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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Razor-thin margin high-turnover distribution

Business models

Pennies on huge volume, funded by negative working capital and inventory turns. Genuinely thin as a category: the model is best learned from the retail and logistics cases below rather than from any dedicated book.

Books 6Experts 2Recommenders 10

Start here

  1. Sam Walton: Made in AmericaSam Walton, John Huey, 1992
  2. The BoxMarc Levinson, 2006
  3. The Good Jobs StrategyZeynep Ton, 2014
Sam Walton: Made in AmericaSam Walton: Made in America
T1 Sam Walton: Made in America
Sam Walton, John Huey · 1992
Open LibraryGoodreads

How Walmart grew from one Arkansas store by cutting costs and prices.

Recommended by: David Cancel, Mohnish Pabrai, Iman Gadzhi and 3 others

The BoxThe Box
T1 The Box
Marc Levinson · 2006
Open LibraryGoodreads

How the shipping container cut freight costs and remade global trade.

Recommended by: Bill Gates, Mohnish Pabrai, Paul Graham and 1 other

Direct from DellDirect from Dell
T2 Direct from Dell
Michael Dell, Catherine Fredman · 1999
Open LibraryGoodreads

Insider account of build-to-order, negative working capital and cutting the channel.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Andrew Grove

The Art of ProfitabilityThe Art of Profitability
T2 The Art of Profitability
Adrian Slywotzky · 2002
Open LibraryGoodreads

Twenty-three profit models taught as weekly lessons from a mentor to an analyst.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai

The Good Jobs StrategyThe Good Jobs Strategy
T2 The Good Jobs Strategy
Zeynep Ton · 2014
Open LibraryGoodreads

Why Costco, Trader Joe's and QuikTrip pay more and still undercut rivals.

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.

More business models

← Razor and bladesRetail and big-box →All business models