Skip to Content
The Outsiders
book

The Outsiders

by William N. Thorndike
October 2012
Beginner
240 pages
5h 7m
English
Harvard Business Review Press
Content preview from The Outsiders

Preface: Singletonville

It’s almost impossible to overpay the truly extraordinary CEO . . . but the species is rare.

—Warren Buffett

You are what your record says you are.

—Bill Parcells

Success leaves traces.

—John Templeton

Who’s the greatest CEO of the last fifty years?

If you’re like most people, the overwhelming likelihood is that you answered, “Jack Welch,” and it’s easy to see why. Welch ran General Electric, one of America’s most iconic companies, for twenty years, from 1981 to 2001. GE’s shareholders prospered mightily during Welch’s tenure, with a compound annual return of 20.9 percent. If you had invested a dollar in GE stock when Welch became CEO, that dollar would have been worth an extraordinary $48 when he turned the reins ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

The Hidden Cost of AI-Assisted Creativity

The Hidden Cost of AI-Assisted Creativity

Léonard Boussioux, Anil Doshi, Oliver Hauser, Kartik Hosanagar
Smart Choices

Smart Choices

John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, Howard Raiffa
Love and Work

Love and Work

Marcus Buckingham
Pitch the Perfect Investment

Pitch the Perfect Investment

Paul D. Sonkin, Paul Johnson

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781422187586