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Paul B. Carroll

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https://perfectfuturebook.com/

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Business

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July 2016

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Paul B. Carroll has excelled at the highest levels of journalism for decades, while pushing the state of the art on business strategy and innovation.

For 17 years, he was a reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal, where he wrote about information technology. The WSJ nominated him twice for the Pulitzer Prize, and he was a finalist once. He left to become a partner at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, where he founded and edited a magazine that was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. For the past eight years, Paul has been the editor-in-chief at Insurance Thought Leadership, an affiliate of The Institutes that drives innovation in insurance.

He is the best-selling author of numerous books, begin Paul B. Carroll has excelled at the highest levels of journalism for decades, while pushing the state of the art on business strategy and innovation.

For 17 years, he was a reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal, where he wrote about information technology. The WSJ nominated him twice for the Pulitzer Prize, and he was a finalist once. He left to become a partner at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, where he founded and edited a magazine that was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. For the past eight years, Paul has been the editor-in-chief at Insurance Thought Leadership, an affiliate of The Institutes that drives innovation in insurance.

He is the best-selling author of numerous books, beginning with “Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM,” published by Crown in 1993. In 2008, Paul and Chunka Mui published “Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn From the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years,” based on 20 researchers’ two years of analysis of 2,500 corporate disasters. While Jim Collins looked at success stories and said, Here’s how to be like those guys, “Billion Dollar Lessons” looked at failures and said, Here’s how not to be like those guys. The Wall Street Journal review called the book “fascinating…, insightful and crisply written.” Most recently, Paul, Chunka, and Tim Andrews have published “A Brief History of a Perfect Future: Inventing the World We Can Proudly Leave Our Kids by 2050.”

Paul was the writer on the National Broadband Plan, which the FCC submitted to Congress in 2010, and on a report that the Department of Energy produced later that year on a $36.5 billion innovation initiative funded by the Stimulus Act.

He and Chunka have founded a boutique consulting firm, the Future Histories Group, which stress tests corporate strategies. They have worked with senior management at numerous major organizations.

Paul graduated magna cum laude from Michigan State University’s Honors College at age 19 and earned a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University the following year. ...more

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Average rating: 3.86 · 1,269 ratings · 108 reviews · 11 distinct works • Similar authors

	Billion-Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years by Paul B. Carroll (Goodreads Author), Chunka Mui (Goodreads Author) 3.86 avg rating — 782 ratings — published 2008 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Resource Revolution: How to Capture the Biggest Business Opportunity in a Century by Stefan Heck, Matt Rogers, Paul B. Carroll (Goodreads Author) 3.87 avg rating — 300 ratings — published 2014 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM 3.87 avg rating — 103 ratings — published 1993 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The New Killer Apps: How Large Companies Can Out-Innovate Start-Ups by Chunka Mui (Goodreads Author), Paul B. Carroll (Goodreads Author), James Madara (Foreword) 3.94 avg rating — 35 ratings — published 2013 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Driverless Cars: Trillions Are Up For Grabs by Chunka Mui (Goodreads Author), Paul B. Carroll (Goodreads Author) 3.64 avg rating — 22 ratings — published 2013	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Change Maker's Playbook: How to Seek, Seed and Scale Innovation in Any Company by Amy J. Radin, Paul B. Carroll (Goodreads Author) (Foreword) 3.59 avg rating — 22 ratings — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Seven Ways to Fail Big by Paul B. Carroll (Goodreads Author), Chunka Mui (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Harvard Business Review (Contributor) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2008	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Teure Lektionen 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years by Mui, Paul B Carroll and Chunka (2010) Paperback 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Change the dialogue with management: this is what directors need to do to head off embarrassing strategic errors.(AT YOUR BEST): An article from: Directors & Boards by Paul B. Carroll (Goodreads Author), Chunka Mui (Goodreads Author) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Paul Carroll rated a book it was amazing The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 05, 2026 04:38PM · 1 like · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Paul Carroll rated a book really liked it There There by Tommy Orange (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Paul Carroll rated a book liked it 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents by David Pietrusza (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Paul Carroll rated a book really liked it The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Dec 11, 2025 09:33AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Paul Carroll rated a book really liked it Orbital by Samantha Harvey	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Paul Carroll rated a book it was amazing The Iliad by Homer	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Paul Carroll rated a book it was amazing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1) by Douglas Adams	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Paul Carroll rated a book it was amazing So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #4) by Douglas Adams	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Paul Carroll rated a book it was amazing Night by Elie Wiesel	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Paul Carroll rated a book it was amazing Travels with Charlie: In Search of America by John Steinbeck	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Quotes by Paul B. Carroll (?)

“Alfred P. Sloan, the legendary builder of General Motors, once said to a meeting of one of his top committees, 'Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here?' Everyone around the table nodded. 'Then,' Sloan continued, 'I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about”
― Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui, Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last Twenty-five Years

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“We think about it this way: The process isn’t designed to produce the best answers; it’s designed to produce the best questions. After all, business isn’t physics. Business isn’t about finding the exact right answer, but rather is about avoiding the wrong answers and then executing as hard and as well as possible the answers that might be right.”
― PaulB. Carroll, Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years

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“To avoid getting caught up in excessive financial engineering, you should start with two broad questions: Can the strategy withstand sunshine? Can the strategy withstand storms?”
― Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui, Billion Dollar Lessons: What You Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last Twenty-five Years

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