Audiobooks by William D. Cohan

Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of General Electric

"Brought to you by Penguin. A magisterial history of the astounding rise - and unimaginable fall - of America's most iconic corporation Perhaps no company reflects American ingenuity, innovation, and industrial fortunes as well as the iconic General Electric Company. Producing storied leaders and almost every product imaginable, GE built a cult of leadership success that hid cracks in its foundation. In this masterful history, William D. Cohan, one of America's most eminent financial journalists, argues that GE's legacy is both a paragon and a cautionary tale through which to understand American business. Power Failure limns the eventful 130-year history of GE, bringing fresh analysis drawn from rare interviews with key figures of the company's golden era, including Jack Welch himself. As Cohan recounts, Welch traded on a sterling legacy to make GE the most valuable company in the world, while cloaking its vulnerabilities. What he handed to his successor Jeffrey Immelt was, Cohan argues, both an impossible standard and a more troubled reality. Tracing the company's leaps and stumbles through the personalities that defined it, Power Failure offers a surprising retelling of the GE story, puncturing the myth we know for a fresh look at its legacy - and what it tells us about the state of business in America. © William D. Cohan 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022"

William D. Cohan (Author), Eric Martin (Narrator)

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The New Financial Deal: Understanding the Dodd-Frank Act and Its (Unintended) Consequences

"What can we expect from our eras New Deal? To answer this question, The New Financial Deal will begin with an inside account of the legislative process, then outline and access its key components: the new framework for regulating derivatives, the regulation of banking and systemic risk, and the new resolution regime. It will explain the implications of the new framework, and propose correctives that would better align its ostensible objectivessuch as preventing future bailoutswith the new regulatory structure. The legislations key theme is government partnership with and regulation of large concentrated institutions in order to reduce their risk and manage their failure. In place of the decentralized pre-crisis regulation of derivatives, the new legislation will require that most derivatives be cleared through a clearing house and traded on exchanges. The stability of the derivatives market will therefore depend on a small number of potentially enormous clearing houses. For large financial institutions that encounter financial distress, the legislation gives bank regulators sweeping new authority to step in and take over the institution. Regulators, rather than negotiations among the parties themselves, will determine the outcomes. These epochal reforms are posed to change Wall Street forever, but whether they help to regulate supermarket banks or create even more moral hazard is worthy of serious debate."

David Skeel, William D. Cohan (Author), Todd Mclaren (Narrator)

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Four Friends: Promising Lives Cut Short

"A powerful portrait of the lives of four boarding school graduates who died too young, John F. Kennedy, Jr. among them, by their fellow Andover classmate, New York Times bestselling author William D. Cohan. In his masterful pieces for Vanity Fair and in his bestselling books, William D. Cohan has proven to be one of the most meticulous and intrepid journalists covering the world of Wall Street and high finance. In his utterly original new audiobook, Four Friends, he brings all of his brilliant reportorial skills to a subject much closer to home: four friends of his who died young. All four attended Andover, the most elite of American boarding schools, before spinning out into very different orbits. Indelibly, using copious interviews from wives, girlfriends, colleagues, and friends, Cohan brings these men to life. Jack Berman, the child of impoverished Holocaust survivors, uses his unlikely Andover pedigree to achieve the American dream, only to be cut down in an unimaginable act of violence. Will Daniel, Harry Truman’s grandson and the son of the managing editor of The New York Times, does everything possible to escape the burdens of a family legacy he’s ultimately trapped by. Harry Bull builds the life of a careful, successful Chicago lawyer and heir to his family’s fortune...before taking an inexplicable and devastating risk on a beautiful summer day. And the life and death of John F. Kennedy, Jr.—a story we think we know—is told here with surprising new details that cast it in an entirely different light. Four Friends is an immersive, wide-ranging, tragic, and ultimately inspiring account of promising lives cut short, written with compassion, honesty, and insight. It not only captures the fragility of life but also its poignant, magisterial, and pivotal moments. Praise for Four Friends: “William Cohan has written a beautiful and heartbreaking book about friendship and privilege, in a corner of American life that suddenly feels very far away.” - Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times bestselling author of The Tipping Point and Blink “Four Friends is a tender, bracing meditation on ends and beginnings, large dreams and larger misfortunes, outsized promise and unfathomable loss. It is also an indelible portrait of a time and place, at once masterfully researched and deeply personal.” – Stacy Schiff, Pultizer Prize-winning author of A Great Improvisation “Deeply moving, Four Friends explores the idea of fate and shattered promise with intelligence and heart. It will haunt you and make you think.” – Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of The Library Book"

William D. Cohan (Author), Kevin Stillwell (Narrator)

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