| This week, if you’re looking for something to read on your holiday break, the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year list is here to help. Plus, why the declining number of IPOs in the US isn’t a cause for concern, and three McKinsey experts on a new, high-flying way to travel. | | | | | Congrats, Shortlist readers. We’ve made it to December, and we hope you’ll have plenty of time to kick back with friends and family, enjoy good conversation, and eat tasty food. For your reading pleasure this holiday season, we’ve gathered some of the best business books, selected by this year’s Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award panelists. | | Intense reading. These books aren’t necessarily light fare, but they are all powerful and uber topical. The winner is This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends, by Nicole Perlroth, a former New York Times reporter on cybersecurity and digital espionage. She explains how criminals are hacking into the world’s most essential IT systems, gaining access to nuclear weapons, power grids, water systems, and elections. “Digital sabotage is the immediate threat that we can do something about—if we wake up,” Perlroth said upon receiving the prize. “The goal of this book is to wake people up.” | | Worthy contenders. Five runners-up tackled a range of important issues, including climate change and racism, and were selected from a record-breaking 600 entrants: | - The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources, by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy
Two journalists present a gripping story of the world’s commodity traders who buy and sell natural resources such as cotton, gold, and oil—acquiring political influence and untold wealth along the way. - Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, by Patrick Radden Keefe
A staff writer at the New Yorker chronicles three generations of the Sacklers, one of the world’s wealthiest families. Keefe investigates the links between the Sacklers and the global opioid epidemic, assessing the family’s complex history.[1] - The Conversation: How Talking Honestly about Racism Can Transform Individuals and Organizations, by Robert Livingston
A Harvard social psychologist examines how communities and individuals can speak truthfully about racism and create social change. Through anecdotes from pop culture and his own life, Livingston explores how we can make our world more inclusive and equitable. - The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet, by Michael E. Mann
Again and again, people are told that it’s up to individuals to save the planet from the worst effects of climate change. In this book, a climate scientist argues that in the fight for a decarbonized global economy, what’s really needed are macrolevel policies. - The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World, by Adrian Wooldridge
A historian presents the history of meritocracy—the belief that a person’s advancement should be based on talent rather than social class. Wooldridge examines the backlash against merit-based systems, arguing for a return to open competition as a catalyst for greater social mobility. 1 This website provides information about McKinsey’s past work for opioid manufacturers and its response to related issues.
| | |  | | OFF THE CHARTS | | Rumors of corporations’ demise have been greatly exaggerated | | Experts worry that the declining number of public-company listings and IPOs in the US might prevent smaller investors from backing big, value-creating ideas. But a McKinsey analysis of nearly 10,000 public-company listings and IPOs reveals that the drop-off isn’t as extreme as pundits suggest. Most corporate exits (around 3,300 companies) occurred between 2001 and 2010, a time that included the dot-com bubble and credit crisis. From 2011 to 2020, however, roughly the same number of companies exited and entered the market. | | | | | | | | | | VIDEO | | Coming soon to a ‘vertiport’ near you | | Globally, passengers spend more than $400 billion a year on taxis. In the next decade, they could be spending some of that money to travel by small, electric aircraft instead. In this video, McKinsey experts Kersten Heineke, Benedikt Kloss, and Robin Riedel envision a high-flying future where electric flying vehicles offer a safe, seamless, and sustainable way to travel. “This mode of transportation will eventually become quite frequently used,” Riedel says. | | | | | | PARTING QUOTE |  | | — Edited by Belinda Yu |
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