Thats How Business Works

About the Book and the Author

Douban rating 6.8

I have no idea why the rating is so low on Douban; it just doesn’t make sense to me.

Author Bio

First Financial magazine

This book compiles selected content from the podcast of the same name, “Business Is Like This.” It draws 21 cases from past episodes and assembles them into a volume.

“Business Is Like This” originally began as a special column in First Financial Weekly around 2011, written by a rotating team of editors and reporters who commented on a notable business event each week.

The podcast launched on February 9, 2021, positioning itself as a show that explains business phenomena in simple, easy‑to‑understand language.

In three years the podcast has performed spectacularly in the finance‑podcast arena. As of July 2024, it has amassed nearly 30 million plays on Ximalaya, ranks 8th on the “Viewpoint Podcast” chart and sits within the top 100 of the business‑finance list; on Xiaoyuzhou it has over 430 k subscribers and was named a “Hot Podcast” for both 2022 and 2023.

Note: the figures above come from this report.

Podcast guide 👇

Xiaoyuzhou

My Recommendation

Before I give my reasons for recommending it, I should tell you how I first met “Business Is Like This.”

It all started with a project I’d previously worked on called “Starbucks Street Pickup.” One day, on a whim, I wondered whether Starbucks had a similar model abroad, so I searched for articles on the First Financial WeChat public account. Those pieces left a strong impression on me: their coverage of the Starbucks street‑pickup model matched the internal information I’d gathered, which built my trust in their content; they also investigated the overseas version, showing a level of professionalism I admired.

That’s how I became a fan of First Financial.

Later, while browsing their WeChat account, I discovered the podcast “Business Is Like This.” It had been sitting in my Xiaoyuzhou subscription list for a long time, untouched, until one day I had nothing else to listen to, clicked on an episode, and couldn’t stop.

From the first episode about Lexus (even though I’m not a car person, I was hooked), to “Do Self‑Service Laundromats Have a Market in China?”, to “The Mattel Company Behind Barbie,” each story from a different industry sharpened my sense of the business world.

That’s basically why I’m recommending the book.

The book is a curated collection of past podcast episodes, divided into two sections: Everyday Knowledge and Business Principles.

The Everyday Knowledge section covers cases that touch daily life—fluctuating airline ticket prices, the surprisingly huge industry behind tiny bubble‑tea toppings, the history of “noble” raw‑egg consumption, whether autonomous driving can be trusted, whether the Olympics actually make money, and the tangled relationship between verification codes and language learning (you’d never guess the founder of Duolingo had this backstory), among many others.

The Business Principles section digs into the underlying rules of commerce: “bad money drives out good,” franchising models (think KFC and McDonald’s), submarine cables (why Google is such a forward‑thinking company), supply chains (Apple as the ultimate supply‑chain champion), site selection for new stores (the origin of “box‑district” real estate), and more.

Each story makes me pause and ask, “Why haven’t I asked the same questions before?” and then dive deeper.

Every tale leaves me richer in insight.

As the saying goes, broad knowledge fuels innovation. Knowing the stories and patterns of the business world is invaluable—not just for general curiosity but also for product managers, who often need to understand business models.

Both the podcast and the book come highly recommended!

Let’s read and listen together—

and feel free to discuss the latest podcast stories with me.

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Product Manager | Reading | Travel | Psychology | Everyday Life

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Originally written by Estela Young and published in Chinese on 一只产品汪的自白. Translated and edited for DriftSeas with permission.