Just Normal Business

'We were talking about the rise of Japan, about Ronald Reagan's Star Wars ... globalisation, technology. And they were still banging on about the Freedom Charter.' – Anglo American's Michael Spicer on the ANC in the mid-1980s. In 1985, a group of white South African business leaders, led by Gavin Relly, the executive chairperson of Anglo American, travelled to a game lodge in Zambia to meet with the exiled ANC leadership under Oliver Tambo and Thabo Mbeki. This visit set in motion a coordinated and well-resourced plan by big business to influence and direct political change in South Africa. In The ANC Billionaires, top-selling author Pieter du Toit draws on first-hand accounts by major roleplayers about the contentious relationship between capital and the ANC before, during and after the country's transition to democracy, and shows how the liberation organisation was completely unprepared to navigate the intersection between business and politics. He also ties the rise of the new elite – including Cyril Ramaphosa, Patrice Motsepe and Saki Macozoma – to the ANC, a party of government and patronage.

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

An insider's guide to entrepreneurship that no business person should be without. Being an entrepreneur – owning and running your own business – is a great career option for those wanting to take control of their professional lives. It's a particularly great option for women; a credible and viable alternative to struggling up the (still male-dominated) corporate ladder. Hugely successful entrepreneur Diane Foreman also believes women have a unique role in — and duty to — inspire, mentor, sponsor and promote other women. In this candid, engaging and inspiring book she describes her own entrepreneurial journey, from being a complete greenhorn to heading up one of New Zealand's most sucessful businesses, being a major exporter and an EY Entrepreneur of the Year. It hasn't been easy and she's made plenty of mistakes. The secret, she says, is learning how not to repeat them. Full of tips, insider knowledge and how-tos, this is a book no business person can be without.

I am fed up with people making the world more complicated than it really is. Egos, me-first mentalities, and unrealistic expectations all get in the way of our success. We make things complicated because we want the attention gained from pretending to be experts. We put superficial standards on everything we do. Why? Because we thrive off of the "high road" mentality. Where have all these complications we added to our lives and our businesses gotten us? We have a failing economy, failing social structure, thousands of unprepared young people, and lives so hectic that we all die by the age of 65 from stress-induced heart attacks. If you ask me, I think it's time we simplify a few things. We don't need complications; we need common sense. We have justified our "standards of excellence" while forsaking the simple and natural rules provided by our own God-given common sense. We no longer recognize what is true and false. We only recognize what we believe to be true or false. We convince ourselves that life is hard, that business is complicated, and that only the very best and well educated will succeed. I see things differently. After years of studying and practicing business, I have begun to realize that those with the most success, those with the best lives we all want to emulate all have one thing in common: they have found a way to simplify what they do. Success comes from peeling away the complicated structures, ego-driven, "I'm an expert" mentality, and sophisticated expectations of how things ought to be. Success is about finding the easiest, most efficient means of accomplishing a task or goal. True success is about having the time to enjoy life, the freedom to treat others fairly, and the opportunity to make a difference in everything that we do. Common sense tells us that the shortest distance between any point is a straight line. Common sense tells us that effectiveness comes from finding the simplest way of doing something. Common sense has a lot to tell us. In fact, it can teach us everything we need to know about life, business, and success. Are you ready to learn why the finer things in life are the simplest things? Come with me as we journey to discover how simply applying some common sense to our lives can change the world.

Her face is on all the billboards, on every movie screen, at every awards gala. She’s bigger than life, and she acts every bit the diva. Underneath her bratty facade, something secret lays dormant. I can sense it, because I’ve got secrets too. But when I’m hired as her bodyguard, I almost refuse. I don’t want to tempt the demons in me. With her sinful good looks, and that laugh that drives me wild, I know I’m in for a hell of a ride. But I can’t let her in. I won’t. No matter how determined she is, no matter how much she teases me. Until suddenly, her hotel room is under lockdown. It’s just her, and me. For hours. On Christmas. I’m falling for her. But can her light finally chase away the darkness that guards my heart? Search Terms: romantic suspense, bodyguard romance, alpha male romance, bad boy romance, alpha male, dark romance, antihero romance, forbidden romance, office romance

“Has all the ingredients for an instant success: plots, counterplots, mystery, valiant knights, and blossoming relationships replete with broken hearts, deception and betrayal. It will keep you entertained for hours, and will satisfy all ages. Recommended for the permanent library of all fantasy readers.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re The Sorcerer’s Ring) A bundle of books two and three in Morgan Rice’s fantasy series AGE OF THE SORCERERS (THRONE OF DRAGONS and BORN OF DRAGONS). Here are two bestselling novels, all in one convenient file with over 150,000 words of reading. It also makes the perfect gift! In THRONE OF DRAGONS (Age of the Sorcerers—Book Two) King Godwin mobilizes his army to cross the great bridge and invade the South to rescue his 17 year old daughter, Lenore. But Lenore is imprisoned deep in the South, under the watchful and hateful eye of King Ravin, and she may have to learn to escape herself first if she has any chance of escape. Her brother Rodry, though, is way ahead of the King’s men, deep in hostile territory, alone on a mission to save his sister—while her other brother, Vars, offers a lesson in cowardice and betrayal. Devin follows Gray, eager to learn more about how to harness his powers and about who he is. Greave travels to remote regions to find the house of scholars and to try to save his sister, Nerra. But Nerra, sickened by the scale sickness, is dying on a remote isle once touched by dragons. And her only chance of survival may just compel her to risk it all. And all of this will culminate in an epic battle that may just determine the fate of the two kingdoms. In BORN OF DRAGONS (Age of the Sorcerers—Book Three) Lenore is safely returned to the North—but not without a price. Her bother Rodry is dead and her father, King Godwin, lies in a coma. With the rulership of the North in question, her treacherous brother Vars may just find an opening to rule. But Vars is a coward, and King Ravin, smarting from defeat, mobilizes the entire South to invade. The northern capital, never defeated, lies protected by tides and canals—but Ravin can happily lose scores of men. The most epic battle, it seems, is yet to come. Book #4—RING OF DRAGONS—is also now available!

Funny Business is a collection of photographic portraits of the major players and up-and-comers from the last 20 years of comedy. It includes captions to every photo, written by the subjects themselves.