I’ve realized while reading Winners & Losers, Creators & Casualties of the Age of the Internet that the role of the storyteller in innovation is under respected. Author Kieran Levis has written a book that is chock full of real life business stories.  Reading these stories I’ve learned a great deal about why companies succeed or fail. Is there anything more valuable when it comes to preparing yourself for innovation?  Why fall on the same sword that, for instance, Webvan did?  Instead why not emulate the team that founded Sony just after WWII?

If you want to catch up on your business reading, this book is essentially an MBA in a box. It’s fascinating.

Levis uses real world business stories — case studies — like no author I’ve read to date. In Winners & Losers Levis tells the pass or fail stories of a who’s who in modern business. Companies from Apple, Sony, and IBM, to the less fortunate Netscape, Kodak and Webvan have their corporate decision-making closets opened for our edification.

For those who haven’t spent the last five years reading business books, this book provides an incredibly rich resource for what’s worked, what hasn’t, and why. In a way, it’s a history of modern innovation. The only book I can think of that comes close to capturing the zeitgeist of the modern era is George Gilder‘s Microcosm, which is now out of date (– and was much more technical and difficult to read). While this is a scholarly work that is clearly well researched, the good news is its high readability.

Levis provides more than stories as well, he uses the examples to make some highly specific recommendations for business strategy. The bottom line with this book is that if you want to get a better sense of the big picture of business success, you need to look hard at the stories of seminal companies. This book does that in a comprehensive, insightful, and ultimately highly useful way. For students of business, organizational managers, and those dipping their toe in the water of entrepreneurship this is required reading. Levis is a business shanachie!