Jun 21 2009
Young & Ignorant, Get Some Perspective
If you’re reading this, you’re probably young and successful (or at least headed that way) and by means that would still largely be considered unconventional by most people. (You can really make a living running websites all by yourself? Shut up.)
Because of that unconventional nature, most of us are sorely lacking in perspective. If remember any history we learned in school, very little of it is business history or economic history — and what is business or economic probably isn’t history in any detail. We have vague images of the rises and falls of economies and businesses over the decades and vague images of people’s approach to money during that time, but none so clear as to be any sort of contribution to a foundation for our own success.
The more I learn, though, the more I realize what a significant handicap that is. Success is largely about taking advantage of opportunities, and the more we know, the more opportunities we see. Without perspective, though, we often see things as opportunities that clearly aren’t. We draw conclusions that anyone with any knowledge of history would know are shaky at best, and that severely cripples our ability to be successful.
Well Amazon has a phenomenal deal right now on a book that is easily the best business book that I’ve read in several years — a book that has given me more perspective in just a few chapters than have all the things I’ve read in at least the past year.
Joe Nocera’s Good Guys and Bad Guys: Behind the Scenes with the Saints and Scoundrels of American Business is available in hardcover for just $6.99. I thought that surely had to be a mistake, but I ordered it and it’s really the original hardback.
Here’s a description of the book:
A fascinating collection of profiles by one of America’s leading business journalists.
For three decades, in major publications such as Texas Monthly, Esquire, Fortune, and now The New York Times, Joe Nocera has reported on the people who dominate the business world, for better or worse. Everyone from Warren Buffett to T. Boone Pickens to George Steinbrenner to Ken Lay has fallen under his microscope.
Now, in this collection of his best work, he explores how we define good guys and bad guys in business and concludes that things are often not what they seem.
It turns out that there are surprisingly good qualities in classic villains like junk bond king Michael Milken and notorious stock analyst Henry Blodget. And some business celebrities who are widely admired, such as Steve Jobs, are not quite the good guys they appear to be on the surface.
Good Guys and Bad Guys also offers a fresh perspective on some of today’s biggest controversies, such as global warming, Apple’s iPhone, CEO compensation, the tobacco industry, short sellers, and much more.
If you’re building a real business online, you’ll never find a $7 investment that will give you a greater return.
