What to Give: Books on Business - WSJ Business Bios 111717.pdfJ.C. Penney: The Man, the Store, and...
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This has been an unusual year for fans of business biographies. Those of the traditional sort, recounting the triumphs and travails of entrepreneurs or corporate executives, have been scarce. Instead, we’ve been treated to an array of remarkable books that use biography or autobiography as a vehicle to explore difficult themes in leadership or life. My favorite among these is Ellen Ullman’s “Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology” (MCD, 306 pages, $27). Ms. Ullman is far from a corporate heavyweight; she toiled for two decades as a programmer in San Francisco and has spent two more as a writer. “Life in Code” is a series of essays written between 1994 and 2017 and built loosely around her life as she navigates the changing technological environment. Her descriptions of what it means to be a programmer—and of the challenges of being a female programmer amid immature computer geeks, wannabe billionaires and cleaning ladies earning minimum wage—are vivid. The reader is left wondering why anyone would sign up for a life of isolated work fueled by cold pizza until she lovingly details the supreme satisfaction of solving a seemingly intractable coding problem. Ms. Ullman is no romantic when it comes to the industry in which she has spent so many years. As early as 1998, when evangelists were promising that technology would bring liberation, she warned: “The internet ideal represents a retreat not only from political life but also from culture—from that tumultuous conversation in which we try to talk to one another about our shared experiences.” The abundant evidence that people turn to websites that reinforce rather than challenge their views suggests that she was right about that. In her final chapter, written early this year, she despairs about the vast gulf between the “gig economy” workers who service her gentrified neighborhood and the well-paid techies now residing there, who order everything they need online and “come home to see their wishes fulfilled as if by magic, materializing out of an ethereal, disembodied world.” Unfortunately, she’s right about that, too. Ms. Ullman’s dystopian vision, alas, would not motivate armies of DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY DJIA 25309.99 1.39% ▲ Nasdaq 7337.39 1.77% ▲ U.S. 10 Yr 0/32 Yield 2.867% ▼ Crude Oil 63.57 1.27% ▲ Euro 1.2297 -0.28% ▼ This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-to-give-books-on-business-1510783375 BOOKS BOOKSHELF What to Give: Books on Business The best books to give the business manager in your life. | Nov. 16, 2017 7:37 a.m. ET By Marc Levinson
Transcript of What to Give: Books on Business - WSJ Business Bios 111717.pdfJ.C. Penney: The Man, the Store, and...
This has been an unusual year for fans of business biographies. Those of thetraditional sort, recounting the triumphs and travails of entrepreneurs orcorporate executives, have been scarce. Instead, we’ve been treated to anarray of remarkable books that use biography or autobiography as a vehicleto explore difficult themes in leadership or life.
My favorite among these is Ellen Ullman’s “Life in Code: A Personal Historyof Technology” (MCD, 306 pages, $27). Ms. Ullman is far from a corporateheavyweight; she toiled for two decades as a programmer in San Franciscoand has spent two more as a writer. “Life in Code” is a series of essayswritten between 1994 and 2017 and built loosely around her life as shenavigates the changing technological environment. Her descriptions ofwhat it means to be a programmer—and of the challenges of being a femaleprogrammer amid immature computer geeks, wannabe billionaires andcleaning ladies earning minimum wage—are vivid. The reader is leftwondering why anyone would sign up for a life of isolated work fueled bycold pizza until she lovingly details the supreme satisfaction of solving aseemingly intractable coding problem.
Ms. Ullman is no romantic when it comes to the industry in which she hasspent so many years. As early as 1998, when evangelists were promisingthat technology would bring liberation, she warned: “The internet idealrepresents a retreat not only from political life but also from culture—fromthat tumultuous conversation in which we try to talk to one another aboutour shared experiences.” The abundant evidence that people turn towebsites that reinforce rather than challenge their views suggests that shewas right about that. In her final chapter, written early this year, shedespairs about the vast gulf between the “gig economy” workers whoservice her gentrified neighborhood and the well-paid techies now residingthere, who order everything they need online and “come home to see theirwishes fulfilled as if by magic, materializing out of an ethereal, disembodiedworld.” Unfortunately, she’s right about that, too.
Ms. Ullman’s dystopian vision, alas, would not motivate armies of
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DJIA 25309.99 1.39% ▲ Nasdaq 7337.39 1.77% ▲ U.S. 10 Yr 0/32 Yield 2.867% ▼ Crude Oil 63.57 1.27% ▲ Euro 1.2297 -0.28% ▼
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visithttp://www.djreprints.com.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-to-give-books-on-business-1510783375
BOOKS BOOKSHELF
What to Give: Books on BusinessThe best books to give the business manager in your life.
|
Nov. 16, 2017 7:37 a.m. ET
By Marc Levinson
programmers to work 70-hour weeks fueled by cold pizza. That requiresinspiration, which is the goal of “Hit Refresh” (HarperBusiness, 272 pages,$29.99), a quasi-autobiography by Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella.Mr. Nadella has subtitled his book “The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’sSoul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone,” and there are definitelyboosterish sections that seem to have been polished by Microsoft’s PRdepartment. The valuable part for business readers is Mr. Nadella’sinsistence that “the CEO is the curator of an organization’s culture.”Repositioning a software company that employed more than 100,000people, he decided upon taking charge in 2014, required inspiringemployees to be passionate about their work.
Back in thedays whentopexecutivesspentdecades at acompany,they livedand breathedthe corporateculture. Inrecent years,the
preoccupation of CEOs with the coming quarter’s earnings has pushedculture to the sidelines. “Hit Refresh,” which links Mr. Nadella’s interest incorporate culture to his personal story, including the birth of a severelydisabled child, might help reverse that trend.
So might another of this year’s not-quite autobiographies, Ray Dalio’s“Principles: Life and Work” (Simon & Schuster, 567 pages, $30). Mr. Daliois a legend in the world of investing, but it was not always so. BridgewaterAssociates, the firm he founded in 1975, fared so poorly after the Mexicandebt default in 1982 that he had to lay off all his employees; a trip to visit aprospective client in Texas was beyond his budget. “In retrospect,” hewrites, “my crash was one of the best things that ever happened to mebecause it gave me the humility I needed to balance my aggressiveness.” As
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Bridgewater rebuilt, Mr. Dalio developed a new management philosophy,which he calls “radical transparency.” It asks that the firm bring mistakes tolight and encourage the open discussion of disagreements. The second halfof the book lays out his approach to management. His judgment: “Greatcultures bring problems and disagreements to the surface and solve themwell.”
Culture is also the theme of three unorthodox books about Americanretailers. James Cash Penney infused his Christian convictions into thenation’s largest department store chain in the early 20th century, but in “J.C. Penney: The Man, the Store, and American Agriculture” (Oklahoma,346 pages, $29.95), David Delbert Kruger examines what came after:Penney’s convictions led the farm-born merchant to devote decades tobreeding livestock that might improve the living standards of the strugglingfarm families who shopped in his company’s stores.
“ Julius Rosenwald ” (Yale, 237 pages, $25), by Hasia R. Diner, looks at thephilanthropic efforts of the man who built Sears, Roebuck into a retail giantbut who became better known for financing 5,000 schools for black childrenin the segregated South. Both his generosity and the conditions he attachedto it, Ms. Diner argues, reflected his understanding of the religious principlethat Jews should seek to “repair the world.”
The third book in this trio, David Cappello’s “The People’s Grocer” (NeutralGround Press, 393 pages, $20), is an entertaining study of John G.Schwegmann, the New Orleans supermarket magnate. Schwegmann’s free-wheeling style and his obsession with offering bargains led him toundertake a legal crusade against the “fair trade” laws that kept groceryprices high. The Supreme Court ruled his way in a 1951 case that opened thedoor to discount retailing—a contribution for which Schwegmann deserves
NEED A BOOK FOR THE ART LOVER, SPORTS FAN OR HISTORY BUFF INYOUR LIFE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON? CHECK OUT THESE GIFT GUIDES FROMTHE WALL STREET JOURNAL’S BOOKS TEAM.
More gift ideas for readers in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal.
far more credit than he has received.
—Mr. Levinson is the author of “The Box: How the Shipping Container Made
the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.”
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