The Legend of Werner Enterprises recount the remarkable journey of a company that, for many years, struggled to survive the Interstate Commerce Commission's regulations, economic recessions, and a blizzard of competition. After becoming a top trucking business, werner adopted a satellite communication system for its entire fleet and developed the first paperless logs in the industry. No matter how difficult the challenges, drivers and customers alike know they have an ally in Werner. Through its camaraderie and competitive drive, Werner Enterprises has found the route to success.

"O'Boyle has researched and written a monumental book that should be mandatory reading for all CEOs and anyone concerned with business ethics." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "Superb . . . a spirited study of General Electric, and of its sometimes brilliant, sometimes bungling, but always ruthless boss, Jack Welch." --Chicago Sun-Times With convincing passion and meticulous research, Thomas F. O'Boyle explores the forces behind General Electric's rise to the top of Wall Street, questioning if GE, with chief executive officer Jack Welch at the helm, is still "bringing good things to life." Welch--explosive, profit-hungry, and pragmatic--catapulted GE's stocks to the top, up 1,155 percent from 1982 to 1997. O'Boyle argues that these astounding results have come only with the heavy price of employees' lives, blighted under the tyranny of "Neutron Jack" Welch, so named for his bomb-like ability to eliminate staff without disturbing surrounding operations. During Welch's reign, hard-nosed success tactics--unblinking downsizing, ruthless acquisition negotiations, and the virtual abandonment of manufacturing in favor of the more glamorous entertainment and financial services industries--coexist with scandals like price-fixing, pollution, and defense contract fraud. Sure to spark controversy, this gripping, comprehensive account begs the greater question: Is Jack Welch's GE a model company for business in the next century, or is it time to change the way the world does business? "Smoothly written and thoroughly researched." --USA Today "This book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of corporate America. . . . Thomas F. O'Boyle persuades you that GE--Jack Welch's GE--brings bad things to life. In abundance." --Washington Monthly

J.B. Hunt Transport hit the national business scene as a trucking company led by a dynamic founder known for his boundless optimism, untamed vision, and salesmanship. The company has since transformed into a multi-billion-dollar business by balancing business savvy and execution with an enduring entrepreneurial spirit--a rare feat in any industry. J.B. Hunt's triumphs and struggles provide a fascinating case study of how business theory, leadership, culture, and organizational best-practices have combined to create one of the most successful companies in American history. Kirk Thompson, with more than forty years of experience inside the company, gives a CEO's account of the company's evolution, while Matt Waller connects the leadership decisions to business theories that are transferrable to other leaders and industries. Purple on the Inside is more than a corporate history or business management primer. It's a practical case study that illustrates what Seth Godin described in Purple Cow, his best-selling book that considers what characteristics make for a remarkable business. It's the story of leaders and team members who tap into their founder's spirit for innovation while maintaining the focus and high level of performance needed to grow. It's a story about developing partnerships, technologies, and expertise that others can't easily duplicate. And it's a story of overcoming disheartening setbacks and cultivating the purple cows that have allowed J.B. Hunt Transport to do what many experts said was impossible--stand out from its competition in an industry full of brown cows.

The authoritative account of the rise of Amazon and its intensely driven founder, Jeff Bezos, praised by the Seattle Times as "the definitive account of how a tech icon came to life." Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now. Brad Stone enjoyed unprecedented access to current and former Amazon employees and Bezos family members, giving readers the first in-depth, fly-on-the-wall account of life at Amazon. Compared to tech's other elite innovators -- Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg -- Bezos is a private man. But he stands out for his restless pursuit of new markets, leading Amazon into risky new ventures like the Kindle and cloud computing, and transforming retail in the same way Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing. The Everything Store is the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.

A data-driven assessment analyzes the practices of thousands of high- and low-performing companies over a forty-five-year period to reveal unique thinking habits and counterintuitive strategies.

How high? How fast? How’d they do that? The top favorites at any Disney Theme park always include the roller coasters. The Disney Mountains: Imagineering at Its Peak will tell you that and more–not only about the current Disney mountain range and its show enhancements, but about mountains unclimbed and mountains yet to be. Attractions include: Disneyland: Matterhorn Bobsleds, Space Mountain – old and new, Splash Mountain; Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Never built: Big Rock Candy Mountain and the Western River Expedition Disney’s California Adventure: Grizzly Peak and Grizzly River Run Tokyo Disneyland: Mysterious Island (Journey to the Center of the Earth) Disneyland Paris: Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain Walt Disney World: Space, Splash, and Big Thunder at Magic Kingdom Park; Mount Mayday and Mt. Gushmore, and the latest mountain–Expedition Everest at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park

"Reinsurance has to be international in accordance with its nature." This is the well-known viewpoint of Carl von Thieme, one of the founders of Munich Re, who also served as its general director for many years. Thus, it was not a coincidence that the company rose to become the world market leader rather quickly after its founding in 1880. In the following period, Munich Re stayed on top or was occasionally second to Swiss Re. Nonetheless, the broader public does not know much about the company. Johannes Bähr and Christopher Kopper now present the first history of the reinsurer from its beginnings into the 1980s. Few companies have risen to become world market leaders as quickly as Munich Re, and only the fewest have succeeded in remaining at the top of the world market for as long. The company’s history reveals how insurers reacted to major catastrophes and technological shifts. Without sharing risks with reinsurers, countless direct insurers would not have survived the economic consequences of major natural catastrophes and would have been forced into bankruptcy by the weight of their payment obligations. Consequently, reinsurers even made coverage for some risks possible in the first place. Yet Munich Re itself also repeatedly contributed to the introduction of new segments of insurance, such as in the case of machine insurance or high-risk life insurance. Thus, the history of this pioneer of globalization is, at the same time, a history of dealing with risks and managing the distribution of risk. Last but not least, it is also the history of a German company that profited from the National Socialist dictatorship and, with great effort, had to find its way back into the world market after the two world wars.

A New York Times bestseller! The untold story of the eccentric Wall Street tycoon and the circle of scientific geniuses who helped build the atomic bomb and defeat the Nazis—changing the course of history. Legendary financier, philanthropist, and society figure Alfred Lee Loomis gathered the most visionary scientific minds of the twentieth century—Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and others—at his state-of-the-art laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York, in the late 1930s. He established a top-secret defense laboratory at MIT and personally bankrolled pioneering research into new, high-powered radar detection systems that helped defeat the German Air Force and U-boats. With Ernest Lawrence, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist, he pushed Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fund research in nuclear fission, which led to the development of the atomic bomb. Jennet Conant, the granddaughter of James Bryant Conant, one of the leading scientific advisers of World War II, enjoyed unprecedented access to Loomis’ papers, as well as to people intimately involved in his life and work. She pierces through Loomis’ obsessive secrecy and illuminates his role in assuring the Allied victory.