The Self-Made Billionaire Effect: How Extreme Producers Create Massive Value

  • 6h 17m 2s
  • John Sviokla, Mitch Cohen
  • Gildan Media
  • 2014

Imagine what Atari might have achieved if Steve Jobs had stayed there to develop the first massmarket personal computer. Or what Steve Case might have done for PepsiCo if he hadn’t left for a gaming start-up that eventually became AOL. What if Salomon Brothers had kept Michael Bloomberg, or Bear Stearns had exploited the inventive ideas of Stephen Ross? Scores of top-tier entrepreneurs worked for established corporations before they struck out on their own and became self-made billionaires. People like Mark Cuban, John Paul DeJoria, Sara Blakely, and T. Boone Pickens all built businesses—in some cases, multiple businesses—that are among today’s most iconic brands. This fact raises two profound questions: Why couldn’t their former employers hang on to to these extraordinarily talented people? And why are most big companies unable to create as much new value as the world’s roughly 800 self-made billionaires?

In this Audiobook

  • 1 Exploding Myths of Extreme Entrepreneurship
  • 2 Empathetic Imagination: The Art of Designing the Blockbuster
  • 3 Patient Urgency: How Billionaires Thrive Despite the Uncertainty of Time
  • 4 Inventive Execution: How Producers Bring Blockbusters to Market
  • 5 Reversing the Risk Equation: How Producers Avoid Risks Others Take and Take Risks Others Avoid
  • 6 The Producer-Performer Duality: How Producers Find Their Complement