In the era of lifelong learning, the importance of books is more prominent. The real estate industry is undergoing a major transformation. As practitioners, if they want to keep up with the industry and maintain sensitivity to innovation, continuous learning and reading are essential. Today, I will share 10 must-read books on real estate innovation.
- “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” Author: [US] Ashlee Vance
Recommendation Reason: Senior technology journalist Vance conducted an in-depth investigation of Musk, the adventurous Silicon Valley legendary CEO. Vance spent over 30 hours in-depth conversations with Musk and interviewed nearly 300 people, including Musk’s family, friends, and subordinates. Based on these interviews, Vance wrote about Musk’s extraordinary journey from South Africa to Silicon Valley. The core of the book is not the story but the business inspiration. Musk never believes that a good attitude can solve all problems. On the contrary, without good methods and the correct way of thinking about the world, a good attitude is difficult to last long. All viable business models are doing category innovation, while those that feel ineffective and achieve half the result with twice the effort mostly remain in brand innovation, which is often a quantitative change and often falls into the “unrequited love” strategy of enterprises. The worldview that Musk possesses is also what many entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley lack. He is a genius with great ambitions.
- “The Inevitable” Author: [US] Kevin Kelly
Recommendation Reason: The real estate industry has entered the second half, and innovation has become the new normal. “The Inevitable” points out a clear path for the transforming real estate industry and confused real estate professionals – follow the trend, and reveals the “trend” of the next thirty years. Admittedly, the value of “The Inevitable” is not limited to this. More importantly, it injects a biological thinking mode into the deeply ingrained real estate industry and professionals, and changing the thinking mode is the top priority for the current real estate industry. Those who have read “Out of Control” know that Kevin Kelly was right about the previous thirty years; and the speculations about the next thirty years are included in this book “The Inevitable”.
- “Barbarians at the Gate” Author: [US] Bryan Burrough
Recommendation Reason: As early as the beginning of 2014 when Vanke implemented the “Career Partner System”, “barbarians at the gate” was one of its concerns at that time. Half a year later, the fierce situation of Vanke’s equity dispute is still vivid. In June, the outcome of this equity acquisition incident that affected the real estate circle was about to be revealed, and leveraged buyouts, a product of modern finance, also sounded the alarm for the industry. This book uses documentary reports to describe the causes and consequences of the largest Reynolds Nabisco acquisition case during the leveraged buyout boom in the United States in the 1980s, recreating the most famous corporate battle in Wall Street history, and comprehensively showing how corporate managers obtain and control the company’s controlling rights. This transaction, known as the “century’s biggest acquisition”, shocked the world with an acquisition price of $25 billion, involving almost all the banks, investment banks and law firms on Wall Street in this unprecedented battle, and also became the largest leveraged buyout in history. However, just as there are no true winners in war, everyone involved is not spared, especially in business wars.
- “Economics for Entrepreneurs” Author: Liang Xiaomin
Recommendation Reason: As the Chinese economy operates today, the chances of success like 30 years ago, relying on courage, adventure, hard work, and a little bit of thick skin, are getting fewer and fewer.