Reading rank 119
Mind Your Own Business: A Maverick's Guide to Business, Leadership and Life
, subject: Sidney Harman, Harman International, and business leadership, 2003
Sidney Harman wrote this late in life, and one argument runs through it: technology must serve the business, not dominate it.
111
Coverage Score
9
Scored evidence
About the book
First published in 2003, the autobiographical business guide moves between Harman's career and short chapters on leadership, finance, negotiation, marketing and sales, education, government, and the relationship between technology and business.
Why read it
Best if you want an operator's late-career account of hard work and of keeping technology in service of the business rather than in charge of it.
Key themes
- Technology in service of the business
- Hard work and a formative first job
- Operating knowledge set down late
Evidence and original sources
Sources: official Founders episodes — #229, #232, #235
David praises the book's density of insight and urges listeners to buy it.
- Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) — David connects the book's hard-work theme to Founders' recently released episode on Michael Bloomberg.
- Alexander the Great — David identifies Sidney Harman and Founders #229 while discussing compressed learning and late-life knowledge transfer.
- Steve Jobs (The Pixar Story) — David applies Sidney Harman's idea of guarding a company's soul to John Lasseter's role at Pixar.