Business

Brief Summary The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History In 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor—the London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide—was set daily by a small group of easily manipulated administrators, and that they could reap huge profits by nudging it fractions of a percent to suit their trading portfolios. Tom Hayes, a brilliant but troubled mathematician, became the lynchpin of a wild alliance that included a prickly French trader nicknamed "Gollum”; the broker "Abbo,” who liked to publicly strip naked when drinking; a nervous Kazakh chicken farmer known as "Derka Derka”; a broker known as "Village” (short for "Village Idiot”) who racked up huge expense account bills; an executive called "Clumpy” because of his patchwork hair loss; and a broker uncreatively nicknamed "Big Nose” who had once been a semi-professional boxer. This group generated incredible riches —until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion. With exclusive access to key characters and evidence, The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account of the scam, but also a provocative examination of a financial system that was crooked throughout. " ISBN:9780753557495 Author:David Enrich

Brief Summary During the pivotal moments of our lives, results are often determined not only by our actions but also by our words. Saying the right thing the right way can make the difference between sealing the deal or losing the account, advancing your career or suffering a demotion. In these moments, it’s important to be pitch perfect—to use precisely the right tone to convey the right message to the right person at the right time. In Pitch Perfect, the renowned media coach Bill McGowan shows you how to craft just the right message. Along the way, McGowan lays out his Seven Principles of Persuasion, which are as easy to learn, implement, and master as they are effective. The right language—both verbal and nonverbal—can make you more confident, persuasive, and certain. It can stir people to listen closely to your every word and to remember you long after you’ve left the room. ISBN:9780062472939 Author:Bill McGowan

Brief Summary Entrepreneurs in developing countries who assume they will have the same legal, governmental, and institutional protections as their counterparts in the West will fail. To succeed, they need to build trust within the existing structures--and this book shows how it's done. Entrepreneurial ventures often fail in the developing world because of the lack of something taken for granted in the developed world: trust. Over centuries, the developed world has built customs and institutions such as enforceable contracts, an impartial legal system, and credible regulatory bodies--and even unofficial but respected sources of information such as Yelp and Consumer Reports--that have created a high level of what scholar and entrepreneur Tarun Khanna calls "ambient trust." This is not the case in the developing world. But Khanna shows that rather than become casualties of mistrust, smart entrepreneurs can adopt the mindset that, like it or not, it's up to them to weave their own independent web of trust--with their employees, their partners, their clients, their customers, and society as a whole. This can be challenging, and it requires innovative approaches in places where the level of societal mistrust is so high that an official certification of quality simply arouses suspicion--and lowers sales! Using vivid examples from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and elsewhere, Khanna's stories show how entrepreneurs can build on existing customs and practices instead of trying to push against them. He highlights the role new technologies can play (but cautions that these are not panaceas) and explains how entrepreneurs can find dependable partners in national and local governments to create impact at scale. As far back as the 18th century, Adam Smith recognized trust as what Khanna calls "the hidden engine of economic progress." "Frankness and openness conciliate confidence," Smith wrote. "We trust the man who seems willing to trust us." That kind of confidence is critical to entrepreneurial success, but in the developing world entrepreneurs have to establish it through their own efforts. As Khanna puts it, "The entrepreneur must not just create, she must create the conditions to create." ISBN:9781523094837 Author:Tarun Khanna