Winners and Losers

"Winners and Losers" tells the stories of the creators - and the casualties - of the age of the internet. It shows how a handful of businesses were born and rose to enormous heights and how others fell from them, in a new, networked, ferociously competitive economy. Kieran Levis reveals how a few innovative, far-sighted entrepreneurs and companies succeeded in creating entirely new markets and dominating them, while so many others failed. He shows how Amazon and Google rose from nothing to revenues of billions, whilst IBM, Kodak and AOL suddenly faced disaster; how Nokia and Sky bounced from near-bankruptcy to global leadership; and charts the incredible rise, fall and rise again of Apple. Levis explains why the digital revolution has involved so much creative destruction; how unfamiliar competitors, disruptive technologies and unique business models have brought down apparently unassailable market leaders; how some winners got such a grip on their customers that they took almost all; and how meteoric success has led to hubris, and often to nemesis. Told with clarity, wit and pace, these dramatic stories show what it was about a handful of winners that enabled them to hold onto their prizes, whilst the absence of these qualities crippled the losers.