Business adventures
by John Brooks · first published 1969
56% recommend44% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Real corporate and Wall Street episodes, like the Piggly Wiggly stock corner and ticker tape chaos, told in novelistic prose. It teaches through stories rather than advice, suiting readers who find business books dry.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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…useful to at least understand some of the strategies to memorizing strings Understanding Weatherfax - for an attempted (and failed) circumnavigation Sail Power Kon Tiki Shogun Art of the Sailor Business Adventures Metamorphoses (by Ovid, not Kafka) Guns, Germs, Steel Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - this book had so many rave reviews. it has a tremendous hook and style for the first 50 pages,…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2015?” ↗…American Capitalist, by Roger Lowenstein. - Margin of Safety, by Seth Klarman - The Little Book That Still Beats the Market, by Joel Greenblatt - Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, by Philip Fisher - Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street, by John Brooks - This article from 1984 by Warren Buffett: https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/articles/columbia-business/sup... - Peter Lynch also has…
on “Coinbase valued above $100B, ahead of direct listing” ↗…on busy days overwhelmed the system, sometimes delaying the quotes for hours. There had been plans to build a computer network already, but the data outages made it an urgent issue. The classic book Business Adventures has a chapter on the chaos sowed by the failure of ticker tape. https://www.amazon.com/Business-Adventures-Twelve-Classic-St...
on “A Wall Street Informant Who Double-Crossed the FBI” ↗Business Adventures by John Brooks The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike
on “Ask HN: What are your non-technical non-fiction recommended reads?” ↗…Are the Customers' Yachts: or A Good Hard Look at Wall Street - Fred Schwed 3) stuff by John Maynard Keynes (never heard him mention exact title) Others: 1) Poor Charlie's Almanac - Charles Munger 2) Business Adventures - John Brooks 3) How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie Then there are some things I've never heard him explicitly recommend but I think are definitely worth reading: 1) Letter to shareholders…
on “Buffett FAQ” ↗…once. (7/10) Mere Christianity: C.S. Lewis - A broad spectrum of thoughts about meaning and purpose that have obviously been considered for many years and then condensed in a very succinct way (8/10) Business Adventures: John Brooks - A recommendation by Buffet and Gates, entertaining read with business principles built in (7/10) Tools of Titans: Tim Ferriss - Obviously written for those of us who have allowed our attention…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗…mechanisms of modern finance and explain them clearly. Levine's writing reminds me somewhat of John Brooks, although Brooks was perhaps more interested in personas than mechanics. (If you've never read the Business Adventures collection, it's worth picking up!)
on “Slack Says It's Filed to Go Public” ↗I think some of the classic tech business books are also good for “indie hackers”: Andrew Grove’s High Output Management John Brooks’ Business Adventures Brad Felds and Jason Mendelson’s Venture Deals Antifragile is on the list, but Fooled by Randomness is better I think as it’s shorter and contains almost all the ideas.
on “What are the most indispensable books for indie hackers?” ↗Love that story. It's told in more detail along with other stories like it in Business Adventures by John Brooks - https://amzn.to/3cq4Fs5
on “Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop” ↗…https://www.momtestbook.com/ Quick read, too. Classics that actually hold up: - How to Win Friends and Influence People - Pretty rote at this point, but still does a good job of getting you into others' mindset. - Business Adventures - Some of the stories touch on good marketing logic - Positioning - I'm not sure how much practical advice you can get out of it these days, but it's well written and fun to read Finally, don't sleep…
on “Ask HN: Any Good Marketing Book that you read?” ↗…gawker, https://www.grahammann.net/book-notes/conspiracy-ryan-holida... PS- are there any other business/tech “case study” type books out there. I also liked Clifford Stoll’s Cuckoo’s Egg, John Brooks’ Business Adventures, Michael Lewis’ Liar’s Poker, Po Bronson’s Nudist on the Late Shift, and David Kaplan’s Silicon Boys. Looking for more of what I suspect is more common than I can find.
on “Substack Notes Launched” ↗And how it came to be is a fascinating story too [0]. And there’s a fascinating bit about Xerox in John Brooks’ "Business Adventures" [1]. [0]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danpontefract/2023/02/25/how-xe... [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Business-Adventures-Twelve-Classic-St...
on “How a chimpanzee brought Xerox to the masses” ↗…its impact on Silicon Valley. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - Memoir by the founder of Nike. Measure What Matters by John Doerr - A book about OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and organizational success. Business Adventures by John Brooks - Classic tales of corporate life, highly recommended by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Becoming by Michelle Obama - The former First Lady's personal memoir. The Last Lecture by Randy…
on “Creating a social photo frame from scratch” ↗Business Adventures By John Brooks. An awesome book. Must read for all.
on “Ask HN: What is HN reading?” ↗saved you a click: John Brooks, "Business Adventures."
on “The Best Business Book I’ve Ever Read (2014)” ↗