Perpetual Innovation

Category: business model

  • Bill Gates’s Favorite Business Book … and then some … WSJ

    Bill Gates’s Favorite Business Book – WSJ:

    I was at the beach over the summer and the condo had a book by Bill Gates.

    I started reading it and was intrigued. I thought I had read it before, but it was still very interesting. As I’m skimming through into the second chapter, it hit me like a metric ton of CO2. This book was more than 2 decades old, 1994, The Road Ahead. Knowing how it really ended, I skipped ahead to see what his forecasts were for the future of chipdom and computing. He was straight on in several cases.

    The point is that reading classic business books is fascinating and it is retrospectical (if that were a word).

    This WSJ article talks about the great business books from the perspective of the richest man in the world (as founder of Microsoft), turned most philanthropic man in the work (with the Gates Foundation). When he takes time to write about what he reads, you aught to take notice.

    The great business books include, of course, Drucker, Porter, Peters, Senge, …

    Jim Collins G2G and BTL are, well, great!:-). Level five leaders, yeap. By chance, is still growing on me. (See references below.)

    Most people will include Sun Tzu with the Art of War, and Machiavelli.

    For production-type clients, I always buy them a copy of the NY Times best-selling novel, The Goal, so they can simply enjoy the experience of (accidentally) learning about
    operations management. See the section on Business Fables (2011) in Wikipedia
    for some of the coolest business novels to read as an MBA student. Eli Goldratt did a follow-on to The Goal (2001) that was actually the text book associated with the novel; it was called, Beyond the Goal (2004).

    Speaking of novels and stories and fables, Who Moved My Cheese and Fish! are wonderful classics. 
    If you were to add to the list of Great Business Books that are must reads for every business professional, and absolutely every MBA, what would it be?
    Reference (some)

    Business fable.
    (2011, August 3). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved
    15:02, August 12, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Business_fable&oldid=442779574    Collins J., & Porras, J. (1994). Built to last. New York, NY: Harper Business.

    Collins, J. (2001). Good
    to great.     New York, NY: HarperCollins.
    Collins,
    J. (2005). Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve.
    (cover story). Harvard Business Review,
    83    (7/8), 136-146.
    Collins,
    J. (2012). Effective Management. Leadership
    Excellence    , 29(4), 3.
    Collins,
    J., & Hansen, M.T. (2011). Great by choice: Uncertainty, chaos, and
    luck–Why some thrive despite them all. New York, NY: HarperBusiness.
    Goldratt, E. M.(2001). Beyond the Goal: Eliyahu Goldratt

    speaks on the theory of constraints     (Your Coach in a Box). Audiobook.

    Goldratt, E. M. and Cox, J. (2004). The goal: A process of ongoing improvement.  Great Barrington, MA: North River Press.

    Johnson, S., & Blanchard, K., (1998). Who moved my cheese?: An a-mazing way to deal with change in your work and in your life. New York, NY: Penguin Group.
    Lundin, S. C., Paul,
    H., & Christensen, J. (2009). Fish!: A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and
    Improve Results. [Kindle Edition] Hyperion.

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  • This Company Just Admitted Its Business Model Is Broken – AMZN, NFLX, P, SIRI – Foolish Blogging Network

    This Company Just Admitted Its Business Model Is Broken – AMZN, NFLX, P, SIRI – Foolish Blogging Network:

    Broken as designed. It is always fun to see a business model that is broken.
    How long before the company run out of cash?


    This is reminiscent of the DotCom Bomb where all these Internet companies had no income and no profits. They got lots of funding, though. So this run through of cash was referred to as “burn rate”: how many months of cash did the company have before it completely runs out.


    Ouch! 🙁 


    As the bubble burst, all funding for all of the DocCom companies evaporated. Even worse, the margin calls for all of the investors forced investors to sell everything resulting in a reinforcing downward spiral. 


    Double Ouch.

    One thought, of course is that the increased volume/subscribers will result in the ability to change the paradigm.

      I don’t see how you fix Amazon into this mix however. Jeff Bezos makes a killing off of every book sold, even if the author doesn’t.


    Keywords: Amazon, AMNZ, NetFlix, Pandora, business model, broken model. burn rate

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