Customer Reviews

House of Cards: Inside teh Troubled Empire of American Express

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Friedman is as flat and simplistic an author as he is a columnist for Marketwatch. Skip this one. nothing new here.

Although old, this is a thorough review of James Robinson's rule at American Express. Robinson was a consensus builder who sought to grow American Express by acquisition. However his poor strategy brought him to get out of cable too early, and the brokerage age when it was too late.

His rule weakened American Express. What is prevalent throughout this book is the shark like atmosphere in American business, where one person is seeking to displace another. Some heavy hitters are in this book such as Sandy Weill, Lou Gerstner, and Cohen.

This is a nice book about how an American icon company is badly run. It shows how and why American companies have not fared well in the international market. The caption on the cover of the book equates it with Barbarians at the Gates, and I think this book is as good as that. A nice thorough review of what went wrong at American Express.

Easy reading for what could be a complicated story in a behind-the-scenes view of a fall of a giant, thanks to the skills of the financial journalists that write it. It is amazing how egos can destroy an empire so easily.