Editor’s note: This article was first published in July 2014; the remarks that the book “has recently become a bestseller” and “20 years later” are counted from that year, while the update included in the article dates from later.
Bill Gates says in a post on his LinkedIn profile that he met Warren Buffett in person in 1991. Gates asked Buffett what his favourite book on business was, and Buffett recommended Business Adventures by John Brooks.
Gates says he had never heard of the book and didn’t know who John Brooks was, but that 20 years later, and more than four decades after the book was published, he considers it without a doubt the best business book he has ever read.
He acknowledges that many sceptics might think there’s nothing to be learned from a book written in 1960, when business today is different and ever-changing, more technological, with globalised markets and so on.
(Read: Bill Gates: the 3 things I learned from Warren Buffett)
And it’s true that a lot has changed since then, but according to Gates, the most important details of business, of running a company and of the strategies we can develop remain intact, because the fundamentals of companies haven’t changed.
Gates compares it with Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, the best book on investing ever written. Many people think Graham’s teachings are no longer useful because investing in the stock market is different now, when the truth is that investing is still exactly the same as it was 100 years ago. Forgetting Graham’s teachings, whose message was intelligent investing, is what leads you to make other kinds of investments, which often aren’t intelligent. Remember that anyone who had followed Graham’s teachings to the letter would never have invested in companies like Gowex or Pescanova (two Spanish listed companies that collapsed in 2013 and 2014).
Exactly the same would apply to the book Bill Gates recommends. Its author, Brooks, grew up during the Great Depression and shared a room at Princeton University with George Shultz, the future Secretary of State. After coming back from the Second World War, he returned to journalism, dreaming of becoming a novelist.
Brooks is said to have written many books, but most of them went largely unnoticed, and since his death they have even gone out of print. This particular book, however, Business Adventures, has recently become a bestseller because, in a world where we hear all kinds of clichés about business, according to Gates you won’t find a single one in this book. Nor will you find simplistic explanations for business success, such as suggesting that a company succeeded because it gave its employees free food.
The book explains why big companies such as Ford, General Electric and Xerox, among others, succeeded, describing how they dealt with the many difficulties that arose and what strategies they put in place, strategies that can be applied to any business today.
(Read: The 2 most brilliant business strategies in history)
Gates says that one of the stories in the book that caught his attention most was that of Xerox, a story he recommends to any businessperson.
Brooks’s work, according to Bill Gates, is a great reminder that the rules for running a business and creating value as a company haven’t changed at all.
The problem with the book is that I haven’t found a Spanish version, so only those who, unlike me, read English fluently will be able to enjoy it.
Update: The book is now available in Spanish.
Further reading
- 3 books every entrepreneur, business owner or leader should read
- The 5 best books on financial education
- The best books on getting rich are more than 70 years old and go to the root of the problem
Featured image: Kjetil Ree, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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