Dated, slow, and failed to carry a common theme are among the criticisms of this republished book, which has been touted by wunderkind, Bill Gates. It was introduced in the last quarter of 1957 with a lot of fanfare only to be criticized for its poor manufacturing quality, bad appearance, and high price. And as the stocks keep climbing upwards, the mutual funds cashed out on the profit leading to more stabilization. The book went out of print in the early 1970s. Two things went wrong, employees in sales were reminded that price fixation is illegal with a wink, and employees who were engaged in such meetings (referred with code words) were being rewarded. More importantly, I think your statement (#1 in Business section above) “R&D – The story of Xerox is a company’s dangerous bet on making photocopying work” should have “risky” in place of “dangerous”. Title: Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales From The World Of Wall Street. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. By 1960, the fortunes were completely turned around. He needed a good editor…. The original publisher is out of business, and Brooks died in 1993. This was further followed by high-handedness in selecting the dealers. I receive my business guidance from the communication, oral and written, and through a more visceral medium of “impacts” – a GE manager during Senate testimony on price fixation. Interesting to see the mention of this book as a "favorite" of Bill Gates, given to him by Warren Buffet with a strong recommendation. Hide other formats and editions. Edsel is the name of Henry’s son and that didn’t bode well with the employees either who felt that it had dynastic connotations. http://www.businessinsider.com/xerox-was-actually-first-to-invent-the-pc-they-just-forgot-to-do-anything-with-it-2012-2, R&D – The story of Xerox is a company’s dangerous bet on making photocopying work, Product – The story of Ford’s Edsel is about the failure of overhyped products, Communication – The story of GE is about illegal price fixation and intra-company communication, Trade Secrets – The story of Goodrich engineer leaving the company for a competitor is about the role of trade secrets, Insider Trading – The story of Texas Gulf Sulpher is about employees ability to trade on insider information, Public vs private sector – The story of  Lilienthal is about the role a person coming from the public sector played in the private sector, Market manipulation – The story of Piggly Wiggly is about how publicly traded companies have to face market manipulation, Market fraud – The story of Haupt is about the role of exchange in protecting customers of the exchange member firms against fraud by those members to increase confidence in the market for the retail investors. Eventually, the Edsel division was folded into other divisions and the car was removed from the market. Read more. by Littlehampton Book Services Ltd. Luvvie Ajayi Jones—author, cultural critic, digital entrepreneur—might be best described as a professional truthteller. They did try as per http://www.businessinsider.com/xerox-was-actually-first-to-invent-the-pc-they-just-forgot-to-do-anything-with-it-2012-2 and you can search and find many similar sources. Carlson patented it and sold it to Battelle, who resold it to Haloid for royalty. (ashishb: The chapter focuses too much on a private individual, Lilienthal, and is not of much use except for a few beautiful quotes) His books Once inGolconda, The Go-Go Years, and Business Adventures have endured as classics.