The Four
The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google
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4.3 • 176 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
USA TODAY BESTSELLER
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are the four most influential companies on the planet. Just about everyone thinks they know how they got there. Just about everyone is wrong.
For all that’s been written about the Four over the last two decades, no one has captured their power and staggering success as insightfully as Scott Galloway.
Instead of buying the myths these companies broadcast, Galloway asks fundamental questions. How did the Four infiltrate our lives so completely that they’re almost impossible to avoid (or boycott)? Why does the stock market forgive them for sins that would destroy other firms? And as they race to become the world’s first trillion-dollar company, can anyone challenge them?
In the same irreverent style that has made him one of the world’s most celebrated business professors, Galloway deconstructs the strategies of the Four that lurk beneath their shiny veneers. He shows how they manipulate the fundamental emotional needs that have driven us since our ancestors lived in caves, at a speed and scope others can’t match. And he reveals how you can apply the lessons of their ascent to your own business or career.
Whether you want to compete with them, do business with them, or simply live in the world they dominate, you need to understand the Four.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Behemoth tech companies are favorite subjects for Galloway, a serial entrepreneur and New York University business professor, when he talks on digital media panels, and actor Ross captures the author's swagger in the audio edition of Galloway's book. The effect is similar to hearing Galloway in full stride. The book's thesis is that each of the four technology giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google appeal to consumers' instinctual needs: Amazon sates the hunger for acquisition, Apple appeals to the need to create, Facebook plays on the need for love and human interaction, and Google satisfies the need for God. It may sound outlandish at first, but the book manages to be both fun and convincing, as Galloway details the eight key factors each company uses to establish dominance in the marketplace. The book ends with a sober warning about the "distortion created by the steady march of digital technology," which Galloway believes is "dangerous for society." Narrator Ross delivers this coda with a gravity that counters his earlier animation. The combination makes the audio edition of this timely book all the more forceful. A Portfolio hardcover.
Customer Reviews
It’s time to break them up!
Though I’m reading this a couple years after its release and nothing happened to the big Four. Actually, they became bigger instead..
Not professional
Too much foul language that is not needed. Otherwise good basic info.
Outdated
I am reading this in 2025, and it is clearly outdated. Even though, it was a good book and I recommend it for its insights and analysis.