BE 2.0 (BEYOND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 2.0)

Video Transcript

Hi there, this is Jim Collins.

When Bill Lazier and I sat down nearly thirty years ago to write the first edition of Beyond Entrepreneurship, we had a very simple idea in mind. We wanted to take Bill’s practical wisdom and the lessons from the class on entrepreneurship and small business that we taught at Stanford, and put them into a book to help entrepreneurs and leaders of small-to-mid-sized businesses build enduring great companies.

We put the book out and it found a loyal following in the Silicon Valley crowd; it became a Silicon Valley best-seller. In fact, Reed Hastings of Netflix read the book every year for more than ten years as he helped himself think about shaping and building what became Netflix.

I’m very happy to be bringing out a major upgrade of Beyond Entrepreneurship called BE 2.0.

But why bring out an upgrade? Why bring this to the world thirty years later? The reasons are simple.

First, it brings me back to my original passion for entrepreneurs and leaders of small-to-mid-sized businesses. A lot of people have looked at our books like Good to Great and Built to Last and they’ve said that those are about big companies. I’ve always had a great passion for how small companies and startups go on to become the great companies. That’s what Bill and I wrote about in Beyond Entrepreneurship and I wanted to bring out an upgraded version of that.

Second, this is more than just an upgrade. In fact, we’ve added four new chapters and 15 new essays to the book. Those essays have to do with things like people decisions, questions around leadership that we wanted to expand upon, some insights around strategy, and some of the key elements that go into building an overall great company.

In particular, there’s a map. Thirty years of research and thinking on what makes great companies tick integrated into one map that you follow sequentially. The Map is research-based and will help you take a small company and turn it into a great company.

The deepest reason why I wanted to do this: Bill Lazier was the closest thing to a father I ever had. When Bill passed away in 2004, I realized that I wanted to write something about him and to share him, his life lessons, and his leadership lessons (he was the greatest mentor I ever had) with the rest of the world. To honor Bill and to help others be able to take the lessons I learned from Bill and apply them in leading their own lives, in leading companies, and in leading others.

And so I bring to you with great enthusiasm—really this has been a work of love, a work of passion, a desire to share. I bring to you BE 2.0 and I bring to you Bill Lazier.