A Literary Review of Groundbreaking Entrepreneurs

Bradley Wendt

02-09-2026

Apprenticeships are a time-tested approach to learning, blending hands-on work experience with guided instruction. Rooted in traditional trades such as shoemaking and carpentry, apprenticeships are practiced today in most industries, including medicine, real estate, technology and finance.  

Most people think of apprenticeships as formal arrangements, where aspiring professionals are taught and guided by a specific leader. I'd like to reframe this definition, with an eye on helping early-to-mid-career professionals think of themselves as protégés seeking to become experts in their industry.

My apprenticeship spanned 17 years, starting as a Merrill Lynch associate and concluding as a Goldman Sachs managing director. Early on, “running the numbers” guaranteed me a seat at client meetings and a matchless education. Over time, my banking apprenticeship became client-centric with colleagues and competitors contributing a warehouse of eye-opening moments for winning business mandates.

Goldman Sachs recruited me to create and lead a capital markets group for infrastructure finance. A decade of successfully scaling an internal Goldman Sachs business unit provided the confidence and expertise to start a business on my own, without Goldman Sachs’ renowned resources and professionals.

I left investment banking to launch BondDesk, a bond execution platform funded by 12 investment banks, including Goldman Sachs. BondDesk’s commercial success required a paradigm shift — one that only an accomplished leader could instigate: convince 100,000 brokers to stop trading bonds by dialing a phone (voice trades) and start trading bonds by clicking a computer screen (electronic trades).  

As the company’s cofounder, I wore many hats: president, senior regulatory officer, and most important: entrepreneur. Business memoirs fueled my building-a-business apprenticeship and greased the wheels for BondDesk’s industry dominance.

My literary review of groundbreaking entrepreneurs inspired the design of the new MBA seminar I am teaching, Entrepreneurial Journeys. The seminar’s four-book reading list positions MBA candidates as virtual apprentices, sitting ringside, witnessing four incredible entrepreneurial journeys. Glimpsing each featured entrepreneur’s process in these books impacted how I thought and worked. I can highly recommend:

• “Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s” by Ray Kroc, which documents the launching of McDonald’s and the empire that followed. Notable quote: “I believe that if you think small, you’ll stay small.”
• “iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon,” Steve Wozniak’s story; he’s the sole inventor of the Apple 1 and 2, the first personal computers. Notable quote: "Artists work best alone. Work alone. Not on a committee. Not on a team.”
• “That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea,” as told by co-founder and first chief executive officer Marc Randolph. Notable quote: “The only real way to find out if your idea is a good one is to do it. You’ll learn more in one hour of doing something than in a lifetime of thinking about it."
• “Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike,” Phil Knight's tale detailing the founding and early years of Nike. Notable quote: “Let everyone else call your idea crazy… just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there, and don’t give much thought to where ‘there’ is.”

As for BondDesk? At the time of BondDesk’s sale, 100,000 brokers transacted on the bond platform, executing over 20,000 tickets per day. Private equity purchased BondDesk for $500 million (CPI adjusted).