Kieran Levis tells the stories of some of the most innovative businesses of recent times to explain how a few succeeded – when so many failed – in creating entirely new markets and dominating them. He shows how Amazon and Google rose from nothing to enormous heights, whilst IBM, Kodak and AOL plummeted from them; how Nokia and Sky bounced from near-bankruptcy to global leadership; and charts the incredible rise and fall and rise again of Apple.

Told with clarity, wit and pace, these dramatic stories reveal what it was about a few winners that enabled them to hold onto their prizes, whilst the absence of these qualities crippled the losers.