How They Blew It: The CEOs and Entrepreneurs Behind Some of the World's Most Catastrophic Business Failures
- 3h 17m
- Jamie Oliver, Tony Goodwin
- Kogan Page
- 2010
How They Blew It is a series of eye-popping tales of entrepreneurs and business leaders who went from corporate gurus to financial disaster zones in rapid and humiliating fashion. Full of surprising details and mind-blowing sums of money, it looks at the characteristics of these leaders and the fine line between hero and zero.
How They Blew It is about the people at the heart of these business catastrophes. It is about what drives them to succeed and then to fail. It is a compelling examination of the rights and wrongs of each case and it seeks to get into the minds of the people behind the business disasters and ask “Why the hell did they do that?”
The characteristics of successful entrepreneurs include resilience and the ability to learn from failure, and so the aim of How they Blew It is ultimately positive. By examining how business ventures can go so badly wrong, you can learn to avoid those mistakes in the first place.
About the Authors
Jamie Oliver has interviewed some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs and business leaders, including Howard Schultz, Sir Martin Sorrell, Charles Dunstone, James Dyson and Stelios. He has interviewed a wide range of people in his 12-year journalistic career, including gravediggers, prostitutes, bishops, diamond dealers and venture capitalists. He has written three previous books, about success, death and sex, and spoken widely on each subject to varying degrees of bewilderment.
A former Daily Telegraph columnist, his work has also appeared in the Financial Times, the Independent, the Observer, London Evening Standard, Marie Claire and a range of leading business magazines.
Called variously “an intelligent and insightful interviewer”, “a highly professional journalist” and “an articulate chronicler of current events, people and their impact in the world”, the Daily Telegraph said Oliver “has a wonderful turn of phrase and that rare ability to bring business to life.”
Tony Goodwin runs the international recruitment business Antal, and is one of the UK's most successful business service entrepreneurs with over 25 years' experience in business.
In this Book
-
Introduction
-
Bernie Ebbers — Chosen?
-
Christopher Foster — Deadly Intent
-
Mikhail Khodorkovsky — Stitch Up
-
Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson — Rock Star
-
Reuben Singh — All That Glitters
-
Tim Power — More than He Could Chew
-
Dick Fuld — King Kong
-
Guy Naggar and Peter Klimt — the Art of Money
-
Adolf Merckle — One Step Too Far
-
Boris Berezovsky — Exile
-
Zhou Zhengyi — Power Politics
-
Mark Goldberg — Paying the Penalty
-
Ken Lay — Friends in High Places
-
Kevin Leech — How to Blow a Billion
-
James Cayne — A Bridge Too Far
-
Robert Tchenguiz — Credit Crunched
-
Conclusion
