Updates

  1. Person pages list letters, writing, profiles and links as sortable tables with filters, and show each person's companies as links; Fund letters show each letter's description in its own column.
  2. Experts show a checked job title and a short description of each person; 30 more people have photographs.
  3. Every company, fund, university and publication the experts work for has a page listing the people there.
  4. Fund letters show each letter's thesis and filter by it; 225 person pages list the essays, columns and newsletter issues the person wrote.
  5. Person pages list every essay and newsletter issue a person wrote, and their own books as a table in List view.
  6. Recommends shows the five largest kinds of book and the rest under More; browse pictures load sooner.
  7. Podcasts and talks link the original episode, filter by Audio and video or Press, and list each publisher once.
  8. Pages are wider, Recommends has List and Grid, and a filter clicked again turns off.
  9. Book cards sit in a ruled grid with Open Library and Goodreads links and each book's one-line note.
  10. Funds is now Investors; each investor's styles are buttons that filter the table.
  11. Podcasts and talks on a person's page filter by year and publisher and show as a list or a grid of pictures.
  12. Quotes show only people's own words: 472 summaries written by list sites are gone.
  13. Country pages open from Browse again, and every link on the shelf lands on a page.
  14. Subject and person pages show their sections as tabs, and each book appears once on a person's page.
  15. Book cards show the quote, who said it and the source; grids show five cards to a row.
  16. On a phone, a menu holds the sections, search, Updates, Feedback and dark mode.
  17. Feedback takes a screenshot of the page with no browser prompt, opens a screenshot full size when you click it, and clears itself once sent.
  18. Book cards are centred, search names the topic each book sits in, and any text cut short shows whole on hover.
  19. Search groups its results by kind: people, companies, geographies, subjects, topics, books, funds, fund letters and papers.
  20. The Books table lists who recommended each book by name, and the browser tab names the section you are in.
  21. Feedback can take a screenshot of the page, or one you paste or choose, and opens in the corner beside Updates.
  22. Each rail button reopens its section where you left it, and Browse, Table and People show on every book and subject page.
  23. Filters grey out choices that hold nothing instead of hiding them, and Books › People filters by authors or recommenders.
  24. Feedback takes a subject line and up to three screenshots.
  25. Biographies are grouped by the person they are about: 41 new pages, from Abraham Lincoln to Lee Kuan Yew.
  26. Sport splits into 23 sports, and Religion into one topic per faith.
  27. Book lists show as cards: the cover, one recommendation quote and every recommender by name.
  28. Seventeen subjects that had two or three pages under different names now have one page each.
  29. Every page lists its Experts as authors and recommenders, with a link to them on the Experts tab.
  30. Economics, Financial history, Financial panics and Accounting are subjects of their own, with one page per financial crisis.
  31. Book, person and subject pages open inside the app, so the tabs stay in view.
  32. 996 more book covers, and photographs or logos for 227 more people and companies.
  33. Books › Browse shows every subject as cards, and the rail holds Fund letters, Papers, Experts, Books and Funds.
  34. Every topic over 150 books splits into narrower topics, each with a page of its own.

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Dealerships and distribution rights

Business models

Protected territories granted by a manufacturer. The literature is very thin and almost entirely indirect: cars and beer are where the model has been written about at all.

Books 9Experts 1Recommenders 4

Start here

  1. Car Guys vs. Bean CountersBob Lutz, 2011
  2. Bitter BrewWilliam Knoedelseder, 2012
  3. My Years with General MotorsAlfred P. Sloan Jr., 1963
My Years with General MotorsMy Years with General Motors
T1 My Years with General Motors
Alfred P. Sloan Jr. · 1963
Open LibraryGoodreads

The decentralised structure and financial controls that ran General Motors.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Patrick Collison and 1 other

The ReckoningThe Reckoning
T1 The Reckoning
David Halberstam · 1986
Open LibraryGoodreads

Ford and Nissan side by side, showing why US carmakers lost to Japan.

Dethroning the KingDethroning the King
T2 Dethroning the King
Julie MacIntosh · 2010
Open LibraryGoodreads

Anheuser-Busch: how protected distribution rights shaped the takeover.

Car Guys vs. Bean CountersCar Guys vs. Bean Counters
T3 Car Guys vs. Bean Counters
Bob Lutz · 2011
Open LibraryGoodreads

Insider account: Lutz on product culture versus finance control.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai

Bitter BrewBitter Brew
T3 Bitter Brew
William Knoedelseder · 2012
Open LibraryGoodreads

The Busch family and the three-tier wholesaler system.

Les Schwab: Pride in PerformanceLes Schwab: Pride in Performance
T4 Les Schwab: Pride in Performance
Les Schwab · 1986
Open LibraryGoodreads

Tire-shop founder's memoir on profit sharing and dealer economics

“If you want to read one book, read the autobiography of Les Schwab... He ran tire shops in the Midwest and made a fortune” — Charlie Munger

Source: Notes from the 2004 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, by Whitney Tilson, p. 35

Recommended by: Charlie Munger

Marketing ChannelsMarketing Channels
T4 Marketing Channels
Anne T. Coughlan, Erin Anderson, Louis W. Stern, Adel El-Ansary · 2001
Open LibraryGoodreads

The academic text on channel design, territories and exclusive rights.

The Distribution TrapThe Distribution Trap
T4 The Distribution Trap
Andrew R. Thomas, Timothy J. Wilkinson · 2010
Open LibraryGoodreads

The case against surrendering the channel to big retail.

Beer MoneyBeer Money
T4 Beer Money
Frances Stroh · 2016
Open LibraryGoodreads

Family memoir of a brewer undone partly by its distribution position.

More business models

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