Summer reading used to be given over to romance novels or similar books you didn’t mind getting soiled by smeared suntan lotion or spilled margaritas. Business books weren’t often included.
No more. Technology, from phones to Ipads, ties us to work 24/7. Our choice becomes not whether to manage work, but how. For many, reading a good business book is the means to educate and inspire our day to day. It can give new perspective even as we get away.
Here are three that will help your summer business shine:
When to Rob a Bank…and 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
If the goal of your summer break is to sharpen your wit, then you’d do well to recharge your business batteries by reading Levitt and Dubner. When this team published “Freakonomics” just over 10 years ago, they simultaneously started a blog.
This is a collection of the best of those blogs. It’s a perfect summer read: 131 examples that challenge you to change your perspective. Readers of the authors’ bestsellers will recognize some of these from previous books. Fans will find the examples just as interesting with a multi-year view.
The authors begin by asking how can they justify a book of blogs. Blogs by definition are “more casual, more personal, more opinionated” than books. And they are free. But don’t people buy bottled water when they have free water available? A book of blogs is like bottled water.
While many of the questions deal with economics and business, others cast a wide net. Among the questions the authors probe: Why don’t flight attendants get tipped? Why does KFC always run out of fried chicken? Is it time for a sex tax?
Here’s a final suggestion: the Freakonomics book of blogs makes for a perfect read on a Kindle or other e-reader.
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
By Ashlee Vance
There have been innumerable articles and books written about Elon Musk, but Ashlee Vance’s is the first to have exclusive access to the technology tycoon. Called “the world’s most important entrepreneur” by the Washington Post, Musk is the driving force behind PayPal, Telsa Motors, SpaceX and SolarCity.
The author explores his subject by means of a broader question: Can the nation that led the world for a century still compete in a new age of global competition with a new set of players? The answer is a solid “Yes!” when Musk is in the running. The author places Musk on a parallel with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, among other great thinkers and inventors.
Using any comparison, Musk’s story makes for a fascinating read. He grew up in South Africa, teaching himself computer programming at age 12. While still a teen, he sold his first video game. He was bullied and at one point hospitalized when a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs. This appears to have made him more tenacious. He became an American citizen in 2002 after earning degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School.
In 1995, he started Zip2, a web software company, with $28,000, borrowed from his father. It was sold four years later for over $10 million. After a merger, the company was eventually renamed as PayPal. PayPal was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in stock.
Musk has recently been in the news for Space X, a company he founded to advance rocket technology. Among the company’s many success stories is developing the first privately funded vehicle to put a satellite into orbit around the Earth.
Musk’s story is an inspiring one, and his positive vision for the future makes for a mustread book this summer.
Alibaba’s World: How a Remarkable Chinese Company is Changing the Face of Global Business
By Porter Erisman
In 1999, Jack Ma, a Chinese schoolteacher, founded a website he named “Alibaba,” after the character in the well-known folktale. He established the business-to-business portal in order to connect Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers.
In 2014, Alibaba held the largest IPO in history, over $25 billion. Today, Alibaba is the largest e-commerce company in the world. In “Alibaba’s World,” Porter Erisman, one of the organization’s fi rst Western employees, reveals the story of the company’s meteoric rise as a keenly astute insider.
Erisman uses a three-pronged approach to his subject: the story of the company; Jack Ma’s creative leadership; and Erisman’s own role in the company, including an eight-year tenure as head of international marketing. It is Jack Ma, however, who clearly emerges as the hero in Erisman’s perception, as he shares how Alibaba became so successful when so many others failed.
Alibaba seems almost as magically empowered as its name suggests, as it masters the changeable Chinese government regulations, the volatility of global markets and stare-down encounters with eBay and Google.
“Alibaba’s World” is a revealing look at the new focus on Eastern and emerging markets, as well as the new entrepreneurs leading this tsunami.