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A trio of experts on high-tech business strategy and innovation reveal the principles that have made platform businesses the most valuable firms in the world and the first trillion-dollar companies. Managers and entrepreneurs in the digital era must learn to live in two worlds—the conventional economy and the platform economy. Platforms that operate for business purposes usually exist at the level of an industry or ecosystem, bringing together individuals and organizations so they can innovate and interact in ways not otherwise possible. Platforms create economic value far beyond what we see in conventional companies. The Business of Platforms is an invaluable, in-depth look at platform strategy and digital innovation. Cusumano, Gawer, and Yoffie address how a small number of companies have come to exert extraordinary influence over every dimension of our personal, professional, and political lives. They explain how these new entities differ from the powerful corporations of the past. They also question whether there are limits to the market dominance and expansion of these digital juggernauts. Finally, they discuss the role governments should play in rethinking data privacy laws, antitrust, and other regulations that could reign in abuses from these powerful businesses. Their goal is to help managers and entrepreneurs build platform businesses that can stand the test of time and win their share of battles with both digital and conventional competitors. As experts who have studied and worked with these firms for some thirty years, this book is the most authoritative and timely investigation yet of the powerful economic and technological forces that make platform businesses, from Amazon and Apple to Microsoft, Facebook, and Google—all dominant players in shaping the global economy, the future of work, and the political world we now face.

Described by the philosopher A.J. Ayer as a work of 'great originality and power', this book revolutionized contemporary thinking on science and knowledge. Ideas such as the now legendary doctrine of 'falsificationism' electrified the scientific community, influencing even working scientists, as well as post-war philosophy. This astonishing work ranks alongside The Open Society and Its Enemies as one of Popper's most enduring books and contains insights and arguments that demand to be read to this day.

One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now: What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers—right from the belly of the beast. In A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Larry McDonald, a Wall Street insider, reveals, the culture and unspoken rules of the game like no book has ever done. The book is couched in the very human story of Larry McDonald’s Horatio Alger-like rise from a Massachusetts “gateway to nowhere” housing project to the New York headquarters of Lehman Brothers, home of one of the world’s toughest trading floors.   We get a close-up view of the participants in the Lehman collapse, especially those who saw it coming with a helpless, angry certainty. We meet the Brahmins at the top, whose reckless, pedal-to-the-floor addiction to growth finally demolished the nation’ s oldest investment bank. The Wall Street we encounter here is a ruthless place, where brilliance, arrogance, ambition, greed, capacity for relentless toil, and other human traits combine in a potent mix that sometimes fuels prosperity but occasionally destroys it.   The full significance of the dissolution of Lehman Brothers remains to be measured. But this much is certain: it was a devastating blow to America’s—and the world’s—financial system. And it need not have happened. This is the story of why it did.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A riveting account . . . Reads like a literary thriller . . . Snowden pushes the reader to reflect more seriously on what every American should be asking already.” ―The New York Times Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down. In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it. Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young man who grew up online―a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet’s conscience. Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic.

The shocking story of the legal persecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the dangerous implications for the whistleblowers of the future. In July 2010, Wikileaks published Cablegate, one of the biggest leaks in the history of the US military, including evidence for war crimes and torture. In the aftermath Julian Assange, the founder and spokesman of Wikileaks, found himself at the center of a media storm, accused of hacking and later sexual assault. He spent the next seven years in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fearful that he would be extradited to Sweden to face the accusations of assault and then sent to US. In 2019, Assange was handed over to the British police and, on the same day, the U.S. demanded his extradition. They threatened him with up to 175 years in prison for alleged espionage and computer fraud. At this point, Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, started his investigation into how the US and UK governments were working together to ensure a conviction. His findings are explosive, revealing that Assange has faced grave and systematic due process violations, judicial bias, collusion and manipulated evidence. He has been the victim of constant surveillance, defamation and threats. Melzer also gathered together consolidated medical evidence that proves that Assange has suffered prolonged psychological torture. Melzer’s compelling investigation puts the UK and US state into the dock, showing how, through secrecy, impunity and, crucially, public indifference, unchecked power reveals a deeply undemocratic system. Furthermore, the Assange case sets a dangerous precedent: once telling the truth becomes a crime, censorship and tyranny will inevitably follow. The Trial of Julian Assange is told in three parts: the first explores Nils Melzer’s own story about how he became involved in the case and why Assange’s case falls under his mandate as the Special Rapporteur on Torture. The second section returns to 2010 when Wikileaks released the largest leak in the history of the U.S. military, exposing war crimes and corruption, and Nils makes the case that Swedish authorities manipulated charges against Assange to force his extradition to the US and publicly discredit him. In the third section, the author returns to 2019 and picks up the case as Ecuador kicks Assange out of the embassy and lays out the case as it currently stands, as well as the stakes involved for other potential whistleblowers trying to serve the public interest.

Edwin Lefèvre’s Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is a fictionalized autobiography based on the life of Jesse Livermore (1877–1940) who was a pioneer of day trading and one of the greatest investors of all time. At his peak in 1929, Livermore was worth $100 million, which in today’s dollars roughly equates to $1.5 billion, making him one of the richest people in the world at that time. The book, which began as a series of articles published during 1922 and 1923 in The Saturday Evening Post, tells the story of Livermore’s progression from day trading in the then so-called “bucket shops” to market speculator, market maker, and market manipulator to Wall Street “Boy Plunger” where he won and lost tens of millions of dollars. This classic of American business writing continues to offer sharp insights into the art and psychology of trading and speculation. It is one of the most widely read, highly recommended investment books of all time. This Warbler Classics edition includes an illustrated life of Jesse Livermore. Edwin Lefèvre (1871–1943) was an American journalist, writer, and diplomat who is most noted for his writings about Wall Street, most notably Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1923). He began his career as a journalist and eventually became a stockbroker as well. Edwin Lefèvre’s first short stories were published under the title, Wall Street Stories (1901), which were followed by several novels about money and finance. Lefèvre was appointed an Ambassador of the United States by President Howard Taft in 1909, serving in posts in Italy, France, and Spain. In 1913, Lefévre returned to his home in Vermont where he resumed writing novels and contributing short stories for magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post and McClure’s. “A must-read classic for all investors, whether brand-new or experienced.” —Investor’s Business Daily “Although...first published some seventy years ago, its take on crowd psychology and market timing is as timely as last summer’s frenzy on the foreign exchange markets.” —Worth magazine

Economics is a science. It primarily examines how decisions are made, which alternatives provide greatest benefits to various stakeholders. Contrary to popular belief, economics is not about money. It has and continues to be about the study of allocation of scarce resources (behaviours). We enforce them through incentives and disincentives (punishments).You don’t need to be an economist or technologist to understand the book. We keep things high-level to digest the information, yet coming from fundamental academic research.The difference between economics (soft science) and physics (hard science) is that economics is continuously evolves because it is a study of human behaviours. As we moved from Web 1 to Web 2 and now Web 3, the economics 101 that we initially understood has changed.While is important to be coding the tech infrastructure of Web 3.0 and having ideas of what Web 3.0 is like, an important aspect is the economics and incentive alignment of Web 3.0 users. It is easy to create a token or currency out of thin air. The token is only valuable when the economics make sense.The aim of this book is to dive into the core foundational principles of economics in Web 3.0. We explore the evolution to economics, the change in principles we learnt in Econs 101, and the new environment that economics will exist in.Then, we explore ways to apply these foundational principles in Web 3.0, with or without a token. We also tap into the general mathematics that defines the economic mechanisms.

Murray Rothbard was known as the state's greatest living enemy, and this book is his most powerful statement on the topic. He explains what a state is and what it is not. He shows how it is an institution that violates all that we hold as honest and moral, and how it operates under a false cover. He shows how the state wrecks freedom, destroys civilization, and threatens all lives and property and social well being, all under the veneer of "good intentions."

When this gem first appeared in 1963, it took the form of a small paperback designed for mass distribution. We've conjured up that spirit again with this special edition of Rothbard's primer on money and government.Innumerable economists, investors, commentators, and authors have learned from this book through the decades. After fifty years, it remains the best book in print on the topic, a real manifesto of sound money.Rothbard boils down the Austrian theory to its essentials. The book also made huge theoretical advances. Rothbard was the first to prove that the government, and only the government, can destroy money on a mass scale, and he showed exactly how they go about this dirty deed. But just as importantly, it is beautifully written. He tells a thrilling story because he loves the subject so much.The passion that Murray feels for the topic comes through in the prose and transfers to the reader. Readers become excited about the subject, and tell others. Students tell professors. Some, like the great Ron Paul of Texas, have even run for political office after having read it.Rothbard shows precisely how banks create money out of thin air and how the central bank, backed by government power, allows them to get away with it. He shows how exchange rates and interest rates would work in a true free market. When it comes to describing the end of the gold standard, he is not content to describe the big trends. He names names and ferrets out all the interest groups involved.Since Rothbard's death, scholars have worked to assess his legacy, and many of them agree that this little book is one of his most important. Though it has sometimes been inauspiciously packaged and is surprisingly short, its argument took huge strides toward explaining that it is impossible to understand public affairs in our time without understanding money and its destruction.

Humanity is at a crossroads. Never have we had so much potential to do good in the world or literally transform our civilization into transnational gulags. Almost 175 Years have passed since the Communist Manifesto was written and circulated by Marx and Engels. Some statistics point to it being one of the most widely read and distributed works of political science and economics. However, the core ideology has led to hundreds of millions of murders worldwide at the hands of those who fervently 'believed' and 'reformed' society by its decrees. It's about time something was written to help challenge and potentially unwind some of the moral, intellectual, social, and economic damage done since. * Why is it that an idea with a consistent failure rate draws more young people to it than ever before? * What is it about the original book that's so infectious that it continues to influence people around the world almost two centuries later? * What elements of the original text are accurate observations, and what conclusions are drawn ignorant of human psychology and praxeology that lead to devastating consequences? We wrote The UnCommunist Manifesto to answer these questions and much more. We emulated the format and length of the Communist Manifesto, so it is a sharp, concise and lucid read, but the message contained is a reminder for people to reach upward and become better versions of themselves instead of renouncing individual responsibility by classifying themselves into static groups and intellectually validating their desire to bring others down to their level. One goal was to change the axis of the “struggle.” Marx and Engels outlined it as “a struggle between two classes’, whom an individual is arbitrarily assigned to based on their material wealth. We reject this and assert that the real struggle is between individual autonomy, sovereignty, and responsibility versus the collectivist tendency toward group identity politics, rights, entitlements, and co-dependencies. Between cooperation and coercion. It always has been. We hope to see it used as an inspirational text in the years ahead as Individuals seek to maintain autonomy and claim sovereignty, while the collective seeks to coerce. Our longer-term hope is that this text can be a beacon of hope, sanity, and sense in a world being swallowed up by the envy inherently justified by Marxist doctrine. Humanity is at a crossroads. Never have we had so much potential to do good in the world, or literally transform our civilisation into transnational gulags. The siren call of Marxist entropy is stronger than ever. The greatness and sanctity of the individual and the soul must counter it. May this book be not just an answer to the misguided, nihilistic, and often dangerous ideology that is Marxism, but a message of hope, responsibility, and liberty for all. This is the first edition, and we hope that you find deep meaning within it. Aleks Svetski & Mark Moss

Perhaps everyone has heard of Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. They appear in the media at moments when they are drawing their last breath (the price has dropped a bit) or when everyone is going crazy and buying (the price has gone up a bit). However, only a few people are experimenting with using them in their lives. Can something so volatile be used reliably? And if we don't care about the price, can cryptocurrencies be used in other ways? For example, to fund creators, or for crowdfunding. Can you use cryptocurrencies to take out a loan? How to use them in international trade or to promote your products? How to build a local crypto economy in your social bubble? Can bitcoin be used to expand personal and social contacts? We can even use bitcoin as a form of "insurance" against the failure of the traditional financial system. Juraj Bednár is a serial entrepreneur. He has founded several companies in the field of information technology. He is a co-founder of the non-profit project Paralelná Polis, thanks to which he discovered the potential of cryptocurrencies in life and business. By combining the principle of hacking (ethical hacking, life hacking, ...) and cryptocurrencies, he creates mindsets with which you can introduce cryptocurrencies into your life. The aim of his books is to open the minds of his readers to new possibilities – if we have the courage to experiment.

Two complete volumes in one. Liber Null contains a selection of extremely powerful rituals and exercises for committed occultists. Psychonaut is a manual comprising the theory and practice of magic aimed atthose seeking to perform group magic, or who work as shamanic priests to the community.