This is a wild story, of how a seemingly legitimate German company (in some ways the German Paypal, but more than that) committed massive fraud. It’s a story I somehow missed while it was happening.
Tag: Business
Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out: Goose Island, Anheuser-Busch, and How Craft Beer Became Big Business (2018) by Josh Noel
This is a readable, engaging, informative and, I think, pretty fair book about the AB InBev purchase of Goose Island and the broader beer landscape in North America. I love beer, and I thoroughly enjoyed some of these Goose Island beers, and I definitely prefer independent breweries to macros. So I am clearly Noel’s target …
White Hot: The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie and Fitch (2022, Alison Klayman)
I know very littles of Abercrombie and Fitch. For all I know, my first introduction to them might have been that “Summer Girls” song. More likely it was one of their ads, but I wouldn’t have known it at the time. Anyway, this was all news to be. But, for someone who didn’t know anything …
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004, Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky)
I’ve been meaning to watch this movie for a decade and a half. Watching Get Back spurned Jenn to insist we watch it and I’m glad she did. But I do wonder if taking so long to watch the movie dulled it a bit for me – what was distinct and unique in 2004 is …
The Buyout of America (2009) by Josh Kosman
The problem with making big predictions in your book is that, when they either do not come true or only partially come true, you kind of look like an idiot. (I should say you “should” look like an idiot because we humans love to listen to people who’ve failed in their predictions time and again. …
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1984, 1994, 2007) by Robert Cialdini
When this book was published in 1984, it was probably one-of-a-kind, and an absolute must-read. A pop psychology treatment on how businesses (and con men) manipulate us into buying things we don’t want, there was probably not much else out there like it. It’s a landmark and it was likely essential reading pre-internet.
The Psychology of the Thought-Leading CEO
The archetypal CEO is a man who combines instinct and intelligence, who knows when to go with his gut and when to listen to the experts. He has strong convictions. He reads a lot, or as much as he can. He keeps in shape. He knows what to do and when. He is not afraid …
War at the Wall Street Journal (2010, Sarah Ellison)
I’m not sure this book is something I would have read were it not for the “Planet Fox” series in the New York Times. But it’s a mostly well-told, compelling story of Robert Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones. I’m not sure it does enough to make it an essential read, but if you’re interested in …
Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion (2013) by Robert Gordon
This book tells the story of Stax Records, but it isn’t just a the story of Stax the record label, as it also places the story in the context of Memphis and the civil rights movement, and there are some very interesting parallels between the rise and fall of Stax and other American businesses.
A More Beautiful Question (2014) by Warren Berger
This is an interesting and inspiring book that is also flawed in such a way that I wonder how much of it is actually valuable. So that’s a problem.
Fooled by Randomness (2001) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
This is an important, valuable book. It’s basically a must-read. It would go on my list of essential non-fiction only I have a few reservations (all of them stylistic). Still, very, very important stuff.
Big Boys Gone Bananas (2011, Fredrick Gertten)
Regardless of what you think of Fredrick Gertten’s Bananas!* – a film I was skeptical of in part because of the film itself and, likely, in part, because of Dole’s campaign of defamation against Mr. Gertten – I doubt you believe that it should be censored (especially if you’ve never seen it). I have seen …
Ontario’s Beer Stores Now Even Worse
If you’re not from Ontario, you may be surprised to learn that The Beer Store, the Ontario chain licensed to sell beer, is not actually a good place to go for beer. Rather, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario is. That may seem a little weird, but it’s true. If you are from here, and …