''Business Adventures'' is a 1969 collection of 12 essays written by
John Brooks. The essays, all of which were previously published in ''
The New Yorker'', deal with financial and corporate life in the United States. In 1963 Harper & Row published ''The Fate of the Edsel and Other Business Adventures'', which contains 3 of the 12 essays published in the 1969 collection.
On July 11, 2014 in an essay published in the ''Wall Street Journal''
and slightly later in his blog,
Bill Gates proclaimed ''Business Adventures'', recommended to him by
Warren Buffett, as "the best business book I've ever read."
On July 8, 2014, Open Road Media released an e-book edition entitled ''Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street'' and in August 2014 offered a paperback edition. In 2014
Penguin Random House Audio
Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House.
On April 2, 2020, Bertelsmann announced the completion of its purchase of ...
released an audiobook of ''Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street'' narrated by Johnny Heller.
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Table of contents of 2014 edition
# The fluctuation: the little crash in '62
The story of the Kennedy Slide of 1962 is told.
# The fate of the Edsel: a cautionary tale
The essay tells how the Ford Motor Company lost $350 million (in 1960 dollars) in a failed attempt to sell Edsels.
# The federal income tax: its history and peculiarities
# A reasonable amount of time: insiders at Texas Gulf Sulphur
The Texas Gulf Sulphur Company was one of the largest sulfur mining companies in the world from 1919 to 1981. By 1925 the company controlled 40% of the U.S. sulfur market. It was formed in 1909 and acquired in 1981, after expanding across the Uni ...
# Xerox Xerox Xerox Xerox
Bill Gates has made this chapter (which tells the story of the Xerox Corporation's spectacular growth from 1959 to 1967) available for free on his website.
# Making the customers whole: the death of a president (tale of the Salad Oil Scandal
The salad oil scandal, also referred to as the soybean scandal, was an American major corporate scandal in 1963 that caused over $180 million ($ billion today) in losses to corporations including American Express, Bank of America and Bank Leumi, ...
— which was publicly revealed at about the time of the JFK assassination)
# The impacted philosophers: non-communication at GE
# The last great corner: a company called Piggly Wiggly
# A second sort of life: David E. Lilienthal
David Eli Lilienthal (July 8, 1899 – January 15, 1981) was an American attorney and public administrator, best known for his Presidential Appointment to head Tennessee Valley Authority and later the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He had p ...
, businessman
# Stockholder season: annual meetings and corporate power
# One free bite: a man, his knowledge, and his job
# In defense of sterling: the bankers, the pound, and the dollar
References
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Essay collections
1969 non-fiction books
Business books