Acknowledgments

I have without question pushed the limits of friendship and goodwill from a great number of people in writing this book. My thanks to everyone who was kind enough to give a bit of time and advice. A special thanks to Herb Schaffner of Schaffner Media Partners, who, with seemingly endless patience and positive encouragement, helped an often floundering first-time author find his way.

In no specific order, thanks to Martin Michael, master of all things graphical. Thanks to Dave Conti for his invaluable help on the proposal. Thanks to Barry Adler and Kelley Holland for help editing the manuscript. Thanks to my now fellow authors Jonathan Woetzel and Ben Simpfendorfer for their early advice. Thanks to Tom Mitchell for proofing the proposal over drinks in Hong Kong. Thanks to Leo Chu and Eric Garcia, who generously took my random calls between producing ever more entertaining episodes of Afro Samurai. Thanks to my new neighbors, Peilin and Eric Almeraz, for proposal feedback (and home-buying advice). Thanks to Dr. Kris Crawford, who seems to have unlimited bandwidth for helping friends. Thanks to Prince Khaled Alwaleed for being a patient guy when I got swamped. Thanks to Shirley Yeung for letting me borrow an office to hide out and write. Thanks to Patrick Maher, Doug Goodman, Meredith Spatz, Paul Lockmiller, Avi Kulkarni, Scott Gallin, Reshma Paranjpe, Jon Zifferblatt, and many others for all the support and encouragement along the way.

A special thanks to the many students from Columbia Business School, London Business School, Cambridge Judge, and Peking Guanghua who provided valuable feedback at various stages. Lots of editing was done based on how many people were dozing during what sections of class. Thanks to Wendy Liu, Marcus Matuszek, Garth Reucassel, and many others for their feedback and encouragement. For research, thanks to Cao Zining, who knows everything about Chinese automotive, and to Bin Yang and Larry Xie.

Of course, thanks to Jeanne Glasser, Julie Phifer, Anne Goebel, and everyone at Pearson/FT Press. Finally, special thanks to Eric, Jolene, Jack, Amelia, Alan, Maria, David, Michael, Gwen, Larry, Jamie, and Katie—well, just because.