Rating: Summary: Instead subscribe to Fortune and get more Bing for your buck Review: Somewhat amusing book, but could have made the same point in a column. Repetitious and definitely not worth the cost of a hardcover.
Rating: Summary: A disturbing, funny, true and useful text Review: If you didn't get the humor element in the book, that's a shame. If you didn't find useful gems, that's a shame too. You can be ruthless and self-serving, yet act for the good of an entire organization through many of the methods outlined. I run a company with great compassion for those loyal to "the vision", yet one cannot tolorate those who are not (truly at heart) acting within "the vision." The book can be percieved as a guide to being a heartless scoundrel or how to be a visionary leader with the best interest of the organization as the number one priority. I read it as the latter. Loved it! Machiavellian behavior can be a very positive influence when balanced with humanity.
Rating: Summary: Funny and True Review: Stanley Bing is a very talented writer. He conveys his message clearly. Machiavelli is a great book filled with on point stories of successful people and how they got there. Its a quick read for even the slowest readers. My wife loved the book too.
Rating: Summary: Self Referential Satire of Moderate Insight Review: Fans of Bing's missives in Fortune will be very comfortable with his characteristic syle of sneering humor. Readers not as familiar will probably scratch their heads a bit as to the deeper meanings, or the basis in facts, or larger significance, etc., or lack thereof. It is ultimately perhaps best read as a pack of witticism with strong notes of acid; the occasional bits of "truths" best enjoyed as only incidental to the fairly funny ways that a corporate warrior who has seen one too many atrocity or folly to care about the literal precision. What remains "true" is only Bing's peculiar brand of literary style.
Rating: Summary: What did Stanley do? Review: Mr. Bing is the prototypical macho tough guy. Just curious, on the anniversary of the fall of Saigon, what Mr. Bing, who is of the right age, was doing during the years of, oh maybe 1969-1972? Grad school, Mr. Bing? Get the MBA and stay out of the jungle? Now, though, it's alright to be predatory.........
Rating: Summary: Great Book! Review: That last review is ridiculous. He totally missed the point. What this book is about is totally not worrying about what people think about you and just go for results. It is very insightful and is telling of a way to behave that works! Most people won't follow these guidelines because they DO want people to like them. But when you get right down to it, who cares? This book is also very funny, and helps you have a new perspective on life. Not only will you enjoy yourself more, but you will become much better financially.
Rating: Summary: Bing misunderstands Machiavelli, lacks insight Review: Seldom has any book managed to convey such an ambiguous sense of what the author was hoping to achieve - light entertainment? instruction? wry social commentary? - while remaining so thoroughly insulated from any of them. Statistics are alluded to without the author actually bothering to look them up (which would have gone against the grain by showing respect for the reader), the would-be jokes are dreadful, the aphorisms are so banal it's a wonder anyone would consider them worth repeating ("You've got to have friends," Bette Midler), and the closing After School Special treacle is unintentional self-satire: "...evil does have it's limitations... That may be the very best - and most useful - lesson of all."Worst of all, Bing seems to have entirely missed the point of his ostensible subject, Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince. I.e., to be effective a prince must set aside interpersonal compassion in the interest of the state (*not* his own self-interest). Particularly vague allusions to Machiavelli suggest that Bing has never actually read him, contenting himself with an "executive summary"-style skimming over the back of a few book jackets. Bing (who is apparently Gil Schwartz, in a vicariously embarrassing attempt to seem important through the pretend-necessity of a pseudonym) betrays himself as hopelessly out-of-date only a few pages after complaining that young people "won't shut up about the Internet" by mistaking a website for a "web hit." He cements his "long overdue for being put out to pasture" status by revealing that he's among the herd successfully bamboozled by Esther Dyson's punditry PR blitzkrieg, describing her as a "genius." (Dyson is notorious as a laughably ill-qualified pundit, her vapidness and profound lack of understanding of technology perfectly offset by her world-class connections and happenstance of being the same age as (and thus comforting to) the Old Boys Network.) A final note: For all Bing's green-eyed litany of the ill-gotten excesses of power, there's one he omitted: the ability to share with the entire world the gift of your insights... even if you don't have any.
Rating: Summary: What Would Machiaevelli Do? Review: A provincial satire. Examples taken primaririly from the New York City world of publishing to give us their machiavelliesque approach to modern day personnel management. IMUS missed the boat on this one and I will definitely keep that in mind when he recommends another book done over-the- weekend by one of his New York cronies.
Rating: Summary: Very Scary Truthful Humour Review: Makes you wonder whether everything you have learned since you were a child, from your parents, teachers, and even religious advisors, really applies today. Everybody talks about living a straight life, honor and values, but when you get out in the real world nothing seems to match. Sadly this is an X-ray of today's global world an how nobody gives a nut about anything but themselves. Ironic, funny and scary. I can say that before I read the book I practiced some things myself and they worked. People somehow react when you act like a spoiled brat.
Rating: Summary: Your reviewers are missing the point Review: It is supremely ironic and supremely sad and scary that many of your reviewers have not caught on to the fact that this book is a SATIRE. "Mr. Bing" is not advocating the Machiavellian approach but is loathsome of those who behave this way in corporate America.
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