The bestselling author of The Sellout tells the explosive story of the government’s crackdown on insider-trading networks an investigation that has already racked up more than 60 convictions.In Circle of Friends, award-winning journalist Charles Gasparino one of Wall Street's most knowledgeable observers follows government investigators and prosecutors as they pursue one of the most aggressive and broad-reaching series of insider-trading cases in the nation's history. A richly textured page-turner of investigative journalism based on extensive reporting, Circle of Friends chronicles the massive federal crackdown that has already put some of the biggest names on Wall Street behind bars, including Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, and Rajat Gupta, a former CEO of consulting giant McKinsey & Co. Other similarly sized targets are still waiting nervously, including the biggest one of them all financial impresario Steve Cohen of SAC Capital, the giant hedge fund that has confounded regulators for years by cranking out a steady stream of market-busting returns.Gasparino goes behind the headlines to reveal how the government makes its case, using every tool at its disposal and at great expense to taxpayers to supposedly make the investing world safer for average Americans. Gasparino asks why federal officials are so eager to prosecute these cases: What is the real damage to individualsDo average investors really careHe explores why insider trading is all the rage these days when the U.S. government has failed to bring a single criminal case against the culprits who caused the 2008 financial crisis. Circle of Friends is not a defense of insider trading, but it does offer an account of the politics of Wall Street crime fighting, revealing the behind-the-scenes ambitions that motivate headlines and burnish political careers. A riveting work of narrative nonfiction, as engrossing and explosive as fictional thrillers of the finest magnitude, Circle of Friends is a wakeup call to the investing public.

Disasters happen every day. Are your investments preparedThe investor who knows how to anticipate historically significant or earth-shattering events who is prepared to act when others are frozen with fear will always have a substantial advantage. By closely analyzing potential global threats and the opportunities they present, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Investing in the Apocalypse offers investors the key to finding a silver lining in almost any cataclysm. Even if the catastrophic does not occur, the strategies here can pay huge dividends even under more mundane circumstances.The Wall Street Journal Guide to Investing in the Apocalypse provides readers with valuable information for investment success: the ability to see opportunity where others see peril. Whether a global disaster is natural or man-made, environmental or financial, every fearsome scenario contains the seeds of profit for the investor who stays calm and thinks rather than panics and runs.

The measure of the executive, Peter Drucker reminds us, is the ability to "get the right things done." This usually involves doing what other people have overlooked as well as avoiding what is unproductive. Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the acquired habits of mind that mold them into results. Drucker identifies five practices essential to business effectiveness that can, and must, be learned: Management of time Choosing what to contribute to the practical organization Knowing where and how to mobilize strength for best effect Setting up the right priorities And Knitting all of them together with effective decision making Ranging widely through the annals of business and government, Peter Drucker demonstrates the distinctive skill of the executive and offers fresh insights into old and seemingly obvious business situations.

It was an inconceivable deception: over $65 billion stolen in the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Including new and revealing interviews with those who worked closest to himand his family, Betrayal is an in-depth, penetrating look at the man who perpetrated history's most notorious financial crime. To the people who knew him, Bernie Madoff was a kind and honorable person; a loving father and husband; generous to his employees and charitable even to strangers. On Wall Street, he was known as a wise elder statesman, wildly successful in his investments but never too risky with people's money. He was so revered and trusted that thousands placed their life savings with him, and he in turn provided them with early retirements and affluent lifestyles.But on December 11, 2008, Madoff confessed that he'd lied to them all. The monthly financial statements he'd sent customers for decades were all works of fiction. Their money was gone.Despite the crush of media attention on Madoff's scam, little is known about Madoff himself. What could lead a seemingly good man to ruin the lives of everyone who ever cared about himWhat caused Bernie Madoff to commit an unspeakable act of betrayal, bankrupting his family, his friends, his mentors, and thousands of investors who depended upon him for their livelihoodsBetrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff is about the man who realized that he could have everything he wanted if he simply lied to the people who trusted him the most. Author Andrew Kirtzman tracked down more than a hundred people from Madoff's past, from the first girl he ever kissed to family members who played in his house as children; from his secretaries to his drivers; from traders at his company to his inner circle of friends. He pored through thousands of pages of court records; private e-mails; phone-conversation tran*s; and census, military, and immigration records. The result is a fascinating story about the rise of a deeply immoral man.Kirtzman describes Madoff's feelings of inferiority and humiliation as a child, and his obsession with making money to prove himself worthy as he grew older. He reveals Madoff's construction of a criminal enterprise at a young age, long before he's ever claimed it began. He paints a picture of a loving yet strange family that ran a multibillion-dollar corporation like a small family restaurant. He offers an inside look at life within the company and the characters who worked on the infamous seventeenth floor. He reveals the details of an underground flow of cash that no one has known about until now. And he chronicles the desperate moments leading up to Madoff's fall, from the perspective of the people who spent the last hours with him before his house of cards collapsed.

In this age of digital communication, getting the right message across clearly is crucial to success. Communicating Effectively, a comprehensive and essential resource for any manager on the run, shows you how.Learn to: Build relationships through effective communication Get more done via e-mail Draft pitch perfect letters, memos, and reports Conduct productive conference calls Deliver hard-hitting presentations The Collins Best Practices guides offer new and seasoned managers the essential information they need to achieve more, both personally and professionally. Designed to provide tried-and-true advice from the world's most influential business minds, they feature practical strategies and tips to help you get ahead.

From the author who brought you the massive New York Times bestseller Bringing Down the House, this is the startling rags-to-riches story of an Italian-American kid from the streets of Brooklyn who claws his way into the wild, frenetic world of the oil exchange.After conquering the hallowed halls of Harvard Business School, he enters the testosterone-laced warrens of the Merc Exchange, the asylumlike oil exchange located in lower Manhattan. A place where billions of dollars trade hands every week, the Merc is like a casino on crack, where former garbagemen become millionaires overnight and where fistfights break out on the trading floor.This ordinary kid has traded Brooklyn for the gold-lined hotel palaces of Dubai. He keeps company on the decks of private yachts in Monte Carlo teeming with half-naked girls flown in by Saudi sheiks and makes deals in the dangerous back alleys of Beijing.But the Merc is just a starting place. Taken under the wing of another young gun and partnering with a mysterious young Muslim, the kid embarks on a dangerous adventure to revolutionize the oil trading industry and, along with it, the world.Rigged is the explicit, exclusive, true story behind the headlines that dominate the world stage.

Do you have a hobby you wish you could indulge in all dayAn obsession that keeps you up at nightNow is the perfect time to take that passion and make a living doing what you love. In Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed here, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand. By the end of this book, readers will have learned how to harness the power of the Internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Step by step, Crush It! is the ultimate driver's manual for modern business.

Who Killed ChangeSolving the Mystery of Leading People Through Change Every day organizations around the world launch change initiatives often big, expensive ones designed to improve the status quo. Yet 50 to 70 percent of these change efforts fail. A few perish suddenly, but many die painful, protracted deaths that drain the organization's resources, energy and morale.Who or What Is Killing Change?That's what you'll find out in this witty whodunit. The story features a Columbo-style detective, Agent Mike McNally, who's investigating the murder of yet another change. One by one, Agent McNally interviews thirteen prime suspects, including a myopic leader named Victoria Vision; a chronically tardy manager named Ernest Urgency; an executive named Clair Communication, whose laryngitis makes communication all but impossible; and several other dubious characters.The suspects are sure to sound familiar and you're bound to relate them to your own workplace. In the end, Agent McNally solves the case in a way that will inspire you to become an effective Change Agent in your own organization.A step-by-step guide at the back of the book shows you how to apply the story's lessons to the real world. Key questions help you evaluate the health of your organization's change initiatives, and you'll learn best practices for enabling and sustaining the desired change.

As clear, concise, and concrete as its subject, Patrick Riley's The One Page Proposal promises to be the definitive business guide to getting your best ideas fully understood in the least amount of time.Today more than ever, business decisions are made on the fly first impressions can make all the difference. Now, in the first book of its kind, successful entrepreneur Patrick Riley shows you how to boil all the elements of your business proposal into one persuasive page magnify your business potential in the process.

Michael E. Gerber, bestselling author of The E-Myth Revisited shares his powerful insights to lead independent physicians to successful practices and enriched lives.Michael Gerber has dedicated much of his professional life to the study of entrepreneurship and business dynamics. His E-Myth Academy is renown in the entrepreneurial world for its business insight and guidance as well as its inspirational advice.In the E-Myth Physician, bestselling author Gerber returns to his roots in order to provide indispensable advice to doctors who own and run their own practices. Gerber provides excellent business insights into topics such as streamlining systems, effective small-business management practices, healthy patient relations and managing cash flow, all with the goal of freeing physicians from the daily grind of running a business and leading them to a happier and more productive life while doing the job they love - practising medicine.

The workplace guide to putting "I wish I'd said" moments in the past Ever wish that you could have a "do over" after a conversation at workDo you often find yourself regretting what you've said to a coworker or kicking yourself for not saying something better, stronger, or more preciseIf so, you're like most people, and in Comebacks at Work, management professor and consultant Kathleen Kelley Reardon, Ph.D., provides the tips and tools you need to know what to say and how to say it better next time.In this compelling, entertaining book, Reardon argues that we are responsible for 75 percent of the way we're treated at work, and our success or failure at the workplace depends largely on how we handle ourselves in conversation with our colleagues. To break free of the stale *s and expected actions that allow politically astute people to manipulate us, we must increase our conversational awareness and effectively employ what Reardon calls "comebacks." Comebacks at Work provides a game plan for doing so and explains: Why some comebacks work, while others fall flat; Why our mind goes blank when we are confronted, and how to overcome that response; How to determine which comebacks work, and when to use them. Every conversation is different, and while many situations are common, one set of comebacks isn't enough. Offering a personalized repertoire of comebacks and a plan for using them strategically as well as the skills you will need to package them for maximum effect, Comebacks at Work will prepare you for any difficult conversation that comes your way.

An inspiring exploration of how unorthodox business practices and the freedom to experiment can fuel innovationWe're at a crossroads. Many iconic American companies have been bailed out or gone bankrupt; others are struggling to survive as digitization and globalization remake their industries. At the same time, the tectonic forces disrupting U.S. corporations ubiquitous bandwidth and computing power, cheap manufacturing and distribution have enabled large organizations to foster new innovations and products through experiments that are at once more aggressive and less risky than they would have been twenty years ago. At companies such as Google, employees are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time on projects they're personally interested in. Almost half of Google's new product launches have originated from this policy, including Gmail and AdSense. Now other companies have adopted the concept, providing them a path to innovation and profits at a time of peril and uncertainty and offering employees creative freedom when many are feeling restless.The 20% Doctrine is about goofing off at work, and how that goofing off can drive innovation and profit. Here Ryan Tate examines the origins and implementation of 20% time at Google, then looks at how other organizations such as Flickr, the Huffington Post, and even a school in the Bronx have adapted or reinvented the same overall concept, intentionally and serendipitously. Along the way, he distills a series of common themes and lessons that can help workers initiate successful 20% style projects within their own organizations. Only through a new devotion to the unhinged and the ad hoc can American businesses resume a steady pace of development and profitability.

Renowned business gurus Al and Laura Ries give a blow-by-blow account of the battle between management and marketing and argue that the solution lies not in what we think but in how we think There's a reason why the marketing programs of the auto industry, the airline industry, and many other industries are not only ineffective, but bogged down by chaos and confusion.Management minds are not on the same wavelength as marketing minds.What makes a good chief executiveA person who is highly verbal, logical, and analytical. Typical characteristics of a left brainer.What makes a good marketing executiveA person who is highly visual, intuitive, and holistic. Typical characteristics of a right brainer. These different mind-sets often result in conflicting approaches to branding, and the Ries' thought-provoking observations culled from years on the front lines support this conclusion, including: Management deals in reality. Marketing deals in perception. Management demands better products. Marketing demands different products. Management deals in verbal abstractions. Marketing deals in visual hammers. Using some of the world's most famous brands and products to illustrate their argument, the authors convincingly show why some brands succeed (Nokia, Nintendo, and Red Bull) while others decline (Saturn, Sony, and Motorola). In doing so, they sound a clarion call: to survive in today's media-saturated society, managers must understand how to think like marketers and vice versa. Featuring the engaging, no-holds-barred writing that readers have come to expect from Al and Laura Ries, War in the Boardroom offers a fresh look at a perennial problem and provides a game plan for companies that want to break through the deadlock and start reaping the rewards.

Are you ready for the inevitable day whenyou will have to act as parent to your parentsProtecting Your Parents’ Money is the essential financial handbook that will help you navigate this confusing and difficult transition, providing a game plan for tackling complex issues like estate planning, retirement income and savings, and long-term health care. Most important, it will help bridge the communication barrier between parents and adult children, which often makes the process much more difficult than it needs to be. Important topics include: ?Personal Finance 101, the Senior Years: The essential definitions and workings of the myriad investment options and financial requirements your parents will deal with in retirement. ?The Move: How to find the right nursing homes or retirement communities, comparing costs and factoring your parents’ assets into the mix. ?Understanding Medicare: What it is, how to qualify for coverage, and what it means for your parents’ finances. ?Elder Fraud: How to look for telltale signs that your parents have been victimized.

Home Sweet Home:How to buy your first home, your next home and save on taxes when you sell.A-Z of Investments:From annuities to zero-coupon bonds, go from owing money to OWNING money. Get out of debt (and stay that way).Estate Planning Long-Term Care:Learn how to protect yourself and your family.

In the most challenging economy of our lifetime, where should you turn for guidanceTo the stories of those who have made it the leaders who battled adversity, forged their own paths,and succeeded . . . because they knew what made them tick. As people everywhere confront the global economic crisis, "success" may seem elusive at best, impossible at worst. Yet history proves that a new generation of success stories will likely emerge from this era of financial chaos. And this new book prepares you to be one of those success stories by analyzing the inner qualities that have propelled the forward-thinking leaders of our time: drive, determination, and self-awareness.As strategists for the internationally renowned consumer and political research firm Penn, Schoen Berland Associates, Michael Berland and Douglas Schoen are experts in how successful people think . . . and how they win. Now they share what they've learned with firsthand accounts from some of the world's most successful people in nearly every field including the founder of Starwood Resorts; a world-famous chef-restaurateur; the CEO of NBC Universal; a supermodel turned entrepreneur; the head of Este Lauder; the commissioner of the National Hockey League; the president of Hearst Magazines; and the creator of CBS's 60 Minutes. Berland and Schoen have discovered that true success is about more than "winning." True success has an emotional quotient: it's about determining your innate strengths, deciding what you truly want, and striving tirelessly to achieve it. Berland and Schoen describe the five archteypes of success: visionaries, natural-born leaders, do-gooders, independence seekers, and independents who follow their dreams. In this unprecedented collection of stories from some of the most successful people in fashion, sports, entertainment, and business, Schoen and Berland demonstrate that success isn't about changing who you are; rather, it's about figuring out what makes you tick and leveraging that knowledge to your advantage. This book shows through compelling first-person storytelling that the most successful people understand their own natural abilities and how to use their best qualities to create a fulfilling life and then tells you how to do the same.

Learn the keys to Outstanding Success and reveal the millionaire in your mirror Despite never being, as he admits, the best communicator, the most talented manager, or the smartest guy in the room, Gene Bedell quickly worked his way up the corporate ladder accumulating career earnings that put him among the country's top one percent of earners while doing what he loved and always putting family first. By looking at his own career and the careers of others who have achieved Outstanding Success people who all started with nothing he found it was possible for those who put their minds to it to become wealthy while spending their careers doing work they love. Now, in The Millionaire in the Mirror, Bedell reveals how you too can find career fulfillment while earning millions without social connections, an Ivy League education, an MBA, or the kind of earth-shattering managerial talent that makes the world take notice and how you can do it without destroying your personal life, resorting to hucksters' get-rich-quick schemes, or opting out of a traditional career path. Inside you'll find the seven success strategies that will revitalize your days at work, helpful tips for getting "unstuck" at any age or phase of your career, and answers to the crucial career questions that are asked far too infrequently. Approachable but authoritative, this is the book for everyday people who have extraordinary potential. If you have the desire and drive to achieve truly Outstanding Success, you can turn the person you see in the mirror into the millionaire you're destined to become.

By one estimate, 90 percent of all of the data in history was created in the last two years. In 2014, International Data Corporation calculated the data universe at 4.4 zettabytes, or 4.4 trillion gigabytes. That much information, in volume, could fill enough slender iPad Air tablets to create a stack two-thirds of the way to the moon. Now, that's Big Data.Coal, iron ore, and oil were the key productive assets that fueled the Industrial Revolution. The vital raw material of today's information economy is data.In Data-ism, New York Times reporter Steve Lohr explains how big-data technology is ushering in a revolution in proportions that promise to be the basis of the next wave of efficiency and innovation across the economy. But more is at work here than technology. Big data is also the vehicle for a point of view, or philosophy, about how decisions will be and perhaps should be made in the future. Lohr investigates the benefits of data while also examining its dark side. Data-ism is about this next phase, in which vast Internet-scale data sets are used for discovery and prediction in virtually every field. It shows how this new revolution will change decision making by relying more on data and analysis, and less on intuition and experience and transform the nature of leadership and management. Focusing on young entrepreneurs at the forefront of data science as well as on giant companies such as IBM that are making big bets on data science for the future of their businesses, Data-ism is a field guide to what is ahead, explaining how individuals and institutions will need to exploit, protect, and manage data to stay competitive in the coming years. With rich examples of how the rise of big data is affecting everyday life, Data-ism also raises provocative questions about policy and practice that have wide implications for everyone.The age of data-ism is here. But are we ready to handle its consequences, good and bad?

Every year, about 25,000 new products are introduced in the United States. Most of these products fail-at considerable expense to the companies that produce them. Such failures are typically thought to result from consumers' resistance to innovation, but marketers have tended to focus instead on consumers who show little resistance, despite these "e;early adopters"e; comprising only 20 percent of the consumer population.Shaul Oreg and Jacob Goldenberg bring the insights of marketing and organizational behavior to bear on the attitudes and behaviors of the remaining 80 percent who resist innovation. The authors identify two competing definitions of resistance: In marketing, resistance denotes a reluctance to adopt a worthy new product, or one that offers a clear benefit and carries little or no risk. In the field of organizational behavior, employees are defined as resistant if they are unwilling to implement changes regardless of the reasons behind their reluctance. Seeking to clarify the act of rejecting a new product from the reasons-rational or not-consumers may have for doing so, Oreg and Goldenberg propose a more coherent definition of resistance less encumbered by subjective, context-specific factors and personality traits. The application of this tighter definition makes it possible to disentangle resistance from its sources and ultimately offers a richer understanding of consumers' underlying motivations. This important research is made clear through the use of many real-life examples.

This first-of-its-kind book for young entrepreneurs is now completely revised and updated for a new generation by one of the original authors (now an adult) and his 14-year-old sister.Originally written by Arthur Bochner when he was just 13 with his mom, financial planner Adriane G. Berg, this was the first book to take kids step-by-step through the process of starting their own businesses. Now 24 and a successful political speechwriter, Arthur teams up with his kid sister, Rose, on a completely revised, updated edition to the basics of becoming an entrepreneur, offered in a smart, entertaining style just right for kids age 8-14.This fun and fact-filled volume includes: Cartoons, quizzes, games, and stories about starting up a business and making money from it How to use eBay and other Internet resources Ideas for donating to nonprofits and helping the environment. De*ions of 20 super businesses to start right now (such as lemonade stands, lawn mowing, garage sales) Ten basic business skills kids need to know: Speaking up for what you want; Business budgets; Record keeping, research, and filing; Telephoning; Negotiating; Putting it in writing; Marketing, advertising, and publicity; Networking; Working with others, even parents.

Best-selling author Andy Kessler ties up the loose ends from his provocative book, Running Money, with this history of breakthrough technology and the markets that funded them.Expanding on themes first raised in his tour de force, Running Money, Andy Kessler unpacks the entire history of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, from the Industrial Revolution to computers, communications, money, gold and stock markets. These stories cut (by an unscrupulous editor) from the original manu* were intended as a primer on the ways in which new technologies develop from unprofitable curiosities to essential investments. Indeed, How We Got Here is the book Kessler wishes someone had handed him on his first day as a freshman engineering student at Cornell or on the day he started on Wall Street. This book connects the dots through history to how we got to where we are today.