical change if we try to “sustain” a system that has long been broken. Instead, their efforts of restoration and regeneration should be used as a model for other forward-thinking enterprises. Inspiring and engaging, this book shows it is possible for a business to thrive while living its mission and how the rules can be rewritten to put both the planet and its global citizens at the center.

Esha Chhabra is a writer who covers sustainability, international development, and the rise of mission-driven brands. She has spent the last decade contributing to a number of international and national publications such as The Guardian, New York Times, Wired UK, Washington Post, Atlantic, Fast Company, Forbes, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and more. She has been awarded multiple fellowships from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. 

DELIBERATE CALM de Jacqueline Brassey, Aaron De Smet & Michiel Kruyt

A trio of McKinsey & Company veterans draws from a unique combination of psychology, neuroscience, and consciousness practices plus a combined 50-plus years of international board room experience to offer a unique approach to learning and leading with awareness and intentional choice, even amidst the most challenging circumstances.

DELIBERATE CALM:
How to Learn and Lead in a Volatile World
by Jacqueline Brassey, Aaron De Smet & Michiel Kruyt
HarperBusiness, November 2022

As the speed of change in our increasingly complex world accelerates daily, leaders are tasked with performing outside of their familiar zones both in their personal and professional lives. This requires us to adapt. Yet, the same conditions that make adapting so important can also trigger fear, leading us to resist change and default to reactive behavior. The authors call this the “adaptability paradox”: when we most need to learn and change, we stick with what we know, often in ways that stifle learning and innovation. To avoid this trap, leaders must become proactive so they can lead ahead of the curve.
Enter DELIBERATE CALM, a tangible guide that combines cutting-edge neuroscience, psychology, and consciousness practices, along with the authors’ decades of experience working with leaders around the globe. By practicing Dual Awareness, which integrates our internal and external experiences, leaders can become fluid and respond to challenges with intentional choice instead of being limited by their old success models. With DELIBERATE CALM, anyone can lead and learn with awareness and choice to realize their full potential, even in times of uncertainty, complexity, and change.

Jacqueline (Jacqui) Brassey started at McKinsey & Company in 2013 as an expert consultant in the organization practice where she further specialized in transformational change, diversity & inclusion, human capital and leadership development. She has led the learning & development of McKinsey’s top 600 most senior leaders and serves on the firm’s global learning team. She has a PhD in Economics and Business from Groningen University, MS in affective neuroscience from the University of Maastricht and Florence, BA and MA cum laude in policy and organization sciences from Tilburg University and a bachelor’s degree in international business and languages from Avans University of Applied Sciences. She coauthored over twenty book chapters and articles in the area of organizational behavior and leadership development. Additionally, she serves as a board member of Save the Children. Jacqui and husband, Nicholas, live in the Netherlands with their 12-year-old twins.
Aaron De Smet joined McKinsey and Company in 2003; he has led the firm’s thinking on organizational health and leadership. His articles in McKinsey Quarterly are among its most-read and he is a member of the master faculty of the Change Leaders Forum and of the Organizational Agility Forum, which he helped establish. He leads McKinsey’s thinking on organizational health and was on the team that developed the Organizational Health Index (OHI) and OrgLab. Aaron has a PhD in social and organizational psychology from Columbia University, where he specialized in organizational dynamics, culture, leadership, and strategic change. He also has an MBA and BA in psychology. He lives in New Jersey with his family.
Michiel Kruyt is currently CEO of Imagine.one with a mission to create systemic transformation towards a more sustainable and equal planet. Before joining Imagine, Michiel was a partner and one of the leaders of the Organization Practice of McKinsey & Company, and co-founder and former managing partner of Aberkyn, a pioneer specializing in performance transformations, culture change and executive team and leadership development. The first 15 years of his career he worked for Unilever in marketing, sales and general management roles in The Netherlands, Italy and the USA. He is a member of the Board of the non-profit Urban Consciousness Center De Roos in Amsterdam. Michiel, his wife Christine, and their three children live just outside Amsterdam.

POSSIBLE de William Ury

According to the Pew Research Center, in the US alone, the share of Americans who say having conversations with those they disagree with politically is “stressful and frustrating” has increased dramatically in recent years. POSSIBLE is for all of us who feel that frustration and seek to uncover new possibilities for the challenges in which we find ourselves. It offers a way out of the seemingly impossible, no-win conflicts of our time, a creative and collaborative method that can transform even our toughest conflicts.

POSSIBLE:
Transforming Our Toughest Conflicts
by William Ury
‎ HarperBusiness, Fall 2024
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

According to the Pew Research Center, in the US alone, the share of Americans who say having conversations with those they disagree with politically is “stressful and frustrating” has increased dramatically in recent years. As individuals, we are finding it increasingly hard to engage in civil discourse to negotiate our struggles and conflicts. We are stuck in difficult, intractable challenges and conflicts – with the characteristic fear and anger, entrenched positions, and destructive fighting – in all aspects of our lives.
POSSIBLE is for all of us who feel that frustration and seek to uncover new possibilities for the challenges in which we find ourselves. Based on four and a half decades of real-life experiences grappling with the world’s toughest conflicts — from wildcat strikes to family feuds, boardroom battles to civil wars – William Ury, co-author of Getting to YES, the world’s all-time bestselling book on negotiation, offers a way out of the seemingly impossible, no-win conflicts of our time, a creative and collaborative method that can transform even our toughest conflicts.
In POSSIBLE, Ury invites readers to become possibilists. Possibilists aren’t optimists or pessimists, but rather believers in our human potential to transform our conflicts and relationships. Possibilists see, create, and act on new possibilities to deal with our deepest differences. They are willing to engage any conflict, no matter how heated, in order to explore possible openings. In their minds, conflict isn’t bad. In fact, it is natural and even necessary.
Transforming a conflict is not the same as resolving it, which may be impossible right now and sometimes not even desirable. We don’t always need to agree. A possibilist aims to change the conflict’s fundamental form from destructive fighting into creative negotiation and constructive coexistence so that we can begin to open up new possibilities for mutual satisfaction. Then, over time, conflicts can be more easily resolved or just remain creative tensions.
Ury’s triple-win method works even if the other side at first does not go along. Just as it takes two to tango, it takes two to fight. And it only takes one to stop. It is your choice. There is a switch, and you can decide to pull it whenever you like. This book will show you how.

William Ury, cofounder of Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, is one of the world’s best-known and most influential experts on negotiation. He has served as a mediator in boardroom battles, labor conflicts, and civil wars around the world. Ury is the coauthor of Getting to Yes, the bestselling negotiation book in the world, and seven other books, including the New York Times bestsellers Getting Past No and The Power of a Positive No. An avid hiker, he lives with his family in Colorado.