This is Nick. This is Jack. And Yetis, we’re crafting this newsletter from the sand 🤙🤙 so rinse off before you head back to your desk. Jack’s on Block Island, Nick’s across the water on Nantucket. And beach vibes mean beach reads.

So? We’re serving up our Vacay Reading List: 3 business books we can’t put down right now. Want to know how we whip up the Takeaways every week? By reading books like these. So whip out your bookmarks and let’s get to it. 📚

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1) Nick’s Pick: 🍺 📕

Bitter Brew: The Rise & Fall of Anheuser-Busch by William Knoedelseder

America’s beer was born after the Civil War, when German immigrants Adolphus Busch and Eberhard Anheuser co-founded a brewery in St. Louis. For the next 156 years, Anheuser-Busch was No. 1 in the US beer industry. And it made them bank—as of 2020, the Busch fam was the 16th wealthiest in America.

But their real power? Marketing. And it ironically all began 100 years ago with…Prohibition.

• 😢 1920: Prohibition makes alcohol illegal in the US. Bud’s biz is killed overnight.

• 😃 1933: Prohibition ends, and Budweiser pulls off the first beer marketing stunt.

• 💡 The day alcohol is re-legalized, August A. Busch, Sr. hires 12 horses (Clydesdales, just like the Bud horses you know and love today 🐴) to majestically ride a case of beer to the White House.

• 🍻 Then he personally hands President FDR the first post-Prohibition beer. Cheers.

Their marketing moves continued. Busch Gardens theme parks? Owned/run by Bud. The St. Louis Cardinals? Owned by Bud. It was good to be a Busch. But four generations later, it became too good.

The Takeaway →

Family-led companies can become family-dead companies. By 2008, the great great great grandson was in charge. He became CEO not because he was most qualified, but because he was most Busch—and that led to Bud’s demise. Today, Anheuser-Busch is based in Belgium (not St. Louis), owned by public investors (not family), and no longer lays claim to Busch Gardens and the baseball team. To learn how the Bud empire crumbled, you gotta read this book.

Full Disclosure: This is Nick, and my mom was the literary agent for the book. 🤩

2) Jack’s Pick: 🎥 📘

Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull

Jack’s son Wilder loves Disney movies (Pixar movies, specifically). But we had no idea how innovative the movie studio was…and who was surprisingly behind it…until we read this book by Pixar’s co-founder.

In 1994, The Lion King won 2 Oscars. Not too shabby. But that magnificent film is a cartoon…the same technology Disney had been using for 70 years. Just one year later, Pixar released Toy Story—the first ever fully computer-animated film. Buzz & Woody represented a jump in cinema as big as black & white’s jump to color.

That’s just the preview…because Pixar has a shockingly little-known founding story with two legends: George Lucas & Steve Jobs.

• ⭐ George Lucas (yeah, as in Star Wars George Lucas) creates Pixar as part of LucasFilm. He wants to use The Force of computers to enhance the human actors in Star Wars.

• 1986: George is going through a divorce. Money gets tight. So he sells Pixar.

• 🍎 Steve Jobs had just been kicked out of Apple, so he buys Pixar. Nine years later, Steve takes Pixar public with an IPO.

• 2006: Disney acquires Pixar for over $7B (months later, Jobs unveils the iPhone).

Pixar has produced 27 films—with an average box office haul of over $500M. The story of Pixar is incredible. But the lesson is even better…

The Takeaway →

Pixar achieved creativity at scale by “trusting the process.” Creativity can be a one-hit wonder (see: Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5). Or creativity can be scaled (see: The Beatles). Pixar is in The Beatles category—Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, Monsters Inc.). The secret? Pixar built a system, and its creatives trusted the system. To know that system, you gotta read this book.

3) We Haven’t Read Yet: 📖 🧠 

The Bezos Blueprint by Carmine Gallo

Sooooo…we haven’t read this book. But we’re dying to. We actually ordered it on Amazon just to be meta. Here’s why:

Two years ago, Jeff Bezos stepped down as Amazon’s CEO. Even though Bezos is on a yacht, his rules remain at Amazon. For example: 20 years ago, Bezos banned PowerPoint at the office—and it’s still banned at Amazon today. Why? Slides are superficial, words are substance.

In fact, Amazon is filled with Bezos’s philosophy. For example, Amazon still uses Jeff’s 16 Leadership Principles. You may know Principle No. 1, “Customer Obsession.” Did you know about “Frugality?”

• Bezos believes people are more innovative when given less, not more.

• So instead of PowerPoints, Jeff required 6-page memos.

• “Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention,” he said.

Today, Jeff’s philosophy is preached to Amazon’s 1.6M employees, from execs to security guards. And that got us curious about…

 The Takeaway →

The Amazon School of Business. There was a time when Goldman Sachs popped off a résumé (you’re a number crunching machine) and a time when General Electric popped off a résumé (GE > MBA). But Amazon is the new résumé-popper—because you’re trained in the ways of Bezos. To find out about that education, we’re reading this book.

And one more thing. Are you reading one of these gems? Or got another business beach read we missed? Reply to this email or hit us up anytime @tboypod.

See ya back in your inbox and on the mics after Labor Day. We’ve got some lobby rolls to scarf down (hold the sand). 😎😎

—Nick & Jack