Business & Economics

For decades, statisticians, social scientists, psychologists, and economists (among them Nobel Prize winners) have spent massive amounts of precious time thinking about whether streaks actually exist. After all, a substantial number of decisions that we make in our everyday lives are quietly rooted in this one question: If something happened before, will it happen again? Is there such a thing as being in the zone? Can someone have a “hot hand”? Or is it simply a case of seeing patterns in randomness? Or, if streaks are possible, where can they be found?

In The Hot Hand, Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Cohen offers an unfailingly entertaining and provocative investigation into these questions. He begins with how a $35,000 fine and a wild night in New York revived a debate about the existence of streaks that was several generations in the making. We learn how the ability to recognize and then bet against streaks turned a business school dropout named David Booth into a billionaire, and how the subconscious nature of streak-related bias can make the difference between life and death for asylum seekers. We see how previously unrecognized streaks hidden amidst archival data helped solve one of the most haunting mysteries of the twentieth century, the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg.

Cohen also exposes how streak-related incentives can be manipulated, from the five-syllable word that helped break arcade profit records to an arc of black paint that allowed Stephen Curry to transform from future junior high coach into the greatest three-point shooter in NBA history. Crucially, Cohen also explores why false recognition of nonexistent streaks can have cataclysmic results, particularly if you are a sugar beet farmer or the sort of gambler who likes to switch to black on the ninth spin of the roulette wheel.

In 2009, a St. Louis glassblowing artist and recovering computer scientist named Jim McKelvey lost a sale because he couldn’t accept American Express cards. Frustrated by the high costs and difficulty of accepting credit card payments, McKelvey joined his friend Jack Dorsey (the cofounder of Twitter) to launch Square, a startup that would enable small merchants to accept credit card payments on their mobile phones. With no expertise or experience in the world of payments, they approached the problem of credit cards with a new perspective, questioning the industry’s assumptions, experimenting and innovating their way through early challenges, and achieving widespread adoption from merchants small and large.

But just as Square was taking off, Amazon launched a similar product, marketed it aggressively, and undercut Square on price. For most ordinary startups, this would have spelled the end. Instead, less than a year later, Amazon was in retreat and soon discontinued its service. How did Square beat the most dangerous company on the planet? Was it just luck? These questions motivated McKelvey to study what Square had done differently from all the other companies Amazon had killed. He eventually found the key: a strategy he calls the Innovation Stack.

McKelvey’s fascinating and humorous stories of Square’s early days are blended with historical examples of other world-changing companies built on the Innovation Stack to reveal a pattern of ground-breaking, competition-proof entrepreneurship that is rare but repeatable.

The Innovation Stack is a thrilling business narrative that’s much bigger than the story of Square. It is an irreverent first-person look inside the world of entrepreneurship, and a call to action for all of us to find the entrepreneur within ourselves and identify and fix unsolved problems–one crazy idea at a time.

We all know about driverless cars, automated production lines and chatbots but how do you ensure your business keeps up and where do you start? Bestselling author and strategy guru, Bernard Marr, argues that AI absolutely applies to your business and explains how to design an AI strategy that will guarantee its success. The Intelligence Revolution explores the opportunities and challenges that come with this monumental new taskforce that is defining the new standards of business.

Guiding us through intelligent products, services and work processes, The Intelligence Revolution illustrates how new technologies are impacting customer experience, product and service design and work efficiency. Bernard Marr delights us with fascinating case studies of businesses excelling at maximizing the potential of AI like Netflix, Autodesk, Disney, Rolls Royce and Amazon.

Don’t be left behind. Instead, discover how to turbocharge your business.

Extroverts are rarely short on words, and their conversations and pitches never feel sales-y to them. The world of sales just comes naturally to the extrovert. However, introverts aren’t comfortable with traditional tactics like aggressively pushing a product or talking over a customer’s objections.

Known as “The Rapid Growth Guy”, author Matthew Pollard shares how introverts can feel equally comfortable and sincere in the sales world as well without changing who they are.

In The Introvert’s Edge, this book reveals how to:

– Find your natural confidence
– Prepare for every situation
– Easily sidestep objections
– Ask for the sale (without asking)
– Leverage the power of virtual and social networking

The introverted salesperson is no longer an oxymoron, it’s a recipe for success.

Whether you want to drum up clients, pitch investors, or exceed quotas, The Introvert’s Edge will unleash the low-key, high-impact sales machine lurking inside of you.