When I was a management consultant, one of the things we used to do when interviewing for new employees was to give our prospective consultants some sort of business problem to solve. After literally hundreds of interviews, this became deadly dull and repetitive. To keep things interesting, I began introducing businesses for discussion with increasingly outlandish business models. Several of these nutty business plans formed the early core of this book.
While my first goal was to write a story that was fast-moving, funny, and engaging, I had one other goal for this novel: For years, the readers of my blog, who are mostly business people and libertarians, have voiced a common complaint about modern novels: Why are corporate executives always portrayed in novels as villains, and why are the folks who cause them so much trouble - lawyers, government employees, and the media - always treated as heroes? In my novel, I turn the table on these traditional portrayals, finding both heroes and humor in the business world. I hope those of you who have shared this same frustration with the outlook of modern fiction will find this book refreshing.
Susan Hunter is a brilliant but lazy student at the Harvard Business School, who has a long-term plan for succeeding at Harvard and getting a high-paying job with the absolute minimum of work.
Her plans begin to awry when she receives an invitation for a job interview with Preston Marsh, the quirky millionaire who has built his fortune on oddball businesses from selling designer musical tones to harvesting coins in fountains. Marsh convinces Susan to abandon her path of least resistance to work in his new business called BMOC, which guarantees its student clients that it will make them popular.
But nothing in the job description prepares Susan for getting sent to LA to investigate a young woman's suicide. Susan has to struggle to adapt her business school training to what increasingly appears to be a murder investigation, as a consortium of media companies, tort lawyers, and even a US Senator fight to hide the truth.
And that was before they started shooting at her...
From the Back Cover
Susan Hunter is a brilliant but lazy student at the Harvard Business School, who has a long-term plan for succeeding at Harvard and getting a high-paying job with the absolute minimum of work.
Her plans begin to awry when she receives an invitation for a job interview with Preston Marsh, the quirky millionaire who has built his fortune on oddball businesses from selling designer musical tones to harvesting coins in fountains. Marsh convinces Susan to abandon her path of least resistance to work in his new business called BMOC, which guarantees its student clients that it will make them popular.
But nothing in the job description prepares Susan for getting sent to LA to investigate a young woman's suicide. Susan has to struggle to adapt her business school training to what increasingly appears to be a murder investigation, as a consortium of media companies, tort lawyers, and even a US Senator fight to hide the truth.
And that was before they started shooting at her...
About the Author
Warren Meyer is a graduate of the Harvard Business School and a survivor of some of the most insane corners of the business world: He has traveled the world as a management consultant; endured the bureaucracy of the Fortune 50; survived a boss voted the toughest in America; and worked for a billionaire through the great unraveling of the dot-com bust. Today, he is an entrepreneur and author of Coyote Blog, a libertarian online journal which recently was ranked among the top 20 online business and economics blogs.
