Saturday, August 10, 2013

Jim Collins - Great by Choice

Jim Collins - Articles - Great by Choice

"Are you an Amundsen or a Scott?
In October 1911, two teams of adventurers made their final preparations in their quest to be the first people in modern history to reach the South Pole. For one team, it would be a race to victory and a safe return home. For the second team, it would be a devastating defeat, reaching the Pole only to find the wind-whipped flags of their rivals planted 34 days earlier, followed by a race for their lives -- a race that they lost in the end, as the advancing winter swallowed them up. All five members of the second Pole team perished, staggering from exhaustion, suffering the dead-black pain of frostbite, and then freezing to death as some wrote their final journal entries and notes to loved ones back home....

Amundsen and Scott achieved dramatically different outcomes not because they faced dramatically different circumstances...

Throughout the journey, Amundsen adhered to a regimen of consistent progress, never going too far in good weather, careful to stay far away from the red line of exhaustion that could leave his team exposed, yet pressing ahead in nasty weather to stay on pace... In contrast, Scott would sometimes drive his team to exhaustion on good days and then sit in his tent and complain about the weather on bad days...

"Financial markets are out of your control. Customers are out of your control. Earthquakes are out of your control. Global competition is out of your control. Technological change is out of your control. Most everything is ultimately out of your control. But when you 20-Mile March, you have a tangible point of focus that keeps you and your team moving forward, despite confusion, uncertainty, and even chaos."




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More Apple-Samsung Patent Struggle

Apple iPhone patent violated by Samsung, US trade court rules | Technology | The Guardian:
"Samsung violated two of Apple's iPhone patents and must end US import of some of its products, the top US trade court ruled...
  • Apple lawyer: Apple spent five years and $5bn to develop a product and it was a revolutionary product. Samsung said: 'We can copy it easily.' They spent three months to bring a product to market.
  • Samsung lawyer: monetary compensation would be an adequate remedy for any infringement."




This back-and-fourth is possible because both Apple and Samsung are "vertically integrated" production for the most part, or at least "large enough" (too large to fail?). For most of other companies, licensing to and from others is only option, and consequently it is an open competition, and also "race to bottom" prices and slower innovation?