Customer Reviews

Speed is Life: Street Smart Lessons From the Front Lines of Business

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3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Amazing! You read this book and it sounds like Bob Davis built Lycos all by himself. Forget any of the employees who helped build the site. Forget the employees who built the company's revenues.

This is a book about self-stroking.

I'll wait for Jerry Yang and Tim Koogle to write their book.

Davis was a hired gun who jammed, misfired, missed the mark, blew up in everyones face. Contrary to what he would have you believe, he didn't found Lycos -- he was brought in (admittedly on day two) by his pals at CMGI. The real story here is how and why did Davis blow it so bad and huge? He was "first mover" as much as Yahoo and he had every advantage they had, etc. -- except apparantly Yahoo's brains. (Davis's dim tough guy act isn't really an act at all -- its thye real Bob, rough and tough with muscle where gray matter should be.) So instead of being a category leader and defining early web brand and company, Lycos ends up being fourth in a race with three winners (AOL, MSN and Yahoo). Forget the laudantory blurbs -- all those folks are Davis's personal pals who thru barely legal scheming made a mint on Lycos inflated stock price. If you want management expertise, you'll get more out of "Body by Jake."

Speed is life is an interesting quick read, but offers little new material. The "street smart lessons" that the author provides include 'Get Big Fast', 'It is all about brand', and 'Profit is not a four letter word'! Unfortunately, instead of extensively drawing upon the Lycos story, Bob uses half the book to repeat well read cases like how Cisco acquires companies to grow, how J&J recalled Tylenol, how Gerstner rebuilt IBM's brand etc. For example, in an 18-page chpater on the importance of focusing on core competencies, there are only 6 paragraphs about Lycos.

As an interesting coincidence, the CEOs that have endorsed the book on its back cover in glowing terms, are also the ones that Bob profusely praises in the book!

In the interest of speed, suffice to say that one minute spent on this book is a moment wasted.

And now, the man who brought you Fraction Jackson and America's third-favorite search engine tells all. We're number three! For my money, mylycos was always better than myyahoo, but every time I tried to throw down the gauntlet and dare to compare, no one cared.

Packed with great tips, real life tips, not fiction. I've never read a book as devotedly as I read this one. 'Speed is Life' or 'Life is Speed'. True!!! Bob is not only a great success, but is able to tell how he did it, which most people can't. Having a great experience and being able to tell & teach it to others so that they too can be great, is what I consider Bob's greatness. The great principles in this book could be applied to selling peanuts as well as running any technologically sophisticated company in the world, even managing a family, relationship, making good grades at school, or landing a good job. I have made this book my business bible & reference point. If you ever think of making anything come out great & successful in today's world, GRAB this book first & don't part with it. Thank you Bob!!!

I'm one of the few people out there that purposely ignored the Internet hoopla of the past few years, but after seeing Bob Davis in Time magazine I thought I'd give his book a try. I found that his matter of fact perspective on doing good business chimed true to my own attempts to push past the daily grind and meet client needs face-on. Unlike today's typically hyped-up "New Economist," Bob just flat-out explains that "the business of the Internet is business" and then lays out straight-forward guidance and lessons to the would be entrepreneur. Finally, an Internet CEO who's not just another pretty cover! I recommend the read with enthusiasm.

Bob Davis' book is vastly superior to many CEO memoirs in its clarity, simplicity and sophistication. While much of his "Internet-is-changing-everything" spiel will seem rightfully dated, his core point - that speed has become a critical organizational imperative - will hit home with anyone competing in business today. We from getAbstract recommend this book more for its advice about building cultures of speed than for Davis' dot-com tales.

This has a lot of business cliches. Cliches often are cliches, though, because they're true. If you've never read a business book before, then this will be an eye-opener. But he basically recites everything you've already learned in your Peter Drucker books. And if you haven't read Peter Drucker, then you should read him before you read this. The chapter on hiring people is very good. It doesn't really deal with "speed" as much as the title promises, although it does deal with it. A better book about fast companies is IT'S NOT THE BIG THAT EAT THE SMALL, IT'S THE FAST THAT EAT THE SLOW. I thought that was a much better book about quick growth. But this isn't a bad book at all, and has much to recommend it.

I am an MBA graduate of Babson College, Bob Davis' alma mater, and I have heard Bob speak many times at Babson and at other venues over the last three years. When I heard from him that his book was being released, I knew that I would read it, and I hoped for the best. I was not disappointed.

Speed is Life, gives the reader an internal view into some of what was going on during the dot-com frenzy. It also includes valuable lessons that Bob was able to learn while being one of the leaders in this hypergrowth industry. The lessons are supported with real-life examples that clearly convey Bob's point as well as inspire an entrepreneur!

One last item that I can add is that the ideas that Bob writes about are not a result of 20/20 hindsight. When I sat down to hear Bob speak in September of 1999, when I was beginning my MBA, he was preaching the same lessons. First of which was - profitability is fundamental.