The Self-Made Billionaire Effect
How Extreme Producers Create Massive Value
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- £8.99
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
Discover and cultivate the secret traits of self-made billionaires with THE SELF-MADE BILLIONAIRE EFFECT by John Sviokla and Mitch Cohen
Imagine what Atari might have achieved if Steve Jobs had stayed there. Or what Steve Case could have done for Pepsi if he hadn't left for a start-up that eventually became AOL.
Scores of billionaires worked for established corporations before they struck out on their own. People like Michael Bloomberg and Mark Cuban went on to build iconic household brands.
Why didn't their former employers hang onto to these people? And why are most big companies unable to create as much value as the world's 800 self-made billionaires?
Billionaires aren't necessarily luckier, smarter or harder working than the rest of us - and they rarely build something brand-new. The key difference is their mindset. They redefine what's possible - and they are critical to any company looking to create massive value.
The Self-Made Billionaire Effect breaks down the five critical habits of massive value-creators, so you can learn how to identify, encourage, and retain them - and even become one yourself. It will forever change the way you think about talent and business value.
John J. Sviokla is the head of Global Thought Leadership with PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is a frequent speaker on innovation, growth, and customer behavior. In addition to working with clients,
John serves on PwC's Advisory Leadership Group and Global Thought Leadership Council. He was on the faculty of the Harvard Business School for ten years and has written for Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Sloan Management Review.
Mitch Cohen is PwC's Vice Chairman. During his 33 years at the firm and 20 years as a partner,
Cohen has held a variety of leadership roles and served numerous Fortune 500 clients.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Who wants to be a billionaire? And how, exactly, does that happen? The second question is what Sviokla and Cohen explore in this in-depth examination of the traits that self-made billionaires share. The authors set up a research team at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where both of them work, to study a randomly selected sample of 120 such moguls. The results dispel some common misconceptions, like that recently minted billionaires tend to be young and in the tech industry; in fact, fewer than 20% of the sample group came from this sector. According to Sviokla and Cohen, the people they surveyed including such well-known names as Joe Mansueto from investment research firm MorningH; Sara Blakeley from Spanx; and Chip Wilson from Lululemon typically differed from other high achievers in that they mastered multiple skills, not just one. The book's most helpful insights, however, are into creating corporate cultures that will promote the same type of behavior exhibited by billionaires. Its prose is, at times, overly jargon-filled: "the job of leadership in promoting Producer-friendly culture change is to put a wrapper of legitimacy around non-traditional activity." The ideas, meanwhile, aren't always as specific as they should be. Still, this ambitious book deserves a few hours' worth of attention from equally ambitious readers.