PODCAST · business
Business Books & Co.
by David Kopec, David Short, Kevin Hudak
Join us each month as we discuss a popular business book. Each episode features a summary of the book's contents, key takeaway points, a discussion of its merits, and applications in the real world. Hosted by David Kopec, David Short, and Kevin Hudak.
Episodes
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[S6E2] Steve Jobs in Exile with Geoffrey Cain
In 1976 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple. In 1985 Jobs was forced out of Apple after a dramatic corporate power struggle. He immediately founded NeXT, another computer company that built revolutionary technology but struggled to find a market and was consistently barely surviving. 12...
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[S6E1] The New New Thing by Michael Lewis
The New New Thing by Michael Lewis is the story of entrepreneur and computer scientist Jim Clark, the heady days of the 1990s .com bubble, and the companies he started. Namely, Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and Healtheon. Written in 1999, it captures a particular era in Silicon Valley, including…
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[S5E10] Season 5 Finale
We went to the depths of hell in Doom Guy with John Romero and to the heights of Apple’s success in Apple: The First 50 Years with David Pogue. Season 5 of Business Books & Co. had it all. From author interviews to deep analysis we read through some insightful, cinematic, and powerful books. Join...
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[S5E9] Apple: The First 50 Years with David Pogue
Apple, one of the largest and most influential companies in corporate history, just celebrated its 50th anniversary. From its romantic beginnings as the visionary project of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to its current global dominance of the smartphone market, Apple has always engendered…
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[S5E8] What You Need to Know About AI with James Wang
Although the field of Artificial Intelligence has been around since the 1950s, it's only in the last few years, with the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs), that the general public has truly taken notice. Apps based on LLMs, like ChatGPT, have already upended the labor market, creating...
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[S5E7] Influence by Robert Cialdini
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini is one of the best-selling books on social psychology of all-time. Influence explains the essential ingredients that make what it calls "compliance professionals" (salespeople, marketers, negotiators) successful. Namely, seven levers of...
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[S5E6] The Man Who Solved the Market
The development of quantitative trading has led to an enormous accumulation of wealth amongst a few large hedge funds. A pioneer in this space was Renaissance Technologies and its founder, Jim Simons. Instead of relying on traditional financial metrics and corporate news, quantitative models…
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[S5E5] Apple in China with Patrick McGee
Apple has deeply intertwined its business with the People’s Republic of China. In Apple in China, this fraught relationship is explored, including its implications for the future of manufacturing, high technology, and Apple’s survival. It's a deep investigative book on an under-reported subject,...
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[S5E4] Source Code by Bill Gates
Bill Gates is known as the aggressive businessman who brought us Microsoft and pioneered the modern software business. But in his recent memoir, Source Code, we discover Trey, the kid with bad grades who resents his parents' authority. From childhood misfit to precocious teenage prodigy, he was a...
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[S5E3] Doom Guy with John Romero
John Romero is widely regarded as one of the greatest game developers of all time. In his 2023 autobiography, Doom Guy: Life in First Person, he recounts his journey from a sometimes difficult upbringing to the heights of fame and fortune. An award-winning game designer and programmer, Romero is...
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[S5E2] Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Kahneman is an award winning psychologist who made Nobel Prize winning contributions to the field of behavioral economics. In Thinking, Fast and Slow he recounts his research journey and makes digestible to the reader some of the key insights that may help them improve their decision…
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[S5E1] The Juggling Act with Pat Gelsinger
Silicon legend Pat Gelsinger joins us to discuss his book The Juggling Act: Bringing Balance to Your Faith, Family, and Work. How do you live a balanced life, including prioritizing your faith and family, while achieving ambitious goals in the workplace? Pat, the former CEO of Intel, provides key...
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[S4E10] Season 4 Finale
Season 4 of Business Books & Co. was comprised of nine highly regarded books, three author interviews, and one special guest. Join us as we look back at the highs and lows of the past season of the show. And we won't hold back—we'll tell you the books we loved, but also the ones we didn't. Plus...
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[S4E9] Atomic Habits by James Clear
First released in 2018, Atomic Habits by James Clear has quickly become one of the best-selling self-help books of all-time. Clear meticulously studied the psychology and practical side of forming good habits and eliminating bad habits. He then created an easy-to-read how-to manual that can be...
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[S4E8] Reminiscences of a Stock Operator with Brad Mills
There are timeless principles that underlie stock trading. In this episode we discuss Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, considered by many to be a classic work in the space. First published in 1923, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre is a fictionalized biography based on the…
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[S4E7] Becoming Trader Joe with Patty Civalleri
Trader Joe's is an iconic American grocery chain. And yes, there was an actual Trader Joe. In this episode we interview Patty Civalleri, the co-author with Joe Coulombe of Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys. Founded as a small chain in California in the...
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[S4E6] Am I Being Too Subtle? by Sam Zell
We discuss the 2017 memoir Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell. Zell was the billionaire founder of Equity Residential, Equity International, and EQ Office. In addition he had controlling interests in several other large enterprises, perhaps most…
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[S4E5] Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
Love him or hate him, Elon Musk is perhaps the most accomplished and influential leader in today's business landscape. Dive into the definitive biography, Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, on our latest episode. Spanning 700 pages, this epic authorized account lays bare the polarizing man behind the...
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[S4E4] The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs with Carmine Gallo
The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo is a self-help book for anyone who regularly makes presentations. Whether you're an executive, analyst, marketer, or teacher this book will help you improve the impression you make on an...
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[S4E3] How the Internet Happened with Brian McCullough
How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone by Brian McCullough is a history of the companies, entrepreneurs, technologists, and financiers who launched the modern online world. Covering the years 1993 to 2008, this sweeping volume helps the reader understand not only who the important...
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[S4E2] The Lean Startup
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is a modern management classic. It's about bringing the scientific method to the forefront at the start of a new enterprise. Instead of following a classic waterfall development methodology, Ries emphasizes the importance of building quick MVPs that are easily…
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[S4E1] How to Win Friends and Influence People
This month we read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. First published in the 1930s, How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the most popular self-help books of all time. Carnegie’s suggestions for how to achieve the title’s objective are largely based on anecdotal...
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[S3E10] Season 3 Finale
Season 3 was a landmark season for our show. We read some amazing books and interviewed some award-winning authors. In this episode we discuss the highlights of Season 3. We pick the best and worst books we read. And we provide a behind the scenes look at our author interviews. Plus, we preview...
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[S3E9] Layered Money with Nik Bhatia
Layered Money: From Gold and Dollars to Bitcoin and Central Bank Digital Currencies by Nik Bhatia is one of the most popular books in the world of bitcoin. But it's much more than that. The first half of the book is a history of monetary systems. This sets the stage for a dive into the world of...
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[S3E8] Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. is an epic biography of the industrialist by acclaimed author Ron Chernow. Rockefeller was the founder of Standard Oil, a company that was notorious for its monopolization of the oil industry in the late 19th century. An adept businessman and talented...
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[S3E7] Never Split the Difference with Chris Voss
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It is considered one of the best books of all time on negotiation. Instead of focusing on economic theory or game theory, it focuses on practical techniques and psychological insight. Voss uses anecdotes from his career as an...
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[S3E6] The Founders with Jimmy Soni
The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley is a comprehensive portrait of the early era of PayPal—predominantly focused on the years between its founding in 1998 and its sale to eBay in 2002. A deeply researched and well written narrative, The Founders...
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[S3E5] King of Capital
King of Capital: The Remarkable Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone by David Carey and John Morris is more than just a book about Blackstone—it’s a history of private equity. Carey and Morris explain the sometimes esoteric world of this segment of high finance. They...
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[S3E4] The Hard Thing About Hard Things
In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, venture capitalist Ben Horowitz recounts lessons he learned about how to run a Silicon Valley startup, largely from his time as the CEO of Loudcloud, which later became Opsware. Horowitz provides specific advice about hiring, firing, managing emotions…
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[S3E3] Instant: The Story of Polaroid with Christopher Bonanos
Instant: The Story of Polaroid covers the rise, heyday, and decline of Polaroid Corporation. It has a particular focus on the personality and management style of Edwin Land, Polaroid’s innovative and dynamic founder, who was an inspiration to Steve Jobs. Polaroid’s niche in the marketplace and…
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[S3E2] Measure What Matters by John Doerr
Measure What Matters, by venture capitalist John Doerr, is about OKRs—Objectives and Key Results—an approach to goal setting. Doerr evangelizes the use of OKRs and explains how they can help any organization better align its direction and continually evaluate its success. OKRs are a simple…
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[S3E1] Liftoff with Eric Berger
We interviewed Eric Berger, the author of Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX. It's about the journey of grit, resilience, and unbridled optimism that turned a scrappy startup into the premier space company of the 21st century. Eric utilized full access at SpaceX…
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[S2E12] Season 2 Finale
Over the past year we've read some fantastic books... and some that were not so fantastic. In this episode we break down the best and worst books of season 2. We also discuss our picks by category including entrepreneurship, career, and story. Finally, we have a meta discussion about the show and...
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[S2E11] Amazon Unbound
Amazon Unbound is the story of how Jeff Bezos has managed his business empire over the past decade. It picks up where author Brad Stone’s last Amazon book, The Everything Store, left off circa 2013. Stone chronicles Bezos’s incredible attention to detail on Amazon projects like the Echo and the...
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[S2E10] Radical Candor
This month we read Radical Candor by Kim Scott, a people management guide developed through Scott’s years of working as a manager in high tech. Scott led the AdSense, YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google and served as a faculty member at Apple University. Radical Candor is about fostering...
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[S2E9] Brick by Brick
This month we read Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry by David C. Robertson and Bill Breen. After facing lackluster growth in the 1990s, iconic toy brand LEGO undertook a program of radical innovation under a turnaround artist CEO....
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[S2E8] Lift Off: The Story of Conzerv
When Hema Hattangady became the CEO of Bangalore, India based Conzerv in 1996, it was a struggling producer of energy meters. Over the next decade Hattangady led the transformation of Conzerv from a family-owned enterprise with $1 million in revenue into one of India’s leading energy management...
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[S2E7] No Filter
No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram by Sarah Frier covers Instagram’s rise from a two-person startup to the second largest social network in the world. Along the way, Frier explores Instagram influencers, the network’s effect on teens, and its sometimes rocky existence within the confines of...
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[S2E6] Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
Shoe Dog is a memoir by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. Knight recounts building Nike on a shoestring budget by importing shoes from a Japanese manufacturer, battling banks and supply issues to grow the company, innovating with their own designs, and sustaining the morale of a motley crew of...
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[S2E5] No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer goes into the details of Netflix's corporate culture of "Freedom and Responsibility." Hastings and Meyer relate how Netflix achieved this culture, and espouse its many supposed benefits. It includes some...
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[S2E4] Tape Sucks
Data Domain was an innovator in the data backup market, and Frank Slootman was its CEO from 2003 until its acquisition in 2009 by EMC. Data Domain used a technique known as data deduplication to make hard disks a viable backup medium for replacing traditional tape based backup solutions. Slootman...
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[S2E3] Let It Go by Stephanie Shirley
Stephanie Shirley has been a pioneer all of her life. After coming to England as a child refugee from Nazi Germany, she started one of the first software consulting firms, Freelance Programmers. But it was first in a number of other ways too. It was almost entirely run by women, despite...
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[S2E2] Creativity Inc.
This month we read Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace. Ed Catmull was the cofounder and longtime president of Pixar. Part memoir and part advice for managers of creatives, Creativity Inc. tells the story of Pixar from dream to animation powerhouse. Then it gets into Catmull’s…
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[S2E1] The Power of Broke
Daymond John is best known as an investor on ABC’s Shark Tank, but he is also the award winning fashion designer who founded the multi-billion dollar brand FUBU. In The Power of Broke, Daymond explains the strategies that helped him start FUBU, with almost no resources, out of his mom’s house in...
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[S1E14] Season 1 Recap
We recap the qualities of some of the books we read over the last year in Season 1 of Business Books & Co. Each of us discuss our favorite and least favorite books. We say goodbye to one of our co-hosts, but we will be back next month to start Season 2! You can find our book list from the last…
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[S1E13] Only the Paranoid Survive
13. Only the Paranoid Survive This month we read the 1997 book Only the Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove. Grove was the long-time storied CEO of Intel. Only the Paranoid Survive is about strategic inflection points in a business. Grove explains how to detect these events, how to respond to them…
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[S1E12] Zero to One
12. Zero to One We discuss the 2014 book Zero to One by Peter Thiel. In Zero to One, Thiel, a cofounder of Paypal and Palantir, as well as an early investor in Facebook, describes what conditions make for a great startup. Part history lesson, part economics lesson, and part business advice, Zero…
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[S1E11] Iacocca: An Autobiography
11. Iacocca: An Autobiography Lee Iacocca was responsible for the introduction of iconic Ford products like the Mustang and Thunderbird. He rose in the ranks to become President, second only to Henry Ford II. As CEO of Chrysler during the early 1980s, he saved the company from bankruptcy and...
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[S1E10] The Ride of a Lifetime
10. The Ride of a Lifetime The Ride of a Lifetime is a 2019 memoir about Bob Iger’s journey at Disney. It begins by relaying Iger’s time climbing the corporate ladder, and then does a deep dive into his fifteen years as the company’s CEO, with a focus on acquisitions and mergers. We discuss…
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[S1E8] Founders at Work
8. Founders at Work Founders at Work is a 2009 compilation of interviews with startup founders by Y Combinator founding partner Jessica Livingston. Interview subjects include the founders of famous brands like Apple, PayPal, and Adobe, as well as lesser known founders with equally remarkable...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Join us each month as we discuss a popular business book. Each episode features a summary of the book's contents, key takeaway points, a discussion of its merits, and applications in the real world. Hosted by David Kopec, David Short, and Kevin Hudak.
HOSTED BY
David Kopec, David Short, Kevin Hudak
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Business Books & Co. have?
Business Books & Co. currently has 57 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Business Books & Co. about?
Join us each month as we discuss a popular business book. Each episode features a summary of the book's contents, key takeaway points, a discussion of its merits, and applications in the real world. Hosted by David Kopec, David Short, and Kevin Hudak.
How often does Business Books & Co. release new episodes?
Business Books & Co. has 57 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Business Books & Co.?
You can listen to Business Books & Co. on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Business Books & Co.?
Business Books & Co. is created and hosted by David Kopec, David Short, Kevin Hudak.
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