Tom Gardner

Co-Founder & CEO of the Motley Fool

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Book Recommendations:

Recommended by Tom Gardner

Brian has written a book you can hand to anyone and know that they'll become smarter, happier, and richer for it. Required reading for those seeking lifelong profit from lifelong investment. (from Amazon)

Have you ever heard a news reporter say "the Dow rose 300 points today" and had no clue what they meant? If the answer is yes, you're not alone! Most people are taught nothing about investing or the stock market while they are in school. In Why Does The Stock Market Go Up?, Brian Feroldi demystifies the stock market by explaining what it is and how it works using easy-to-understand terms and simple examples. This book was designed to arm ordinary people with the knowledge that they need to build extraordinary wealth. Why Does The Stock Market Go Up? is the easy-to-digest book that everyone needs to read. Feroldi breaks down the basic investing concepts so that anyone can understand and take action. The financial services industry has spent decades telling average Joes and Janes that they can't possibly understand the stock market. Feroldi proves them wrong with his easy-to-understand examples and explanations. You too can understand why the stock market goes up, or down, and how it impacts your financial future. Never before has investing in stocks or bonds seemed so straightforward.

Recommended by Tom Gardner

The finest book on organizational culture that I have ever read. (from Amazon)

From the visionary head of Google's innovative People Operations comes a groundbreaking inquiry into the philosophy of work -- and a blueprint for attracting the most spectacular talent to your business and ensuring that they succeed. "We spend more time working than doing anything else in life. It's not right that the experience of work should be so demotivating and dehumanizing." So says Laszlo Bock, former head of People Operations at the company that transformed how the world interacts with knowledge. This insight is the heart of Work Rules!, a compelling and surprisingly playful manifesto that offers lessons including: Take away managers' power over employees Learn from your best employees-and your worst Hire only people who are smarter than you are, no matter how long it takes to find them Pay unfairly (it's more fair!) Don't trust your gut: Use data to predict and shape the future Default to open-be transparent and welcome feedback If you're comfortable with the amount of freedom you've given your employees, you haven't gone far enough. Drawing on the latest research in behavioral economics and a profound grasp of human psychology, Work Rules! also provides teaching examples from a range of industries-including lauded companies that happen to be hideous places to work and little-known companies that achieve spectacular results by valuing and listening to their employees. Bock takes us inside one of history's most explosively successful businesses to reveal why Google is consistently rated one of the best places to work in the world, distilling 15 years of intensive worker R&D into principles that are easy to put into action, whether you're a team of one or a team of thousands. Work Rules! shows how to strike a balance between creativity and structure, leading to success you can measure in quality of life as well as market share. Read it to build a better company from within rather than from above; read it to reawaken your joy in what you do.