The Devil's Playbook
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Summary
That was one of Juul's secrets for attracting young people; the other was hiring large numbers of internet influencers and young entertainers for marketing and promotion. Juul thus quickly became the highest-selling e-cigarette on the market, and the company became one of the fastest-growing "unicorn" companies in Silicon Valley history, with average year-end bonuses of $1.3 million per employee... At the same time, tobacco giant Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro, was mired in the anti-smoking movement and beset by long-running litigation. It saw e-cigarettes as its savior and acquired Juul regardless of the consequences. Yet Juul's many flavors and marketing practices appealed to adolescents, prompting not only regulatory action and protracted investigations by multiple government agencies but also, starting in 2018, a series of deaths and cases of severe lung injury linked to e-cigarettes. This caused public uproar and panic and triggered one of the most explosive public health crises in recent years.
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Nonfiction readers concerned with business ethics and technology regulation
- Readers interested in Silicon Valley startup stories and capital operations
- People working in public health, policy research, or related fields
- General readers who enjoy investigative-reporting narratives and want to understand the e-cigarette controversy
Not a good fit for
- Readers expecting purely technical popular science or a guide to e-cigarette use
- Readers who want only a light, inspirational startup story
- Readers uninterested in tobacco or business litigation subjects
Reading tips
- While reading, map out the key timeline from Juul's founding to its acquisition and then to regulatory scrutiny
- Pay attention to the differing positions of the various actors in the book (founders, investors, regulators, parents)
- Read alongside public health news about e-cigarettes to deepen your understanding of the controversy
- After reading, reflect on the gap between the original intent of innovation and market outcomes, and form your own judgment
About the publisher
Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 前言 与天使们站在一起
- 第一章 探索（上）
- 第一章 探索（下）
- 第二章 好人
- 第三章 香烟制造商的两难
- 第四章 寻找
- 第五章 新标记
- 第六章 朱尔的诞生
- 第七章 卡尔加里牛仔节
- 第八章 求爱
- 第九章 兴奋因素
- 第十章 实验
- 第十一章 快速行动，铤而走险
- 第十二章 尼古丁让步
- 第十三章 树项目
- 第十四章 阿瑟顿
- 第十五章 A计划
- 第十六章 旧金山反击
- 第十七章 朱尔大富翁
- 第十八章 接管
- 第十九章 恐慌
- 第二十章 百乐宫
- 第二十一章 血雨腥风
- 第二十二章 我来，我见，我征服
- 后记
- 致谢
FAQ
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About the author
Lauren Ait is an author with only a limited presence in the Chinese-language book market, with just one work, The Devil's Script, listed in our catalog under the category of foreign literature. Publicly available information about this author's nationality, dates of birth and death, educational background and writing career is very limited, so it is difficult to sketch a complete biography, and it would be inappropriate to speculate about personal experience beyond the facts. Based on what is available, readers can focus on the positioning of the work itself: The Devil's Script belongs to foreign literature, and judging from its title and category, its subject matter may involve suspense, conspiracy or dramatically charged narrative, suited to readers who prefer tightly plotted stories with a strong atmosphere. For Chinese readers, this author remains a relatively unfamiliar name, and their value lies more in the reading experience of a single work than in an established literary profile.
Li Xueshun: public information about this author is limited, and no clear record of his identity or career is available. Judging from the twelve works held in the library, however, he is mainly active in the translation and compilation of social science, documentary literature, and foreign literature. His representative works include the Selected Collection of Shanghai Translation University Translation Series (26 volumes), The Children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family, River Town, Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory, Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West, and Foreigners Record China (8-volume set). These works mostly involve overseas authors' observations of Chinese society and daily life, as well as the introduction of documentary writing. The revised edition of American Way of Death and the 2020 edition of the Translation Documentary Collection also reflect his continued involvement in documentary publishing. According to the available materials, his work emphasizes selection, translation, and the integration of book series, with a plain style that stays close to the original texts, providing Chinese readers with fairly systematic reading materials for understanding social and cultural issues from external perspectives.
