DONALD TRUMP - DAY 3 OF 6 · ~24 MIN
The Brand Machine
It is November 1987, and the book display in the front window of every Barnes & Noble in America carries the same cover: a man in a dark suit, arms folded, staring directly at the reader with the quiet confidence of someone who has already won whatever argument you were about to start. The Art of the Deal debuts at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, where it will sit for thirteen consecutive weeks, selling over a million copies before the calendar turns. The man on the cover is Donald Trump. The man who wrote every word inside the cover is Tony Schwartz, a freelance journalist who spent eighteen months following Trump around his offices, his helicopters, and his Atlantic City construction sites while Trump talked on the telephone. Schwartz's name appears on the cover — he negotiated hard for joint authorship credit — but the public reception belongs entirely to Trump. For millions of readers in 1987, the book is not a collaboration. It is a manifesto, a self-portrait, a proof of concept. It answers the question every aspiring entrepreneur is already asking: how does someone like this think? The answer Schwartz assembles, drawn from long observation of his subject, is a marvel of compression and narrative drive. What it is not, Schwartz will later insist with considerable force, is an accurate account.
Contents — 7 sections
- OPENING SCENE
- TONY SCHWARTZ AND THE ART OF THE DEAL
- THE ATLANTIC CITY PUSH
- THE 1990 FINANCIAL CRISIS IN FULL
- THE SIX BANKRUPTCIES
- THE APPRENTICE IN FULL DEPTH
- THE BRAND AS THE PRODUCT
OPENING SCENE
It is November 1987, and the book display in the front window of every Barnes & Noble in America carries the same cover: a man in a dark suit, arms folded, staring directly at the reader with the quiet confidence of someone who has already won whatever argument you were about to start. The Art of the Deal debuts at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, where it will sit for thirteen consecutive weeks, selling over a million copies before the calendar turns. The man on the cover is Donald Trump. The man who wrote every word inside the cover is Tony Schwartz, a freelance journalist who spent eighteen months following Trump around his offices, his helicopters, and his Atlantic City construction sites while Trump talked on the telephone. Schwartz's name appears on the cover — he negotiated hard for joint authorship credit — but the public reception belongs entirely to Trump. For millions of readers in 1987, the book is not a collaboration. It is a manifesto, a self-portrait, a proof of concept. It answers the question every aspiring entrepreneur is already asking: how does someone like this think? The answer Schwartz assembles, drawn from long observation of his subject, is a marvel of compression and narrative drive. What it is not, Schwartz will later insist with considerable force, is an accurate account.
LOCKED AFTER THE PREVIEW
What's in the rest of Day 3
- TONY SCHWARTZ AND THE ART OF THE DEAL
- THE ATLANTIC CITY PUSH
- THE 1990 FINANCIAL CRISIS IN FULL
- THE SIX BANKRUPTCIES
- THE APPRENTICE IN FULL DEPTH
- THE BRAND AS THE PRODUCT