Having heard and read tons of anecdotal stories about Murdoch in the past years, I finally wanted to fully understand how Murdoch got to where he is today (most like the most powerful media mogul in the world). So I started Michael Wolff’s new Murdoch biography “The man who owns the news” during the Christmas break and finished it today. There seem to be a lot of people (especially among journalists) that don’t like Murdoch because of his close involvement in the newsroom but there are two important lessons that an entrepreneur can learn from him:

• He is relentlesly focused on the reader (=his customers) and doesn’t care about respectability or status which is often an important factor in the media business (just think about Conrad Black) – and he doesn’t change his focus with age or increased wealth.
• He takes a very long view – Murdoch doesn’t fear short-term losses and can puruse acquisition targets over decades (e.g. his pursuit of the WSJ / Dow Jones) until he gets what he wants.

Definitely an inspirational book for everybody who loves media but also for every entrepreneur.