Book Recommendation by Tony Hsieh (Zappos)
July 25, 2012 § 3 Comments
I had the pleasure of briefly meeting Tony today at a talk he gave to Zynga employees. He seemed very passionate about his involvement with the Downtown Project, an incredible initiative to vitalize downtown Las Vegas. Tony recommended that we read Great By Choice.
Several weeks ago, ex-adventure-racer Robyn Benincasa said something that will always stick with me: Luck is where Opportunity meets Preparation.
Collins’ new books analyzes the effect that luck and situation have on corporation successes. Similar to his past books, Built to Last and Good to Great (which was mentioned in a previous post), Great By Choice uses successful companies as case studies to understand what makes great companies even better (or luckier, as the case may be).
I look forward to sinking my teeth into our new book, and I encourage you all to join me in reading Jim Collins’ latest installment.
Patterns 
I finished reading “Great by Choice” yesterday. Initially, I am impressed with how Jim Collins and his research team are able to effectively quantify and analyze luck. His examination of past results explains that successful companies actually had slightly more bad luck and less good luck than their comparison companies. Interesting! Yet, they were “10xers” because they achieved a high return on their good luck, also known as ROL.
Thanks for posting Giosue,
I’d like to challenge your point that 10xer’s did well because they achieved a high “ROL”. I think that Collins was trying to impress the idea that luck is really what companies make it out to be. While it might be true that unsuccessful companies may have had a little more bad-luck, there are many existing companies, non-10xer but also not-failed, that had about the same amount of luck as the companies Collins analyzed. The way I read the book, I think that good-luck — as people might call it — is a combination of circumstance, preparation, and a frame of mind.
In my opinion, analysis of the 10xers suggests to me that good companies are those that know how to trudge through the worst of times, while still adapting and growing. Maybe you had a different opinion on my take of Collin’s book? I have a few pages left to read, so the blog post should be up shortly.
Actually, in Collins’ research, he claims that 10xers actually had slightly more bad luck and less good luck than their comparison cases. Your interpretation that Collins’ is trying to impress the idea that luck is what you make it out to be is correct. More subtly, he claims that most companies will have similar opportunities and threats, and so, will not be able to be great simply by catching an endless string of good luck.