About World of Books Ltd West Sussex, United Kingdom
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In 2002, World of Books Group was founded on an ethos to do good, protect the planet and support charities by enabling more goods to be reused. Since then, we've grown into to a global company pioneering the circular economy. Today, we drive the circular economy through three re-commerce brands:
- Wob: Through Wob, we sell. We provide affordable, preloved books and media to customers all over the world. A book leaves our collection of over seven million titles and begins a new chapter every two seconds, enabling more goods to be reused.
- Ziffit: Through Ziffit, we buy. We give people around the world the opportunity to contribute to the circular economy, earn money and protect the planet, by trading their unwanted books and media.
- Shopiago: Through Shopiago, we help others. By sharing the technology that has grown World of Books Group into the business it is today, we're helping charities increase revenue and reduce waste through re-commerce.
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From the publisher
Po Bronson is a feature writer for Wired and has written about high-tech culture for The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes ASAP. His first novel, Bombardiers (1995), was translated into ten languages, became an inter-national bestseller, and was described by Business Week as "perhaps the most entertaining depiction of greed on Wall Street ever to see print." His second novel, The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest (1997), was called "a smart, sassy fantasy" by The New York Times. The Boston Herald added, "Ken Kesey would be proud."
When asked in December 1998 which young authors he was reading, Tom Wolfe responded, "Two of the writers I look to with tremendous interest are Richard Price and Po Bronson. Those are the two writers I am watching very closely, because they are so talented."
Bronson grew up in Seattle, graduated from Stanford University in 1986, and lives in San Francisco. For more information on the author and his Silicon Valley Bleeding Edge Book Tour, visit www.pobronson.com.
First line
WHEN YOU MEET a billionaire for the first time, you really want him to do something billionairish.
Excerpt
If the most torturous fate
was a mind, caged,
who would understand?
If you always found life's elixir
in striving rather than getting,
who would understand?
If you gambled rather than nest-egged
and hit jackpot once of seven,
who would understand?
BY CAR, BY PLANE, THEY COME. They just show up. They've given up their lives elsewhere to come here. They come for the tremendous opportunity, believing that in no other place in the world right now can one person accomplish so much with talent, initiative, and a good idea. It's a region where who you know and how much money you have have never been less relevant to success. They come because it does not matter that they are young or left college without a degree or have dark skin or speak with an accent. They come even if it is illegal to do so. They come because they feel that they will regret it the rest of their lives if they do not at least give it a try. They come to be a part of history, to build the technology that will reshape how people will live and work five or ten years from now. They come for the excitement, just to be a part of it. They come because they are competitive by instinct and can't stand to see others succeed more than they. They come to make enough money so they will never have to think about money again.
They are the new breed, Venture Trippers, who get off on the dizzying adventure of bloodwork. It is a mad, fertile time. Working has become nothing less than a sport here in Superachieverland: people are motivated by the thrill of the competition and the danger of losing, and every year the rules evolve to make it all happen more quickly, on higher margins, reaching ever more amazing sums.
They come from places wallowing in an X-Y-axis attitudinal coordinate, a slow-mo way of thinking about one's life that offers a plodding story line they can't manage to suspend their disbelief of. They try to live that story, but they keep popping out, keep finding themselves saying, "What the hell am I doing with my life?"
They come because what they see ahead of them, if they stay where they are, is a working life that seems fundamentally and unavoidably boring. Nothing seems worse than the fate of boringness. They feel they are being offered a neo-Faustian trade-off by society: all of life's sprawling dimensions will be funneled through the narrow pipe of the career path.
And rather than choosing not to work hard, the Venture Trippers are taking the opposite approach from the Slackers. They're saying, If I'm going to have to make that trade-off, then hell, why the fuck not? I'm young, let's raise the stakes. Let's up the bet. Let's make it exciting. Let's put it all on black. Let 'em roll.
And they come.
Media reviews
Advance praise for The Nudist on the Late Shift
"Most books, in baseball parlance, are singles or maybe doubles. Many books instruct but don't entertain; others entertain but teach nothing. Po Bronson has written a book about a dream valley that kept me glued to my seat--laughing, sighing, shaking my head--while also leaving me with a deeper sense of the human energy and hubris that fuels America's new entrepreneurial capital, Silicon Valley. A home run." --Ken Auletta
"Nobody is better at writing about digital technology than Po Bronson. His stories get at the truth and reality of this new world." --Clay Felker
"Po Bronson is a genuine voice of a new generation, the bard of Silicon Valley." --Lewis Lapham
