There's something about the richest men in the world that makes them compelling listening. Like, "What does he know that I don't?" When they give out advice, you don't ignore it, you listen closely.
This month, Bill Gates told the world that his favourite business book is an out-of-print collection of stories called Business Adventures by John Brooks and I'm sure you'll make a mental note to seek it out. When I add that it was given to him by Warren Buffett 20 years ago, who also calls it his favourite, the seeking should become more intense.
Currently it's available as an e-book through Amazon, though I'm sure the burst of publicity it has just received will put a rocket under its publishers.
Don't expect a "How to make a million" book. It is a collection of 1960s articles from that brilliantly written magazine, The New Yorker.
The stories take a close look at the inner working of corporations. Like GE, who got themselves into a quicksand of price-fixing troubles. The problem was communication. Like executives decreeing that you weren't allowed to talk to certain people - and then slyly winking to undo what they had just decreed.
In business we all know of large corporations where different divisions can't communicate. Brooks writes that GE had "a breakdown in intramural communication so drastic as to make the building of the Tower of Babel seem a triumph of organizational rapport".
Or the most famous disaster since the Titanic: the Ford Edsel. It was extensively consumer tested. And then the executives ignored what the research told them. Gates points to a paragraph: "It certainly didn’t help that the first Edsels were delivered with oil leaks, sticking hoods, and push buttons that couldn’t be budged with a hammer.”
(I'll hold myself back here from commenting on many new Windows releases which seemed to run their beta testing on the screams of the version's first users.)
But one tale that always has fascinated me is: what happened to Xerox? Here's an innovative company that grew huge on a revolutionary invention. Americans went from about 20 million photocopies in the mid 50s, to 14 billion in 1966. Xerox made so much money but knew they had to think of the future.
Instead they gave them to Steve Jobs. He also bought the rights to the first true personal computer, the Xerox Alto - using GUI, mouse, etc. And a little later came out with - surprise! - the Apple Macintosh.
Gates was also at the fire sale - hence Windows. But the point he vows is that Microsoft would not make the same mistakes. "Brooks shows how Xerox was built on original, outside-the-box thinking, which makes it all the more surprising that it would miss out on unconventional ideas developed by its own researchers."
Gates has his own blog, gatesnotes, which is very readable. It has book recommendations, video clips, animations, Bill and Melinda's happy snaps and news from their Foundation.
His work on combatting hunger, poverty and malaria is very touching. And it's one of the unusual factors among the very very rich - the more they give away, the richer they seem to get.
