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How They Blew It: The CEOs and Entrepreneurs Behind Some of the World’s Most Catastrophic Business Failures
£2.70
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.
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Additional information
| Publisher | 1st edition (3 July 2010), Kogan page |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 224 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 9780749460655 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0749460655 |
| Dimensions | 15.8 x 1.7 x 23.5 cm |
by Rolf Dobelli
In recent years, serial entrepreneurs and celebrity CEOs have become rock stars, not just of the corporate world but also of society at large. People love to learn about big business mavens, what they do, where they live, what they drive, where they party and who their spouses are. Even more darkly compelling are the bad boy wheelers and dealers who have dramatically blown up their firms through financial chicanery (almost exclusively a male activity; thus, few bad girls of business exist). In this timely yet disturbing book, journalist Jamie Oliver and recruitment expert Tony Goodwin present a rogues’ gallery of entrepreneurs and CEOs who have disgraced themselves and destroyed their companies, often trashing the savings of multitudes of innocent bystanders. Some of these guys didn’t blow it, exactly, in that they went home plenty rich – but their firms still suffered on their watch. The authors lightly, charmingly depict the lives of these corporate desperados, offering lessons other leaders can draw from their stories. While morbidly fascinating and a bit sensational, the book sometimes loses its edge as it catalogs deals negotiated, firms bought, bad strategies enacted and millions lost. Nonetheless, getAbstract quite enjoys this voyeur’s look at how these big shots imploded and how to avoid making the same mistakes.
by DOPPLEGANGER
I was really looking forward to reading “How They Blew It”, particularly to learning much about the 16 ‘big time cock-up merchants’ of recent times including Bernie Ebbers, Dick Fuld, Ken Lay, Jimmy Cayne, and Robert Tchenguiz.
On reflection I should have looked at the product description closer and realised that in a book of only just over 200 pages, there wasn’t enough space to do justice to an in depth, detailed look at the business lives of these ‘architects of commercial disasters’. Sure, with some individuals I learned more than I did to start with and with others frankly not a lot more, leaving a feeling of disappointment, and frustration that it stopped somewhat short of the real deal. A comment made by an earlier reviewer suggests that a search on Google would have been just as productive, and while I think this is a little harsh, can understand the point being made.
The 16 CEO’s and Entrepreneurs with their finger marks all over some of the world’s catastrophic business failures were a complex, varied and, fascinating collection whose story cannot be told, other than in a cursory manner, over an average page allocation of 12.5 pages.
by Ian Mouat
Great book and a great read, how they got it so wrong. No regrets in buying it.
by G. B. Read
This is a great book – many business books recount the success someone had which is often down to a “time and place” or unique to that individual, this book goes one better, it delves into the how NOT to blow it and investigates some of the large failures of recent times and is an essential read for anyone in business or starting a business
How They Blew It: The CEOs and Entrepreneurs Behind Some of the World’s Most Catastrophic Business Failures
by Lanre Anifowose
A great insight, a must read for all aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners. Loads of lessons for everyone, no matter the area of specialization
by The Finance Guy UK
I’m normally not into the negative books about entrepreneurs, but this is actually a pretty reasonable review of 16 CEOs and entrepreneurs that things went temporarily or permanently bad for, without too much of a hatchet job on them. It’s mainly taken from publicly available information, and it more covering the stories than providing too much original analysis.
The chapter list includes:
Robert Tchenguiz – the UK property mogul.
Dick Fuld and James Cayne – the CEOs of Lehman and Bear Stearns during their credit crunch collapses.
Kevin Leech and Christopher Foster – UK entrepreneurs who’s investments went bad.
Key Lay – the criminal, and seemingly sociopathic, Enron Chairman.
Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky – and their Putin-led attempts to turn a large fortune into jail time and exile.
Mark Goldberg – who had by far the most entertaining story, in blowing his fortune on 9 months as Crystal Palace chairman.
It’s not written by the chef Jamie Oliver, so you don’t have to worry about reading it with a lisp.
Most hit problems from hubris – but many, many people in the same situations have not lost their fortunes, or been forced to do extra jail time for upsetting Russian presidents. Unless you’re fundamentally dishonest or a sociopath, you’re probably not going to learn a lot of tips from this book, but the stories are good.
Great value.
by MumofTwo
I agree with a different reviewer who said that this book is no more than you could glean from reading newspapers on the people involved. There is no great detail just anecdotes really and the author’s own opinion, which at times is eyebrow-raising e.g. his description of Iceland! However, I am not a newspaper reader so the stories are interesting as I haven’t read them before. I would have preferred much more in-depth journalism and detail. Not a great read, certainly not worth the amount of marketing they spent on publicising the book, and it will find its way to the local charity shop – when I’ve finished it.