Ajay Sethi Boeken

Starting with a turnover of just $16,005 in 1976, Microsoft, 'the house that Windows built', had clocked up over $143 billion in revenues in 2020. It also became one of the very few companies to cross the $1 trillion mark in market capitalization! It's not just the story of its main architects-Bill Gates and Paul Allen-but also of people like Steve Ballmer and Satya Nadella, who have taken Microsoft into an orbit of its own. This book affords us fascinating insights into how modern businesses are built, sustained and scaled up, besides offering an analysis of how different leaders lead the same organization in their own unique ways. The book traces Microsoft's eventful journey from its early fledgling days to the current dominant status-its first major deal with IBM and the launching of Windows and Office softwares, gaming gadgets, and making forays into other computer products and services like Cloud, mobile phones, computer hardware and artificial Intelligence, covering the entire gamut of information technology. This is a story that has no parallels.

Innovation has been the cornerstone of Japanese legend Masaru Ibuka's business philosophy. Starting from a small radio-repair unit in a bombed-out store in post-war Tokyo, he and his lifelong business partner Akio Morita built a staggering business empire straddling all seven continents. Right from its early days, Sony, as the company came to be called, continued to shock and surprise the world by coming out with one innovative product after the other: commercially successful transistor radio when even the inventors of the transistor didn't think of its use beyond creating hearing aids; a colour TV that redefined entertainment; the 'Walkman', a new market phenomenon, that got the young generation all excited and revved up. All these in addition to a vast variety of products that became the gold standard for the industry! Drawing on the vision of the founders, Sony has fortified their business unimaginably-with gaming PlayStations, blockbuster Hollywood movies, hit music albums and critical components for futuristic technologies, including robotics and artificial intelligence. This book is as much a tribute to the Sony founders, as it is to the dynamism and spiritedness of their successors who are proud to carry their legacy and innovations forward.