flâneur

Favorite books on the history of the retail business

samgerstenzang.substack.com · 1,059 words · saved by 1 readers

I’m a bit… obsessed with business histories. Abstract business theory often tells clean case studies that don’t reflect the reality of operating a business, and miss the details and accidents that define the products, marketing, and team. I want to know the tactics. And I want to know what made that moment special.

I’m a bit… obsessed with business histories. Abstract business theory often tells clean case studies that don’t reflect the reality of operating a business, and miss the details and accidents that define the products, marketing, and team. I want to know the tactics. And I want to know what made that moment special. I’ll try to read a memoir from an early employee paired with a founder memoir. Founders tend to write decades later and have repeated the same founding myths so many times that it obscures the truth. For example, I’d pair Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog with Swoosh (1993 history of Nike…

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