Lessons in History: return of the podcast
James Daunt and Business Studies + Rightmove + Baftas
Hello everyone and welcome to the latest edition of Off to Lunch…
I want to start today by writing about our podcast and why I am doing it. After a short-break, Business Studies will return tomorrow with a new episode. This will be sent to all Off to Lunch subscribers and will also be available on all podcast platforms, including Apple and Spotify…
The new episode features an interview with James Daunt, the boss of Daunt Books, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble. The episode is called “The boss who saved the bookshop”. That may sound an exaggeration, but by turning around Waterstones in the UK and then doing the same with Barnes & Noble in the US, Daunt has ensured that publishers and customers still recognise the significance of buying books in a shop, rather than just online or through a Kindle. The episode is about how he did that.
I have wanted to interview Daunt since Business Studies launched. His story is fascinating. Daunt started his career as a banker with JP Morgan before leaving his job to set-up an independent bookshop - Daunt Books, which opened in Marylebone, London. Then after successfully building Daunt Books into a small chain he was appointed to run Waterstones in 2011 when it was on the brink of collapse. After success with Waterstones he was asked to do the same with Barnes & Noble, which is basically the Waterstones of the US, with more than 600 shops across the country. Daunt succeeded there too.
This all means that Daunt is a banker-turned-bookshop owner who went from running popular independent shops to leading a homogenous nationwide rival and then finding success across the Atlantic too. His story is full of contradictions. The owner of Waterstones and Barnes & Noble is Elliott, the aggressive US hedge fund, whose ruthless capitalist reputation is about as far removed from a quaint bookshop as you can imagine. And Daunt achieved this success despite Amazon and the Kindle threatening to revolutionise the book industry. Daunt even stocked the Kindle in Waterstones at one point.
Only this story is not full of contradictions, because Daunt speaks about his experiences and strategy with remarkable clarity and rationality. Perhaps this is unsurprising given that he has spent most of his career in books, but it is also a common trait among those I have interviewed for Business Studies - clarity of thought, clarity of strategy.
The aim of Business Studies is to take a look at big stories from the past, examine what we can learn from them, and share that wisdom. This includes success stories, failures, big events and more. By speaking to people at the heart of these stories we can try to understand what happened. I think this is a much more powerful way to share knowledge than self-help books, management tomes and bogus social media videos that claim they can boost your confidence - and bank balance - in five minutes.
The stories that feature in Business Studies are also just great stories that deserve to be shared with a wider audience. And by sharing them with a wider audience, more people can understand how business works. One of the best parts of being a business journalist is interviewing successful or interesting people and trying to understand what makes them tick…
Call this confirmation bias, but when I was asking Daunt about what he reads, he said this:
“I have to admit, I have never read a single business book in my entire life. I try to keep myself pure to what I do. I always worried that I'm going to read one of these sorts of things and then completely change my outlook on life and realise the error of my ways. But since it's going well, I don't want to sort of throw that temptation in my way.”
Daunt does read non-fiction and history books. I interviewed Daunt while he was in New York and he said that during the Covid-19 lockdowns, when travel was restricted and shops were closed, he read The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro:
“I think if you read books like that you both see the best and the worst of how people have conducted themselves and behaved. Having that mirror thrown up allows one to hopefully moderate one's own behaviour. I think really good biographies can be particularly insightful.”
The Power Broker runs to 1,246 pages. The new episode of Business Studies lasts just 28 minutes. But I think everyone will still find it insightful.
If you want to listen to the previous episodes of Business Studies then click here
And for those wondering, Daunt is the source of the book recommendations I flagged a couple of weeks ago: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and This Other Eden by Paul Harding…
A tweet that helps you understand the world…
The latest data from Rightmove on the state of the housing market is pretty gloomy…
Other stories that matter…
Mark Zuckerberg has said that Facebook and Instagram users will be able to pay to verify their accounts. The social media sites will charge $11.99-a-month for verification, extra features and customer support. The move by Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, follows a similar feature by Elon Musk and Twitter (The Guardian)
Birmingham Airport wants to operate hydrogen-powered flights from 2025 (The Times)
Two experts in sports psychology have looked into Harry Kane and the reasons for his brilliance after the footballer became Tottenham Hotspur’s record goalscorer. Two things stand-out: his decision-making skills and resilience (The Conversation)
New research from McKinsey has tried to identify what the most productive companies in the US do differently. There are some interesting lessons here for the UK. The list includes investment in digital technology, intangibles like intellectual property, attracting talent and collaborating with suppliers and customers (Harvard Business Review)
Why are big businesses so dominant? Why are shareholder rights worth more than civil rights? These questions are being increasingly discussed by ordinary people, according to this interesting column, which suggests there will be consequences for the business world and politics (Financial Times)
Our Sunday press review - which was sent to paying members on Sunday - looked at Boris Johnson’s criticism of Rishi Sunak’s Northern Ireland deal, Elliott getting involved in the battle to buy Manchester United and Lockheed Martin potentially building a factory in Newcastle. You can sign-up to read it here.
And finally…
All Quiet on the Western Front, Tar, The Banshees of Inisherin and Elvis were among the big winners at the Baftas on Sunday night. I am yet to watch the first two films but saw the latter two recently - The Banshees of Inisherin and Elvis. I would recommend both.
The two films have their own distinctive styles - Banshees often feels like a love-letter to the west coast of Ireland, Elvis rattles along at a rapid pace that anyone familiar with director Baz Luhrmann will recognise. The acting in Banshees is clearly incredible, even to a film novice like me, and Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan won supporting actor and actress at the Baftas. A scene in the film involving Keoghan and Condon at a lake has gone viral on social media since the film was released in October. I won’t spoil the film and link to it here, but you can find it on Twitter or YouTube if you look.
Austin Butler won the Bafta for best actor for playing Elvis Presley and he is the favourite to win the Oscar too. I didn’t know that much about Elvis’s backstory film (beyond him being one of the most famous men who ever lived) and one of the best things I can say about the film is that it has got me reading a lot about him….
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Best
Graham