Books published by publisher Harper Business

A stimulating, thought-provoking book that lets you know how to break free of negative behavior, take control of office politics, and prevent difficult, repetitive, and avoidable situations. Reardon—a frequent HuffingtonPost contributor and professor at the Marshall School of Business—arms readers with the tools they need to take control of conversations in the workplace. Comebacks at Work combines the best qualities of Deborah Tannen's Talking from 9 to 5, Kerry Patterson's Crucial Conversations, and Douglas Stone's Difficult Conversations, a perfect workplace guide to getting what you deserve.

Are you burdened with the tax debt of a current or former spouse? Have you just received an IRS computerized or "correction" notice? Are you in danger of having your property seized? Has your tax return been selected for an audit?Is the IRS knocking on your door? If you've answered "yes" to any of these questions, you're not alone: more than twenty-five million taxpayers are faced with the terrifying prospect of dealing with audits, assessments, or other IRS problems every year. But with all the books devoted to how to prepare your taxes, there's never been one that explains how to get yourself out of trouble easily, legally, and inexpensively -- until now. With The IRS Problem Solver, veteran tax expert Dan Pilla offers the first comprehensive guide to dealing with the most common IRS problems taxpayers confront, from face-to-face audits to fraud penalties. Pilla's book is an indispensable preventive tool for all who file their own taxes—and a necessity for anyone who's just received a notice that the wolf is at the door.

John Wood discovered his passion, his greatest success, and his life's work—not at business school or leading Microsoft's charge into Asia in the 1990s—but on a soul-searching trip to the Himalayas. Wood felt trapped between an all-consuming career and a desire to do something lasting and significant. Stressed from the demands of his job, he took a vacation trekking in Nepal because a friend had told him, "If you get high enough in the mountains, you can't hear Steve Ballmer yelling at you anymore."Instead of being the antidote to the rat race, that trip convinced John Wood to divert the boundless energy he was devoting to Microsoft into a cause that desperately needed to be addressed. While visiting a remote Nepalese school, Wood learned that the students had few books in their library. When he offered to run a book drive to provide the school with books, his idea was met with polite skepticism. After all, no matter how well-intentioned, why would a successful software executive take valuable time out of his life and gather books for an impoverished school?But John Wood did return to that school and with thousands of books bundled on the back of a yak. And at that moment, Wood made the decision to walk away from Microsoft and create Room to Read—an organization that has donated more than 1.2 million books, established more than 2,600 libraries and 200 schools, and sent 1,700 girls to school on scholarship—ultimately touching the lives of 875,000 children with the lifelong gift of education.Leaving Microsoft to Change the World chronicles John Wood's struggle to find a meaningful outlet for his managerial talents and entrepreneurial zeal. For every high-achiever who has ever wondered what life might be like giving back, Wood offers a vivid, emotional, and absorbing tale of how to take the lessons learned at a hard-charging company like Microsoft and apply them to one of the world's most pressing problems: the lack of basic literacy.

Acclaimed trading expert and bestselling author of the Market Wizards books, Jack Schwager, has returned with a new and fascinating collection of interviews with the best stock market traders and investors of our time.Focusing exclusively on successful players in the stock market, Schwager delivers informative profiles and trading strategies from fifteen traders and investors who have ridden the most dynamic bull market in U.S. history to stunning success.The past decade has witnessed the market-shaking introduction of the Internet, a collapse in commodity prices, and dramatic failures in some of the world's leading hedge funds. How have these traders managed to dwarf the already substantial gains realized by the stock market during the 1990s, while largely sidestepping the market's periodic downdrafts? What separates them from ordinary investors, and even the vast majority of professional fund managers? And what lessons can the average trader or investor learn from these exceptional traders?Schwager gets the answers from phenomenally successful traders, including Michael Lauer, an outspoken fund manager, who explains why he believes many of the country's leading mutual funds are following a flawed strategy and whose own fund provided investors with a 50-fold return in seven yearsMark Cook, a midwestern farmer who registered back-to-back annual gains of 563 and 322 percent in national trading contests he entered in 1992 and 1993 and has continued to realize stratospheric returns in his own account since thenSteve Lescarbeau, who developed a computerized trading model that has earned him an average of 70 percent per year with an incredibly low maximum drawdown of only 3 percent Steve Cohen, a modern-day trading legend who manages billions and who has averaged trading returns of 90 percent during the past seven years with only three down months (the worst, a minuscule 2 percent loss)Mark Minervini, a junior high school dropout, who has averaged a 220 percent annual return during the past five years, while keeping his maximum quarterly loss to a fraction of one percentThese are just a few of the traders you'll meet in Stock Market Wizards' all-star lineup of market masters.In the final chapter, Schwager pulls it all together, distilling the essential advice and insights from all the interviews into a list of 65 market lessons, which are bound to be invaluable to both novices and market professionals.Stock Market Wizards gives you the stories, tips. and an inside glimpse into today's vibrant market and the traders who can ride the bull, battle the bear, and still come out on top.

Dealers of Lightning is the riveting story of the legendary Xerox PARC--a collection of eccentric young inventors brought together by Xerox Corporation at a facility in Palo Alto, California, during the mind-blowing intellectual ferment of the seventies and eighties. Here for the first time Michael Hiltzik, a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, reveals in piercing detail the true story of the extraordinary group that aimed to bring about a technological dawn that would change the world--and succeeded. Based on extensive interviews with the scientists, engineers, administrators, and corporate executives who lived the story, Dealers of Lightning takes the read on a journey from PARC's beginnings in a dusty, abandoned building at the edge of the Stanford University campus to its triumph as a hothouse of ideas that spawned not only the first personal computer, but the windows-style graphical user interface, the laser printer, much of the indispensable technology of the Internet, and a great deal more. It shows how and why Xerox, despite its willingness to grant PARC unlimited funding and the responsibility for developing breakthroughs to keep the corporation on the cutting edge of office technology, remained forever unable to grasp (and, consequently, exploit) the innovations that PARC delivered--and it details the increasing frustration of the original PARC scientists, many of whom would go on to build their fortunes upon the very ideas Xerox so rashly discarded. More than just a riveting historical narrative, Dealers of Lightning brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters. Among them: Bob Taylor--the preacher's son from rural Texas who would be considered a prophet by some and a cantankerous egomaniac by others, whose fearless (and feared) leadership of a team of computer renegades made them the heroes of the embryonic Silicon Valley; Jack Goldman--the Xerox chief scientist who convinced the stolid corporation to stake tens of millions of dollars on PARC while warning that the investment might not pay off for years--if it paid off at all; Alan Kay--PARC's creative and philosophical soul, who suffered years of ridicule for envisioning a computer that could be tucked under the arm yet would contain the power to store books, symphonies, letters, poems, and drawings--until he arrived at Palo Alto and met the people who would build it; and Steve Jobs--who, aided by Xerox's indifference to PARC's most momentous inventions, staged a daring raid to obtain the technology that would end up at the heart of the Macintosh: the machine that for a time helped Apple dominate an explosive new market. Dealers of Lightning is an unprecedented look at the ideas, the inventions, and the individuals that propelled Xerox PARC to the frontier of technohistory--and the corporate machinations that almost prevented it from achieving greatness.

The true story behind the rise of a tyrannical genius, how he transformed an industry, and why everyone is out to get him.In this fascinating exposé, two investigative reporters trace the hugely successful career of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Part entrepreneur, part enfant terrible, Gates has become the most powerful -- and feared -- player in the computer industry, and arguably the richest man in America. In Hard Drive, investigative reporters Wallace and Erickson follow Gates from his days as an unkempt thirteen-year-old computer hacker to his present-day status as a ruthless billionaire CEO. More than simply a "revenge of the nerds" story though, this is a balanced analysis of a business triumph, and a stunningly driven personality. The authors have spoken to everyone who knows anything about Bill Gates and Microsoft -- from childhood friends to employees and business rivals who reveal the heights, and limits, of his wizardry. From Gates's singular accomplishments to his equally extraordinary brattiness, arrogance, and hostility (the atmosphere is so intense at Microsoft that stressed-out programmers have been known to ease the tension of their eighty-hour workweeks by exploding homemade bombs), this is a uniquely revealing glimpse of the person who has emerged as the undisputed king of a notoriously brutal industry.

In 1982, the Dow hovered below 1000. Then, the market rose and rapidly gained speed until it peaked above 11,000. Noted journalist and financial reporter Maggie Mahar has written the first book on the remarkable bull market that began in 1982 and ended just in the early 2000s. For almost two decades, a colorful cast of characters such as Abby Joseph Cohen, Mary Meeker, Henry Blodget, and Alan Greenspan came to dominate the market news. This inside look at that 17-year cycle of growth, built upon interviews and unparalleled access to the most important analysts, market observers, and fund managers who eagerly tell the tales of excesses, presents the period with a historical perspective and explains what really happened and why.

Named one of the greatest minds of the 20th century by Time, Tim Berners-Lee is responsible for one of that century's most important advancements: the world wide web. Now, this low-profile genius-who never personally profitted from his invention -offers a compelling protrait of his invention. He reveals the Web's origins and the creation of the now ubiquitous http and www acronyms and shares his views on such critical issues as censorship, privacy, the increasing power of softeware companies , and the need to find the ideal balance between commercial and social forces. He offers insights into the true nature of the Web, showing readers how to use it to its fullest advantage. And he presents his own plan for the Web's future, calling for the active support and participation of programmers, computer manufacturers, and social organizations to manage and maintain this valuable resource so that it can remain a powerful force for social change and an outlet for individual creativity.

From the former F-15 fighter pilot and CEO of one ofInc.'s 500 fastest-growing companies: ahard-hitting primer on performance excellencein the workplace -- military styleAccording to former U.S. Air Force pilot-turned-management guru James D. Murphy, businesses need to take a lesson from the American military's fighter pilots. While F-15s, F-16s, and F/A-18s are the ultimate aerial combat machines, they are entirely dependent on the men and women who fly and maintain them. At Mach 2, the instrument panel is screaming out information, the horizon is a blur, the wingman is occupied, the pilot's busy, the jet is hanging on the edge -- and yet fighter pilots routinely handle the stress. It's not much different in today's fast-paced, unforgiving world of business. One slipup and the company is bankrupt before the employees know what hit them.What works on the squadron level for F-15 pilots will also work for your marketing team, sales force, or research and development group. By analyzing the work environment and attacking its centers of gravity in parallel, you'll begin to utilize the Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief-Win cycle that makes up Flawless Execution. The result will make a rapid impact on your business's future success. Developed over the course of nearly fifty years, the rigorous practice of Flawless Execution has helped U.S. fighter squadrons reduce their mistake rate, cut casualties and losses of equipment, and rack up an envious victory record. Through Afterburner's multimedia seminars conducted by "Murph" and his fellow pilots-turned-businesspeople, businesses have benefited by adopting the techniques, systems and strategies of America's Top Guns. Now, with Flawless Execution, you can too.

"Straight Talk for Startups memorializes age-old best practices and empowers both experienced and new investment professionals to beat the odds."—David Krane, CEO, Google Ventures"Straight Talk for Startups is filled with real, raw, and fact-based ‘rules of the road’ that you need to know when diving into our ultra-competitive startup world. A must read and a re-read!"—Tony Fadell, Coinventor of the iPod/iPhone & Founder of Nest LabsVeteran venture capitalist Randy Komisar and finance executive Jantoon Reigersman share no-nonsense, counterintuitive guidelines to help anyone build a successful startup.Over the course of their careers, Randy Komisar and Jantoon Reigersman continue to see startups crash and burn because they forget the timeless lessons of entrepreneurship.But, as Komisar and Reigersman show, you can beat the odds if you quickly learn what insiders know about what it takes to build a healthy foundation for a thriving venture. In Straight Talk for Startups they walk budding entrepreneurs through 100 essential rules—from pitching your idea to selecting investors to managing your board to deciding how and when to achieve liquidity. Culled from their own decades of experience, as well as the experiences of their many successful colleagues and friends, the rules are organized under broad topics, from "Mastering the Fundamentals" and "Selecting the Right Investors," to "The Ideal Fundraise," "Building and Managing Effective Boards," and "Achieving Liquidity."Vital rules you’ll find in Straight Talk for Startups include:The best ideas originate from founders who are usersCreate two business plans: an execution plan and an aspirational planNet income is an option, but cash flow is a factDon’t accept money from strangersPersonal wealth doesn’t equal good investingSmall boards are better than big onesAdd independent board members for expertise and objectivityToo many unanimous board decisions are a sign of troubleChoose an acquirer, don’t wait to be chosenLearn the rules by heart so you know when to break themFilled with helpful real-life examples and specific, actionable advice, Straight Talk for Startups is the ideal handbook for anyone running, working for, or thinking about creating a startup, or just curious about what makes high-potential ventures tick.

This is the true story behind Wall Street legend Richard Dennis, his disciples, the Turtles, and the trading techniques that made them millionaires.What happens when ordinary people are taught a system to make extraordinary money? Richard Dennis made a fortune on Wall Street by investing according to a few simple rules. Convinced that great trading was a skill that could be taught to anyone, he made a bet with his partner and ran a classified ad in the Wall Street Journal looking for novices to train. His recruits, later known as the Turtles, had anything but traditional Wall Street backgrounds; they included a professional blackjack player, a pianist, and a fantasy game designer. For two weeks, Dennis taught them his investment rules and philosophy, and set them loose to start trading, each with a million dollars of his money. By the time the experiment ended, Dennis had made a hundred million dollars from his Turtles and created one killer Wall Street legend. In The Complete Turtle Trader, Michael W. Covel, bestselling author of Trend Following and managing editor of TurtleTrader.com, the leading website on the Turtles, tells their riveting story with the first ever on the record interviews with individual Turtles. He describes how Dennis interviewed and selected his students, details their education and experiences while working for him, and breaks down the Turtle system and rules in full. He reveals how they made astounding fortunes, and follows their lives from the original experiment to the present day. Some have grown even wealthier than ever, and include some of today's top hedge fund managers. Equally important are those who passed along their approach to a second generation of Turtles, proving that the Turtles' system truly is reproducible, and that anyone with the discipline and the desire to succeed can do as well as—or even better than—Wall Street's top hedge fund wizards.In an era full of slapdash investing advice and promises of hot stock tips for "the next big thing," as popularized by pundits like Jim Cramer of Mad Money, the easy-to-follow objective rules of the TurtleTrader stand out as a sound guide for truly making the most out of your money. These rules worked—and still work today—for the Turtles, and any other investor with the desire and commitment to learn from one of the greatest investing stories of all time.

Are you burdened with the tax debt of a current or former spouse? Have you just received an IRS computerized or "correction" notice? Are you in danger of having your property seized? Has your tax return been selected for an audit?Is the IRS knocking on your door? If you've answered "yes" to any of these questions, you're not alone: more than twenty-five million taxpayers are faced with the terrifying prospect of dealing with audits, assessments, or other IRS problems every year. But with all the books devoted to how to prepare your taxes, there's never been one that explains how to get yourself out of trouble easily, legally, and inexpensively -- until now. With The IRS Problem Solver, veteran tax expert Dan Pilla offers the first comprehensive guide to dealing with the most common IRS problems taxpayers confront, from face-to-face audits to fraud penalties. Pilla's book is an indispensable preventive tool for all who file their own taxes—and a necessity for anyone who's just received a notice that the wolf is at the door.