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Tag Archives: leadership

Learning From Experience

Posted on 2015/08/13 by Guy Smith2015/10/26

My father once said “Always try to learn from other people’s mistakes. It saves you a bunch of time.” But he could have also said “Learn from other people’s success. It saves you a bunch of pain.” When looking for mentorship, finding someone who has proven themselves and whose advice goes against conventional thinking is a good tactic. My friend Ray Zinn is that mentor. It is hard to understate what Ray has accomplished in business … and in life. He founded a semiconductor company in Silicon Valley without venture capital. He ran that company as the visionary founder for 37 years. He was profitable the very first year, and for every year thereafter (except for one year during the dot-com era meltdown, and the one “unprofitable” year was due largely to a write-down for shuttering an extra fabrication facility). His company had the lowest employee turn-over rate in his industry, and likely … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged entrepreneurs, executives, leadership | Leave a reply

Apple Brand Polishing

Posted on 2013/10/01 by admin2013/10/10

Apple is now the most valuable brand on the planet, with Google growing faster and likely to overtake them. Poor old Coca Cola has dropped to third while these upstarts reign. Interbrand recurrently measures the strength of various global brands. They recently released their latest report that knocked Coke off its thirteen year perch at number one. As the chart shows, Google began their assent in 2009 and Apple followed in 2011, all riding the wave of a highly wired and wireless global society. You may drink Coke, Pepsi or bottled water, but everybody sips while searching Google on their iPhones. Interbrand’s analysis is not the old school, completely financial estimate of customer good will that expresses a brand’s cumulative equity. If we used that measure, Coke would still command the lead with Coke $12B in customer good will, Google would have $10B worth, and Apple would trail with a … Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, Business Strategy, Management, Market Trends | Tagged apple, brand, branding, google, leadership, management | 1 Reply

Lavish Leadership

Posted on 2013/04/30 by admin2013/04/30

“Maybe Microsoft suffers from too much leadership.” That surprising statement came from an industry analyst with one of the major groups. We were recently splitting lunch and enjoying some obscenely great Silicon Valley weather, discussing the tech industry as a whole and wondering if Microsoft might soon be known only as “The Xbox Company.” We mutually marveled at how seemingly inept Microsoft has become, with one market disaster after another. Since we both had experience with start-ups and big vendors alike, the discussion focused keenly on leadership and ossification. You never want to be the leader for the former. Microsoft has two primary problems when it comes to innovation, the first of which is that they remain consumed by former glories and the old ways of thinking. This same analyst told me that – at least until recently – Microsoft sized their markets based on the number of PCs in … Continue reading →

Posted in Business Strategy, Management, Marketing Mistakes, Markets | Tagged leadership, management, microsoft, strategy | Leave a reply
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