Some people, particularly those that are in the early stages of their career, may ask: who was Tom Murphy? He is the sort of person that industry hall of fames write about in this way: “He began his broadcasting career as the first employee of a bankrupt television station in Albany, New York. Acquisition by acquisition, he built the company.” “Tom, who became President of Cap Cities, gradually built the […]
Doug Leone is the Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital, where he has been a partner since 1993. Prior to joining Sequoia in 1988 he worked at Sun, HP and Prime in sales and sales management positions. 1. “We want to be partners with entrepreneurs from day one… We know after many, many years that your DNA is set in the first 60 to 90 days.” Doug Leone would prefer to […]
Before writing this blog post I decided to apply one of Steve Jobs’ ideas: “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.” [1997] This is not a post about Steve Jobs as a person, so I have tried hard in this post to not discuss his personality. I try to limit the discussion to what I have learned from him about business. Of course, you are […]
1. “Wealth is not about having a lot of money; it’s about having a lot of options.” Chris Rock. “The only thing money gives you, is the freedom of not worrying about money.” Johnny Carson. The best thing about having money is having good choices in life. An essential challenge if you are poor is having terrible choices. Having terrible choices feeds back in a self-reinforcing negative way. People who […]
“Technology companies live and die by talent. That’s why when people talk about the talent wars…when you see the best people migrating from one company to the next, it means that the next wave has started.” “Really in technology, it’s about the people, getting the best people, retaining them, nurturing a creative environment and helping to find a way to innovate.” “I definitely think what drives technology companies […]
Mark Suster blogs at Both Sides of the Table, which describes him as follows. “Mark Suster is a 2x entrepreneur turned VC. He joined Upfront Ventures in 2007 as a General Partner after selling his company to Salesforce.com.” Writing this post on Mark Suster has been relatively easy since he writes and speaks clearly, thinks rationally and is generous with advice. He is also fearless in terms of the positions […]
Bill Ackman is the founder of the investment holding company Pershing Square Capital Management. This post will focus on only one aspect of Bill Ackman’s investing system: his underlying belief in value investing principles. That Bill Ackman uses value investing principles at all may be a surprise to some people, since he is most known for being an activist investor. Since activist investing is often both controversial and confrontational it […]
The challenge I gave myself with this blog post was to take quotations from Bill Murray (the actor and comedian) and apply his advice to investing. Writing this has been like one of those cooking competition shows where you get some ingredients in a basket (for example, cotton candy, spam, kiwifruit and pimento cheese) and you must make a delicious meal with it using other ingredients that are in the […]
1. “The only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom.” “Because conventional wisdom was in error, this gave us tremendous advantage: we were the only ones trying to do it.” “When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.” “When you’re the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you’re basically saying, ‘I’m right, and everyone else […]
William Thorndike (author of The Outsiders) said in an interview that Henry Singleton: “was a MIT trained mathematician and engineer, he got a Ph.D. In electrical engineering from MIT. While he was there he programed the first computer on the MIT campus, and he proceeded to have a very successful career in science. He developed an inertial guidance system for Litton Industries that’s still in use in commercial and military […]