A Critique Paper of the Book:

BUSINESS ADVENTURES: TWELVE

CLASSIC TALES FROM THE WORLD
OF WALL STREET

Submitted By:
Ma. Regina D. Baterisna
XII - ABM

Submitted To:
Mr. Mario Andrew Ustaris

December 2019
 INTRODUCTION

The book was published in New York: New Yorkers Magazine, 1969. John
Brooks is the most prominent writer and a longtime contributor to New Yorkers
Magazine, and in “Business Adventures” he show us why business
understanding is an essential ingredient for life in today’s society, a key element
that empowers those who possess it to better take charge of their own lives and
their own responsibilities to their society. Furthermore, Business Adventures
teaches lessons about people how they act, what makes them thrive and
flounder, and what devilry they are likely to get up to if left to their own devices.
The books’ lessons are about human nature in the context of business, and
though technologies and best practices change, people never do. The authors tell
us what everyone should know about business, it is not about a success but also
a failure. Coming up into a business world is not easy, it takes a lot of time and
dedication to succeed and to prosper once said company. “Business Adventures”
should needs to understand of a person who is willing to run a business. It is a
simple explanation about the lesson of how and why our society and our world
work the way they do, and how and why individuals and nations prosper.

With the key lesson from business adventures, and with that learning the
basic lesson of business has been more essential. A lesson such as a lesson
from Xerox’s rollercoaster success, a lesson from Piggly Wiggly’s investment
debacle, a lesson from the Ford Edsel fiasco continue to be critically important to
the way their country functions, and critically important to understand for those
hoping to further their professional lives - even their personal lives. Business
Adventures discusses key points and lessons, using them to show how any
reader can make wiser personal choices and form more informed positions on
policy. Now in its edition, this fully updated classic from authors reflects on
various companies sucess and failure that had been made since trusting a rapid
success. The book offer an idea to the readers to read and make an insight on
how to make the business progress to be better.
 “To set high goals, to have almost unattainable
aspirations, to imbue people with the belief that
they can be achieved—these are as important as
the balance sheet, perhaps more”
- John Brooks

History and Overview of Business Adventure

In the past century, there is an in depth view of some of the most influential
economic, financial and business moments. Bill Gates claimed that Business
Adventures was his favorite of all the time.  It describes 12 exciting and surprising
case studies of american businesses in the past. After all, these and the other
events described in this book represent several major developments in US
business history, the repercussions of which can still be felt today.

Business Adventure explains the key ideas of a business and illustrates how
Wall Street almost killed off Piggly Wiggly, how a misinterpreted wink landed
some GE executives in court and why shareholder meetings of large companies
are usually a complete farce in which they paved the way for things like the end
of insider trading and an employee’s right to work for whomever he or she
pleases.It is well written, the author is able to tell these stories entertainingly by
emphasising funny dialogues, easily understandable, and his generally great
way with words. It will help readers make purposeful choices and enhance their
understanding of the real world and what might be done to improve it.

Part 1 focuses on 12 key ideas of a business, including the investors are

irrational and the stock market is unpredictable, he story of the Ford Edsel is the
epitome of a product launch gone wrong, he federal income tax system should
revert back to its 1913 state, Insider trading was finally reined in after the Texas
Gulf case of 1959, The story of Xerox demonstrates how quickly achieved
success can vanish equally as quickly, In 1963, the New York Stock Exchange
rescued a brokerage in order to prevent a financial crisis, Executives can blame
immoral or criminal actions on “communication errors.” The owner of Piggly
Wiggly, the world’s first self-service supermarket, almost killed it in a stock
market battle, The example of David Lilienthal shows that business savvy and a
clean conscience can co-exist, Stockholders rarely wield the power they have at
their disposal, Thanks to Donald Wohlgemuth, you can change employers even
if you’re privy to trade secrets, In 1964, speculators attacked the pound sterling,
and even an alliance of central bankers could not defend it. These concepts are
often used in the other three parts of the book to explain why some business
person in nations prosper while other stagnate and fail.

While in Part 2, it talks about the human interest angles and describes the
character of key people not just the facts, and thus adds a richness to each
‘adventure’. Essentially this similar to long form journalism today. And in Part 3,
on how individuals can improve their personal decision-making in terms of a
running a business venture.

Purpose of the Book

This book is designed for beginners, specialists in the subject of Marketing

and Economics as well as policy makers who are responsible for bringing ‘actual’
concrete changes in economy. For business person, this book give an insight of
‘larger visual’ which entails political rules, steps and policy. It highlights some of
the most unbelievable and defining moments in corporate America, on how
people’s greed for succes can lead to business failure of a various companies.

This book aims at explaining how an inability to effectively communicate

paved the way for such a massive scandal, inviting the reader to reflect on what
that meant for the company and industry as a whole. The link between good
business choices and prosperity is highly interlinked. The wonders of
understanding common business ideas are very often underestimated.

The importance of understanding how specified ideas that govern

developed and progressess country can be replicated anywhere is explained in
the book. This book shows in what ways the business venture are related to the
economic policies. It answered other companies to secretly meet and agree
upon non-competitive pricing for their goods, an unfair practice that ultimately
hurt consumers.

Content of the Book

After reading Business Adventure: Twelve Classic Tales From The World Of
Wall Street. The book provides a lesson in which it talks about human nature in
the context of business, and though technologies and best practices change,
people never do. This book is penned by a long-time New Yorker contributor,
one of the main strengths of Business Adventures is its wonderful prose and
stories. It brings to life in vivid fashion twelve classic and timeless tales of
corporate and financial life in America. Each chapter of the book is an example
of how an iconic company was defined by a particular moment of fame or
notoriety; these notable and fascinating accounts are as relevant today to
understanding the intricacies of corporate life as they were when the events
happened. Stories about Twelve Classic Tales From The World Of Wall Street
are infused with drama and adventure and reveal the machinations and volatile
nature of the world of finance.

John Brooks's insightful reportage is so full of personality and critical detail

that whether he is looking at the astounding market crash of 1962, the collapse
of a well-known brokerage firm, or the bold attempt by American bankers to save
the British pound, one gets the sense that history repeats itself. On the other
hand, five additional stories on equally fascinating subjects round out this
wonderful collection that will both entertain and inform readers. The book entitled
Business Adventure: Twelve Classic Tales From The World Of Wall Street is
truly financial journalism at its liveliest and best. In many cases, how we
understand the financial market and business ethics can be tracked to key
incidents in history of business world. This suggest that the author of the book
said, long articles that frame an issue, explore it in depth, introduce a few
compelling characters, and show how things went for them, unlike a lot of
today’s business writers, the author didn’t boil his work down into pat how-to
lessons or simplistic explanations for success. Business Adventure had seven
(7) lessons from the 12 casesor events per chapter, the following are; A lesson
from the 1962 Flash Crash, A lesson from the Ford Edsel fiasco, A lesson from
the federal income tax system, A lesson from the Texas Gulf case of 1959, A
lesson from Xerox’s rollercoaster success, A lesson from Piggly Wiggly’s
investment debacle and A lesson from the Bretton Woods Conference of ‘64.

Each lesson tells a sense of message that should be understand, especially

to those business person that is blinded and must forsee the reality. A business
person must pay close attention to market. Customers’ wishes can change very
quickly and it’s important to keep a finger on the collective pulse. For some
instances, just as people are inherently irrational, you can also count on them to
be pretty self serving, too. In summary, when Texas Gulf executives found out
about mineral-rich ground the company had just struck, they slowly began
buying up stock shares and telling their families to follow suit – all the while
denying the find to the public. Thus, insider trading laws were born. Sometimes,
the best solution is to scrap it. Over the years, the US tax system became so
convoluted, corrupt, and loophole laden that it now encourages inefficiency. The
only real recourse would be a do-over. In business world, Revenge isn’t actually
so sweet – and it certainly doesn’t pay. To teach them a lesson, incensed Piggly
Wiggly owner Clarence Saunders sought to buy back all of his stock from tricksy
prospectors. What he got instead was near bankruptcy. Never trust a rapid
success. Yet, take business as step by step operation so that you will access in
appropriate and proper process and manner in time.

BUSINESS ADVENTURES
Twelve Classic Tales From The World Of Wall Street.

About the Author

 John N. Brooks

Brooks was born on December 5, 1920, in New York City, but grew up
in Trenton, New Jersey. He graduated from Kent School in Kent, Connecticut in
1938 and Princeton University in 1942. After graduation he joined the United
States Army Air Forces, in which he served as a communications and radar
officer from 1942 until 1945. He was aboard the First United States
Army headquarters ship on D-Day during the Allied invasion of Normandy in
1944. After leaving the military, Brooks went to work for Time magazine, where
he became a contributing editor. He worked at Time for only two years, pining for
a chance to write at more length and in a looser style than that dictated by the
newsweekly format. In 1949, Brooks got his break. That year he joined ”The New
Yorker” as a staff writer – a development he later called the lucky break that
made his career. While working at The New Yorker, Brooks also began
contributing book reviews to Harper's Magazine and The New York Times Book
Review. In additional, Brooks was an award-winning writer best known for his
contributions to the New Yorker as a financial journalist. He was also the author
of ten nonfiction books on business and finance, a number of which were
critically acclaimed works examining Wall Street and the corporate world. His
books Once inGolconda, The Go-Go Years, and “Business Adventures” have
endured as classics. Although he is remembered primarily for his writings on
financial topics, Brooks published three novels and wrote book reviews for
Harper’s Magazine and the New York Times Book Review.
 Analysis and Implications

Business Adventures makes an entrepreneur to have its personality traits

that will lead to success. For years, there is no reliable link between specific
personality traits and success in business. According to Business innovator,
coach and Joy of Business facilitator, Maggie Schlarb believes these studies are
missing the point about successful entrepreneurs. “It’s not who you are that
matters”, she says. “It’s how you choose to approach life.” This is an
extraordinary contribution to econonomic and marketing education. It teaches
the ideas that a keen entrepreneur should understand that the key to successful
business is adventure.

The main point of the book is that entrepreneurs are considered as the the
adventurers of the 21stcentury. They are the ones pushing limits, questioning
what is possible, cutting new paths forward, and integrating the new and
unknown into society. The author explained that “A business itself will not
succeed if that particular person who handled that business did not experience
failure at once.” This main point of the concept is that failure in establishing a
business will serves as courage to continue that counts and aim to success.
They said that, “The sweetest victory is the one that’s most difficult.” The one
that requires you to reach down deep inside, to fight with everything you’ve got,
to be willing to leave everything out there on the battlefield—without knowing,
until that do-or-die moment, if your heroic effort will be enough. Society doesn’t
reward defeat, and you won’t find many failures documented in history books.
The exceptions are those failures that become steppingstones to later success.
Such is the case with Thomas Edison, whose most memorable invention was the
light bulb, which purportedly took him 1,000 tries before he developed a
successful prototype. But later pn, his invention becomes success because of
his dedication and hard work.
 The second important concept was “The most successful entrepreneurs are
those who treat business as an adventure, and find joy in exploring what lies
beyond the horizon.” This concept is built based upon business desire for an
entrepreneurial mind that there are similarities between business enterprises and
love of adventure. Hence, when you are on an adventure, you personally need to
be inspired, energized and enthused to make it to your destination. The same is
true with business. You are an integral part of your business and you need to
capture those adventurous qualities in order for your business to grow.

Business Adventures helps a lot to our economy and this book may use
as an guide. To the people in our society on how to prevent failure on putting up
on a business enterprises. What are steps, key ideas and theories must do and
follow, what choices must be chosen and how to generate wealth from
transaction. It enhances the critical thinking of those people especially the
business person on the players in our economy how they will play their role to
conquer victory despite of failure.
 Conclusion

Business Adventures encouraging us that adventure and travelling is good

for both morale and growth of a business enterprises. It enhance our knowledge
about business that without adventure, business might seemingly nothing.
Adventures around the world forces us to be more focused with works and
improves communication as we have to work hard to coordinate over multiple
continents spanning all of the time zones. In many cases, how we understand
the financial market and business ethics can be traced back to key incidents.

“Reading Brook’s book about Business Adventures provides the early

version of what we think of as Malcolm Gladwell–style or Freakonomics-
tyle lessons. But Brooks features another trait that modern business writers,
whether James Stewart, Malcolm Gladwell, or Michael Lewis, do not. Brooks is
truly willing to give up his own views to get inside the mind of all his subjects.”
- National Review

This book forms a bridge between the key ideas and the lesson of
Business. It is a guide to an entrepreneur who wants to enter a business
enterprises. Its language is relatively simple, easy to understand and direct to
the point without being oversimplified and without sacrificing the really important
insights and conclusions. It is a book with a strong message – economic and
marketing progress is the result of competitive business enterprises of individual
initiatives and of the limited role of the government in putting up a business.

The book also concludes that success always starts with failure. If you have
a close look at some of the most successful individuals that ever lived, you’ll
realize that they all failed big time. Some of these people were widely considered
to be massive failures in life. But they all managed to turn things around.  Failure
in life only show us how we can avoid these mistakes and what we can do to be
successful instead. In almost all cases, success is not the result of getting things
right the first time you try. Instead, it comes from gradually discovering how it’s
not done. Success is the result of the mental strength to keep fixing what we are
doing wrong, until we get it right. Business Adventures provides key ingredients
for success, its just we only need to explore everything and experience failure
before we succeed.
 Recommendation

I would highly recommend the book entitled “Business Adventures: Twelve

Classic Tales From The World of Wall Street” because it is remarkable. The
book provides a vivid reason why the book should be read. This is advisable to
those people who are not familiar in the new world of business term. The book
might help those person to assess and evaluate themselves to improve in terms
of communicating between themselves and themselves. One of the most factor
of an individual must possess is his/her capability to communicate with
him/herself, but if a person doesn’t know how to interact with itself how they are
supposed to make it successfully with the strangers outside? Nowadays,
entering into a business world should possess the traits of being confident and
cooperative to everyone to understand each side and lessen the possibility to fail
to interpret. Also, this book is good to enhance your knowledge about money.
Because money is considered as one of the most important value thing in this
world. If you do not know how to handle money, you can’t be reach nor success
in business world. So therefore, an individual must know how to handle it, they
said that what happened once, will happen again. So if you fail in running a
business, there are possibility that you will fail again and vice versa. The idea of
the book connotes that adding adventure to your business can help turbocharge
innovation, spot uncommon connections and keep your team motivated, inspired
and committed to finding potent solutions.
 References

Caitlin (2014), 7 Key Lessons from Business Adventures: Bill Gates’s Favorite
Business Book, Retrived from:https://medium.com/key-lessons-from-books/7-
key-lessons-from-business-adventures-bill-gatess-favorite-business-book-
30d84c20efa2

MacKenzie Stuart (2019), Business Adventures: An Intimate Glimpse Into

Corporate America, Retrived
from:https://earlybirdbooks.com/business-adventures-excerpt

Success (2016), Why Failure Is Good for Success, Retrived

from:https://www.success.com/why-failure-is-good-for-success/