Billion Dollar Lessons
What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Past 25 Years
About the book
When a venture lost $10 million in the 1960s, IBM chief executive Tom Watson refused to fire the executive in charge, explaining that the company had just paid for his education and wanted him to learn the right lessons. Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui build their study of corporate collapse on that idea. Books about successful companies are everywhere, they point out, while firms that crash and burn get almost no attention. Drawing on research into more than 750 flameouts, the authors set out what they see as the seven biggest reasons businesses fail.
Ryan Holiday put it on his list of 24 books to hone a strategic mind as a cautionary tale, arguing that most supposedly genius strategies are misguided and that strategists get too wrapped up in their own vision to spot what can go wrong.
We hope you love the books people recommend! Just so you know, The CEO Library may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page.
This book has 1 recommendation
Ryan Holiday (Founder/Brass Check)
I am putting this book on here as a cautionary tale for all the supposed business strategists out there. Because it turns out that most (if not all) genius business strategies are totally misguided and lead to catastrophic failure. Your planned merger, roll up, pivot–it’s probably got glaring strategic flaws in it. Why? Because you’re too caught up in your own vision to see what can go wrong, to see where you’ve been overly optimistic, to accept how little you control. Pairing this book with some of the books on war is a good idea. It will humble you and keep you conservative–which all good strategists are. “Boldness” should be used sparingly because it’s often actually just stupidity in disguise.
Get this book on Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple Books