How They Blew It
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Review
Jamie Oliver has a wonderful turn of phrase and that rare ability to bring business to life. (Richard Tyler, The Daily Telegraph )
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...The authors lightly, charmingly depict the lives of these corporate desperados, offering lessons other leaders can draw from their stories. (Washingtonpost.com, October 2010. )
Sixteen business leaders dissected with autopsy-like precision to explain how such remarkable business people all did something unbelievable - they totally blew it. All share similar traits... (HR magazine, December 2010 )
In a reflection of the times we live in, when are heroes are increasingly being found to have feet of clay, the authors (one of them being a journalist and the other an entrepreneur) bring a lot of experience and empathy towards the Icarus-like saga of 16 business leaders who built empires of epic proportions on the back of their unrelenting ambition and grit, only to see their businesses vaporise around them in no time. (Financial Express, September 2010 )
How They Blew It is an excellent book, written by people that really know business and entrepreneurship. It is not intended to show you how to blow it, though. It is mostly intended to give you the hints on how to avoid following in the footsteps of the people that have. (Continuity, Insurance and Risk, September 2010 )
Of itself, the collection of stories in interesting, and encouraging for those who like to see others fall from a high place. But it also has significant value as a lesson for business...Being an entrepreneur is all about risk taking - but the stress here is on a calculated risk. (Brianclegg.blogspot, July 2010 )
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...The authors lightly, charmingly depict the lives of these corporate desperados, offering lessons other leaders can draw from their stories. (Washingtonpost.com, October 2010. )
Sixteen business leaders dissected with autopsy-like precision to explain how such remarkable business people all did something unbelievable - they totally blew it. All share similar traits... (HR magazine, December 2010 )
In a reflection of the times we live in, when are heroes are increasingly being found to have feet of clay, the authors (one of them being a journalist and the other an entrepreneur) bring a lot of experience and empathy towards the Icarus-like saga of 16 business leaders who built empires of epic proportions on the back of their unrelenting ambition and grit, only to see their businesses vaporise around them in no time. (Financial Express, September 2010 )
How They Blew It is an excellent book, written by people that really know business and entrepreneurship. It is not intended to show you how to blow it, though. It is mostly intended to give you the hints on how to avoid following in the footsteps of the people that have. (Continuity, Insurance and Risk, September 2010 )
Of itself, the collection of stories in interesting, and encouraging for those who like to see others fall from a high place. But it also has significant value as a lesson for business...Being an entrepreneur is all about risk taking - but the stress here is on a calculated risk. (Brianclegg.blogspot, July 2010 )
...they have delivered a readable, well-referenced enticement to those who are in business or who are contemplating a business venture. Perhaps the biggest lesson to be gleaned from How They Blew it is that an overdose of hubris can be a lethal business partner
Foreword Reviews, October 2010
(Foreword Reviews )Book Description
How They Blew It profiles business leaders and entrepreneurs and how they went from corporate gurus to financial disaster zones, resulting in the collapse of some of the world's most famous businesses. It looks at the personality traits of these business leaders and the fine line between success and failure.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
LEFT ME DISAPPOINTED,
By
This review is from: How They Blew It: The CEOs and Entrepreneurs Behind Some of the World's Most Catastrophic Business Failures (Paperback)
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.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A veritable "who's who" of who blew it and how!,
By
This review is from: How They Blew It: The CEOs and Entrepreneurs Behind Some of the World's Most Catastrophic Business Failures (Paperback)
How does a perceived financial guru bring about a business catastrophe? It is quite a question and there are reasons aplenty behind a humiliating fall from financial grace. The authors of this book - Jamie Oliver and Tony Goodwin - attempt to understand these by highlighting examples of those who had it all and then simply - blew it!
Some treaded where they should not have, some got greedy, some could not respond to financial challenges, some invested in assets they did not fully comprehend while others were simply vain. The end result was the same in each case - financial ruin. In a book of little over 200 pages, the authors provide 16 such examples with stark details of events and failures worth staggering sums of money. This book is no moral discourse, but while reading it I simply felt obliged to examine the rights and wrongs of each of the cases mentioned. It is hardly a surprise that the egregious James Cayne (of Bear Stearns) and vainglorious Dick Fuld (of Lehman Brothers) are among the sixteen. Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers who were at the helm of past failed giants Enron and WorldCom are there too, as are Russian heavyweights Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky who find themselves in this book for very different reasons. While financial failure is the common thing among these men, how they got there is not. The authors look at the personality traits of these business leaders and the perhaps precariously fine line between success and failure. I found this book to be a thoroughly good read. It targets a general readership base and people who appreciate corporate histories. Students of management studies and finance managers would enjoy the book too.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Broad reports on 17 entrepreneurs who blew up their businesses,
By
This review is from: How They Blew It: The CEOs and Entrepreneurs Behind Some of the World's Most Catastrophic Business Failures (Paperback)
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.
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