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THE SPOTIFY PLAY

HOW CEO AND FOUNDER DANIEL EK BEAT APPLE, GOOGLE, AND AMAZON IN THE RACE FOR AUDIO DOMINANCE

An informative report from the streaming wars, though better suited for startup geeks than music nerds.

Two Swedish business reporters’ tale of the tenacious rise of the streaming-music giant that has fended off assaults from Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Taylor Swift.

When Spotify launched in Sweden in 2006, it had a brash agenda in a chaotic time for online music. Apple’s iTunes store had established a viable and legal marketplace for the post-Napster era, but Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek wanted to pursue a more open, stream-friendly, and cheaper alternative. The first chapters of the book, previously published in Sweden and translated and updated by the authors, detail the Spotify team’s dogged efforts to build their technology, though its greater challenge was convincing the music industry that a “freemium model” could work in its favor. In that regard, Ek had help from Sean Parker, who co-founded Napster and later introduced Ek to Mark Zuckerberg, a critical connection when Spotify began making inroads in the U.S. Headwinds were strong: Apple slow-walked approving Spotify to the app store, deals with major labels required sizable concessions from the company, and artists protested Spotify’s often skimpy payments to artists. (Swift withheld her 2014 album 1989 from Spotify for a time.) Carlsson and Leijonhufvud are seasoned business reporters who’ve garnered informative scoops about the company—e.g., a failed streaming-video venture, the terms of a deal with Sony Music, and abandoned efforts to buy Tidal or be bought by Google. Though the authors have a seemingly bottomless repository of song titles that serve as apt section headings, little elevates the narrative above sober, fairly dry business journalism. But it’s not all their fault: Ek isn’t an especially charismatic executive, and the authors characterize his leadership for the most part as blandly aloof. Ek is no Jobs, but he’s clearly held his own on the playing field Jobs created.

An informative report from the streaming wars, though better suited for startup geeks than music nerds.

Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-63576-744-5

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Diversion Books

Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020

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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...

A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.

The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011

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THE CULTURE MAP

BREAKING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.

“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

Pub Date: May 27, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014

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