In the weird glow of the dying millennium, Michael Lewis sets out on a safari through Silicon Valley to find the world's most important technology entrepreneur, the man who embodies the spirit of the coming age. He finds him in Jim Clark, who is about to create his third, separate, billion-dollar company: first Silicon Graphics, then Netscape—which launched the Information Age—and now Healtheon, a startup that may turn the $1 trillion healthcare industry on its head.Despite the variety of his achievements, Clark thinks of himself mainly as the creator of Hyperion, which happens to be a sailboat—not just an ordinary yacht, but the world's largest single-mast vessel, a machine more complex than a 747. Clark claims he will be able to sail it via computer from his desk in San Francisco, and the new code may contain the seeds of his next billion-dollar coup.On the wings of Lewis' celebrated storytelling, the listener takes the ride of a lifetime through this strange landscape of geeks and billionaires. We get the inside story of the battle between Netscape and Microsoft; we sit in the room as Clark tries to persuade the investment bankers that Healtheon IS the new Microsoft; we get queasy as Clark pits his boat against the rage of the North Atlantic in winter. And in every brilliant anecdote and character sketch, Lewis is drawing us a map of markets and free enterprise in the twenty-first century.

With its accessible new approach to the key problems of modern strategic management, "A Strategy of Change" provides a critical appraisal of current ideas about "total quality management", "flexibility" and "excellence", testing them against case material drawn from a wide range of different organizational settings. This practical, issue-centred approach contrasts with the functionally orientated way in which management is often taught in the classroom and reflects instead the real needs of managers who have to work and communicate on a cross-functional basis. Dealing in an integrated way with strategic management problems across the full spectrum of marketing, production, financial and human resource management functions, this book provides an important tool for all those concerned with organizational survival in the changing environment of the 1990s. This book should be of interest as an MBA modular text, and to management consultants.

One of the most provocative entrepreneurs of our time, who started Ecko Unltd out of his parents’ garage and turned it into a media empire, Marc Ecko reveals his formula for building an authentic brand or business. As instructive as it is innovative, Unlabel will empower you to channel your creativity, find the courage to defy convention, and summon the confidence to act and compete in any environment. This visual blueprint will teach you how to grow both creatively and commercially by testing your personal brand against the principles of the Authenticity Formula. Marc Ecko shares the bruising mistakes and remarkable triumphs that reveal the truth behind his success, growing from a misfit kid airbrushing T-shirts in his parents’ garage to the bold creator of two hugely successful branded platforms—Ecko Unltd. and Complex Media. As Ecko explains, it’s not enough to simply merge your inner artist with business savvy, you must understand the anatomy of a brand, starting with its authentic spine. With Unlabel, you will learn how to discover your own voice by overcoming fear and taking action, what it means to deliver on your promises, why failure is essential, how to understand how your product or service makes people feel, and how to recognize if your nostalgia for the past is hampering your ability to envision your future. Unlabel is a bold and honest approach to building an authentic personal brand, growing a bootstrap start-up into a sustainable business.

book on managing

This book discusses a class of algorithms which rely on analogies to natural processes - algorithms based on the principle of evolution, i.e., survival of the fittest. In these algorithms, called evolution programs, a population of individuals undergo a sequence of transformations. The individuals strive for survival: a selection scheme biased towards fitter individuals selects the next generation. After some generations, the program converges and the best individual hopefully represents the optimum solution. Hence evolution programming techniques are applicable to various hard optimization problems. The book discusses constrained optimization problems in the areas of optimal control, operations research, and engineering. The problems include optimization of functions with linear constraints, the traveling salesman problem, scheduling and partitioning problems, etc. All methods are illustrated by results obtained from various experimental systems. The book collects, in a unified and comprehensive manner, the results of evolution programming techniques previously available only in widely scattered research papers. The importance of these techniques has been growing in the last decade, since evolution programs are parallel in nature, and parallelism is one of the most promising directions in computer science. The book is self-contained and the only prerequisite is basic undergraduate mathematics. It is aimed at researchers, practitioners, and graduate students in the areas of computer science (especially artificial intelligence), operations research, and engineering.

Product Description: In this title, unwrap the life of talented Wrigley's chewing gum founder, William Wrigley Jr.! Readers will enjoy getting the scoop on this Food Dude, beginning with his childhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Students can follow Wrigley's success story from the start of his sales career with the Wrigley Manufacturing Company to his establishment of Wrigley Chewing Gum and later the William Wrigley Jr...read more

Presidential hopeful, former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, and rising star of the race for the 2012 Republican nomination answers his most-asked question: Who is Herman Cain? When Herman Cain speaks, people listen. When he debates, he wins. If you care about the future of America, you have heard of the down-to-earth political newcomer running for president, the straight-talking man of the people with blunt assessments of what America needs. Originally overlooked by mainstream politicos and media, Herman Cain is truly a candidate from “outside the Beltway,” but no longer one who is being ignored. BUT WHO IS HE? While Herman Cain has been the host of a popular conservative Atlanta-area radio talk show called The Herman Cain Show, a different name originally captured American interest. As CEO, Herman Cain transformed Godfather’s Pizza from a company teetering on the verge of bankruptcy into a household word. Cain—as those with an interest in commonsense solutions to political problems will remember—is also famous for using the language and logic of everyday business to expose the fallacies inherent in Clinton assumptions about “Hillarycare” during a 1994 televised town hall meeting. WHAT IS HIS STORY? Herman Cain’s rise is the embodiment of the American dream. His parents, Luther and Lenora Cain, made a living the only way black people could in the ’40s and ’50s. Luther held down three jobs, including being a chauffeur; Lenora cleaned houses. They had two big dreams: to buy a house and to see their sons graduate from college. With dedication and hard work, they made both these dreams come true. In this thrilling memoir, Herman Cain describes his past and present . . . and the future he is determined to create, a future that will put our country back on track. His message resonates because he describes the American reality, and his down-to-earth personal tale of hope and hard work is both unforgettable and inspirational. *** What is it in my DNA that years ago prompted me to forgo the ease of cruise control and take on the enormous challenge of doing my part toward making America a better place for my granddaughter and the generations to come? Why do I, a son of the segregated South, refuse to think of myself as a “victim” of racism? What is it that motivates me to insist on defining my identity in terms of “ABC”—as being American first, black second, and Conservative third? Just who is Herman Cain? And how did I get this way? Just a hint: it may have had something to do with lessons learned from my parents, Lenora and Luther Cain, Jr. —From This Is Herman

Product Description: The cofounder of Microsoft, Bill Gates helped transform society by ushering in the era of ubiquitous personal computing. This book examines the life and achievements of this standout American inventor and philanthropist.• Provides a balanced and unbiased account of Bill Gates that includes his own writings as well as criticisms of Gates's management style that allows readers to reach their own conclusions• Documents Gates's philanthropic activities and commitment to dispersing some of his accumulated wealth to help those in need worldwide• Includes images, timelines, and charts and graphs that enrich the reading experience as well as an extensive bibliography that provides researchers with easy access to original source document...read more