The Butterfly in the Boardroom: Chaos Theory and the Art of Growing a Business
Derek Wilder
Jul 2026 · Independently Published · Narrated by Tracy Kinkead
headphones
Audiobook
6 hr 21 min
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
Want a free 9 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.
Add
About this audiobook
Most business books are built on a silent lie — that if you set the right goals, build the right plan, and execute well enough, the outcome will cooperate. Derek Wilder has spent thirty years as co-founder of one of the Midwest's largest homebuilders, watching that lie collide with reality, and in The Butterfly in the Boardroom: Chaos Theory and the Art of Growing a Business, he finally has the science to explain why.
Drawing on Edward Lorenz's butterfly effect, Robert May's logistic map, and Benoit Mandelbrot's fractal geometry, Wilder shows that your business is not a machine — it is a complex, nonlinear, chaotic system, and the tools most leaders use were designed for a different world entirely. Through vivid case studies drawn from construction job sites, the near-death of LEGO, Netflix's S-curve leap from DVDs to streaming, and the fractal failures at Wells Fargo and Uber — woven together with the fictional arc of Grace Winters, a former math teacher who must unlearn everything she knows about clean answers — Wilder translates chaos theory into five concrete operating habits: shorter planning horizons, early feedback loops, reversible moves, modular teams, and portfolios of small bets. The result is the book every founder and operator has needed but couldn't find — The Butterfly in the Boardroom won't promise to calm the storm.
Drawing on Edward Lorenz's butterfly effect, Robert May's logistic map, and Benoit Mandelbrot's fractal geometry, Wilder shows that your business is not a machine — it is a complex, nonlinear, chaotic system, and the tools most leaders use were designed for a different world entirely. Through vivid case studies drawn from construction job sites, the near-death of LEGO, Netflix's S-curve leap from DVDs to streaming, and the fractal failures at Wells Fargo and Uber — woven together with the fictional arc of Grace Winters, a former math teacher who must unlearn everything she knows about clean answers — Wilder translates chaos theory into five concrete operating habits: shorter planning horizons, early feedback loops, reversible moves, modular teams, and portfolios of small bets. The result is the book every founder and operator has needed but couldn't find — The Butterfly in the Boardroom won't promise to calm the storm.
Most business books are built on a silent lie — that if you set the right goals, build the right plan, and execute well enough, the outcome will cooperate. Derek Wilder has spent thirty years as co-founder of one of the Midwest's largest homebuilders, watching that lie collide with reality, and i...
Discover more
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
