Big Tobacco meets Silicon Valley in this corporate exposé of what happened when two of the most notorious industries collided\-\-and the vaping epidemic was born. \x26#34;The best business book I\x27ve read since Bad Blood<\/i>.\x26#34;\-\-Jonathan Eig, New York Times<\/i> bestselling author of Ali: A Life<\/i><\/b><\/b> Howard Willard lusted after Juul. As the CEO of tobacco giant Philip Morris\x27s parent company and a veteran of the industry\x27s long fight to avoid being regulated out of existence, he grew obsessed with a prize he believed could save his company\-\-the e\-cigarette, a product with all the addictive upside of the original without the same apparent health risks and bad press. Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley, Adam Bowen and James Monsees began working on a device that was meant to save lives and destroy Big Tobacco, but they ended up baking the industry\x27s DNA into their invention\x27s science and marketing. Ultimately, Juul\x27s e\-cigarette was so effective and so market\-dominating that it put the company on a collision course with Philip Morris and sparked one of the most explosive public health crises in recent memory. In a deeply reported account, award\-winning journalist Lauren Etter tells a riveting story of greed and deception in one of the biggest botched deals in business history. Etter shows how Philip Morris\x27s struggle to innovate left Willard desperate to acquire Juul, even as his own team sounded alarms about the startup\x27s reliance on underage customers. And she shows how Juul\x27s executives negotiated a lavish deal that let them pocket the lion\x27s share of Philip Morris\x27s $12.8 billion investment while government regulators and furious parents mounted a campaign to hold the company\x27s feet to the fire. The Devil\x27s Playbook<\/i> is the inside story of how Juul\x27s embodiment of Silicon Valley\x27s \x26#34;move fast and break things\x26#34; ethos wrought havoc on American health, and how a beleaguered tobacco company was seduced by the promise of a new generation of addicted customers. With both companies\x27 eyes on the financial prize, neither anticipated the sudden outbreak of vaping\-linked deaths that would terrorize a nation, crater Juul\x27s value, end Willard\x27s career, and show the costs in human life of the rush to riches\-\-while Juul\x27s founders, board members, and employees walked away with a windfall.
ISBN: 9780593237984
Title: The Devil's Playbook: Big Tobacco, Juul, and the Addiction of a New Generation
Author: Etter, Lauren
Publisher: Crown Publishers
Binding: Hardcover
Category: Business & Economics
Subject: Corporate & Business History