As a prelude to a recent board meeting, I had a long meeting with a portfolio CEO who was seeking counsel on the myriad of budget alternatives available to him. The company is performing quite well, but not surprisingly, given the uncertain macro environment, many well formed opinions have sprouted regarding the going forward budget. Essentially, the age old question of whether it is nobler to be brave, or wiser to be conservative is rearing its head.
Oftentimes, these discussions at the board level become granular, delving into number of hires, departments to reduce/expand, and where to allocate suddenly scarce resources. My experience is that where a board maintains confidence in a CEO, such discussions, usually dominated by one board member (while the others seek an accommodation), rapidly become counter-productive as they reduce the degrees of freedom the CEO has available to produce the results desired by all stakeholders. Moreover, from a cultural perspective, granular, board driven, mandates separate authority from responsibility. Thereby, violating a timeworn good management tenant.
I am fully supportive of a board's role in providing advice and consent and have often found the advice part of the equation is best proffered in an informal setting. But too often I have seen the broad interpretation of this responsibility crossing a critical, yet invisible line where well-meaning thoughts on budgets, personnel, or (heaven forbid) product management, become the law of the land, tragically diminishing shareholder potential value.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
CloudFront
I am a believer that Information Technology companies, at their best, export deflationary capabilities to their customers. Amazon's CloudFront, their Content Distribution Network, is a great example of a service that enables software/internet companies to export lower prices to their customers. Here's a quote that details their recent pricing announcement:
"Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is announcing new pricing tiers for Amazon CloudFront, our high-performance, pay-as-you-go content delivery service. The new pricing tiers decrease the price of delivering content to as low as $0.05 per gigabyte delivered for high volume users. As you know, we are committed to continually reducing our costs, and to passing those savings on to you in the form of lower prices." I find a few things significant here:
1. The pricing seems to be substantially below CDN market leader Akamai (maybe as low as 50%), and on a par with a perceived lower quality, yet large avaialablity, Level3
2. Unlike Akamai and many other CDN's, there is no minimum commitment, so it's available for young companies striving for capital efficiency when it most counts.
3. The sign-up is via self-service. No salespeople, limited marketing, and Support Engineers means a huge % of the gross margin comes down to Amazon's pre-tax line.
Sales, marketing and support is precisely the area where the majority of expenses for young internet/software companies is directed. By affecting the 50-60% of a firm's total spending directed to sales, marketing and support, the fundamental economic equation changes.
More value is available to be distributed back to shareholders, invested in the company, or returned to customers in the form of lower prices. Extending self-service, usually seen in application provisioning (see Reimage for a classic example) is a natural progression that, when properly implemented, totally disrupts a market's existing economics....as Amazon is now doing to CDN's. This is a broad opportunity that cuts wide and deep for investors, management teams and customers. The only losers I can see here are existing industry players, and a prospect for reduced employment as efficiencies in production and distribution are realized throughout the value chain.
It seems as if Amazon is busy seizing a broader market opportunity than visibly apparent in CDN. Take a look at the other relevant services, listed below, easily available for its customers. When you do, think WebOS and the emerging importance of Amazon to the internet development ecosystem. Then compare these attributes to MSFT's focus on its proprietary ecosystem. I doubt MSFT's client-centric approach, or their lusting after Yahoo's search business, will free them to embrace this market shift. Speaking of Yahoo, however, it could be a wonderful opportunity for them to leverage a vast global web oriented infrastructure (as Google is) to be a contender for primacy within the WebOS sweepstakes.
Here's the related Amazon services:
Amazon Associates Web Service™
Amazon Simple Storage Service™
Amazon CloudFront™
Amazon Simple Queue Service™
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud™
Alexa® Web Services
Amazon Flexible Payments Service™
Amazon DevPay Service™
Amazon SimpleDB Service™
Amazon Fulfillment Web Service™
Amazon Web Services Premium Support
Of interest to developers building applications is rapidly layering application components/distros on top of such an ecosystem. In an environment where 80+% of code is recycled, having access to discover, understand, and use market tested components is a logical extension to the WebOS (see information on my investment in Cloudsmith for more details).
Building, and exporting, deflationary services is a time tested way for IT companies to build value and will be an important investing consideration for me.
"Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is announcing new pricing tiers for Amazon CloudFront, our high-performance, pay-as-you-go content delivery service. The new pricing tiers decrease the price of delivering content to as low as $0.05 per gigabyte delivered for high volume users. As you know, we are committed to continually reducing our costs, and to passing those savings on to you in the form of lower prices." I find a few things significant here:
1. The pricing seems to be substantially below CDN market leader Akamai (maybe as low as 50%), and on a par with a perceived lower quality, yet large avaialablity, Level3
2. Unlike Akamai and many other CDN's, there is no minimum commitment, so it's available for young companies striving for capital efficiency when it most counts.
3. The sign-up is via self-service. No salespeople, limited marketing, and Support Engineers means a huge % of the gross margin comes down to Amazon's pre-tax line.
Sales, marketing and support is precisely the area where the majority of expenses for young internet/software companies is directed. By affecting the 50-60% of a firm's total spending directed to sales, marketing and support, the fundamental economic equation changes.
More value is available to be distributed back to shareholders, invested in the company, or returned to customers in the form of lower prices. Extending self-service, usually seen in application provisioning (see Reimage for a classic example) is a natural progression that, when properly implemented, totally disrupts a market's existing economics....as Amazon is now doing to CDN's. This is a broad opportunity that cuts wide and deep for investors, management teams and customers. The only losers I can see here are existing industry players, and a prospect for reduced employment as efficiencies in production and distribution are realized throughout the value chain.
It seems as if Amazon is busy seizing a broader market opportunity than visibly apparent in CDN. Take a look at the other relevant services, listed below, easily available for its customers. When you do, think WebOS and the emerging importance of Amazon to the internet development ecosystem. Then compare these attributes to MSFT's focus on its proprietary ecosystem. I doubt MSFT's client-centric approach, or their lusting after Yahoo's search business, will free them to embrace this market shift. Speaking of Yahoo, however, it could be a wonderful opportunity for them to leverage a vast global web oriented infrastructure (as Google is) to be a contender for primacy within the WebOS sweepstakes.
Here's the related Amazon services:
Amazon Associates Web Service™
Amazon Simple Storage Service™
Amazon CloudFront™
Amazon Simple Queue Service™
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud™
Alexa® Web Services
Amazon Flexible Payments Service™
Amazon DevPay Service™
Amazon SimpleDB Service™
Amazon Fulfillment Web Service™
Amazon Web Services Premium Support
Of interest to developers building applications is rapidly layering application components/distros on top of such an ecosystem. In an environment where 80+% of code is recycled, having access to discover, understand, and use market tested components is a logical extension to the WebOS (see information on my investment in Cloudsmith for more details).
Building, and exporting, deflationary services is a time tested way for IT companies to build value and will be an important investing consideration for me.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Yahoo, Robert Rubin and my smart friend Larry
Yesterday, Yahoo released its Q4 earnings (slides here) and, despite prognosticators who were expecting disaster, showed Y/Y net revenue down 2% and up 4% Q/Q. EBITDA was $542MM and cash was up $238mm Q/Q (to $3.5B).
Highlighting the strength of their online media based franchise, measured by page-views, Yahoo continues to lead eleven major categories (such as finance, mail, news, sports, homepage). No doubt that from a micro perspective, there is still gold in those hills.
Turning to a macro view, last night, my smart friend Larry and I saw ex-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin speak about the economy and policy alternatives (link to Dealbook article here). Mr. Rubin is a brilliant and articulate businessman, turned politician, who opined about the causes and cure for the economic crisis. His sentiment is that for at least the past 4 years (I am not sure if this timing was intended to give distance from the Clinton Administration), systemic risk was being habitually understated and a confluence of low probability factors produced the most extensive market contraction we have seen in 70 years.
At its core, the surge in housing prices, while real wages remained stagnant, produced a pyramid that grew unnaturally. Aided by the failure of the ratings agencies and complacent banking practices a magnification of risk, through the rampant use of derivatives (whose use is not balanced/limited by underlying asset values, created a recipe for disaster. In short, the economic train was accelerating and no one was minding the speed limit (the government), or wearing seat belts (you and I).
He sees us engaged in a global economic crisis that requires Sovereign States to work in a coordinated manner in a world that is hyper-linked. Unfortunately, in his view, the G8, or G20 do not represent an effective body as States are hesitant to surrender elements of their fiscal policy authority, which is required for a unified response.
While supportive of the fiscal stimulus, as the #1 priority for the Obama administration, he is concerned that a long-term effect of the stimulus may lead to massive debt/deficits that will undermine currency and bond markets. Moreover, the moral hazard of industry bail-outs encourages risk taking, as the perception is that the government will always provide a safety-net.
Back to Larry and Yahoo.
Before the Mr. Rubin's speech Larry noted that most of the companies in his portfolio either met or exceeded their Q4 and yearly goals. Ticking down the various markets, management actions, and company objectives, he was wondering whether the industries at the eye of the storm (media and hedge meltdowns/frauds) were possibly generating a more dire perspective than was warranted. Certainly, Yahoo, being one of the most vilified companies in the Internet arena is not in the dire straights one would have expected by reading the articles lampooning Mr Yang as a dunce, or the Company as toast.
It is wonderful to hear a fresh perspective that challenges whether we are seeing Sunshine, or living a Daydream
Highlighting the strength of their online media based franchise, measured by page-views, Yahoo continues to lead eleven major categories (such as finance, mail, news, sports, homepage). No doubt that from a micro perspective, there is still gold in those hills.
Turning to a macro view, last night, my smart friend Larry and I saw ex-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin speak about the economy and policy alternatives (link to Dealbook article here). Mr. Rubin is a brilliant and articulate businessman, turned politician, who opined about the causes and cure for the economic crisis. His sentiment is that for at least the past 4 years (I am not sure if this timing was intended to give distance from the Clinton Administration), systemic risk was being habitually understated and a confluence of low probability factors produced the most extensive market contraction we have seen in 70 years.
At its core, the surge in housing prices, while real wages remained stagnant, produced a pyramid that grew unnaturally. Aided by the failure of the ratings agencies and complacent banking practices a magnification of risk, through the rampant use of derivatives (whose use is not balanced/limited by underlying asset values, created a recipe for disaster. In short, the economic train was accelerating and no one was minding the speed limit (the government), or wearing seat belts (you and I).
He sees us engaged in a global economic crisis that requires Sovereign States to work in a coordinated manner in a world that is hyper-linked. Unfortunately, in his view, the G8, or G20 do not represent an effective body as States are hesitant to surrender elements of their fiscal policy authority, which is required for a unified response.
While supportive of the fiscal stimulus, as the #1 priority for the Obama administration, he is concerned that a long-term effect of the stimulus may lead to massive debt/deficits that will undermine currency and bond markets. Moreover, the moral hazard of industry bail-outs encourages risk taking, as the perception is that the government will always provide a safety-net.
Back to Larry and Yahoo.
Before the Mr. Rubin's speech Larry noted that most of the companies in his portfolio either met or exceeded their Q4 and yearly goals. Ticking down the various markets, management actions, and company objectives, he was wondering whether the industries at the eye of the storm (media and hedge meltdowns/frauds) were possibly generating a more dire perspective than was warranted. Certainly, Yahoo, being one of the most vilified companies in the Internet arena is not in the dire straights one would have expected by reading the articles lampooning Mr Yang as a dunce, or the Company as toast.
It is wonderful to hear a fresh perspective that challenges whether we are seeing Sunshine, or living a Daydream
Monday, January 26, 2009
The curious case of Benjamin Button
Meeting with a serial successful internet CEO the other day I was struck how recent events in his Company's business reflected the storyline from this well received movie where a man essentially lives life in reverse; from old age back to infancy.
Fast out of the gate, his Company successfully raised capital and introduced its first product nine months after its founding. Heartened by favorable reviews and initial customer wins management, with vigorous board support, completed an expansion round and set about investing the capital to build a business leader. Remote offices, staffed with experienced sales and BD folk were established, marketing dollars helped establish the brand, and the service was scaled to provide a good (though not extravagant) user experience. In short order, the Company rapidly grew from its infancy to adulthood.
Little did management/the board know that its life-stage was closer to old age than to infancy. Expectations were that a foundation was being built to serve a long and healthy corporate life. Nevertheless, over the past 90 days, in reaction to a vastly altered stage of its target market, the Company has been living life in reverse; shedding assets, becoming 'younger', just like Benjamin Button.
We're not talking about a cut here and a cut there, these are actions being taken by an experienced, and decisive management team. Not needing the prodding of a Sequoia memo, or a series of soul searching board meeting, offices have been shuttered, employees laid-off, unworthy customers terminated, and brand marketing severely reduced. Though only a couple of years old, the Company seems to be preparing for the second half of a hoped for up ->down->up round-trip life cycle.
With a few million dollars of revenue, management is close to reducing the team back to its few core employees, thereby forcing profitability and deferring 'aging' investments till a more favorable customer solution/environment presents itself.
In the annals of our Industry's history, not many firms have successfully navigated the Case of Benjamin Button; though quite a number completed mid-course corrections (Google, Yahoo, and Apple to name a few) with profoundly positive shareholder outcomes.
Fast out of the gate, his Company successfully raised capital and introduced its first product nine months after its founding. Heartened by favorable reviews and initial customer wins management, with vigorous board support, completed an expansion round and set about investing the capital to build a business leader. Remote offices, staffed with experienced sales and BD folk were established, marketing dollars helped establish the brand, and the service was scaled to provide a good (though not extravagant) user experience. In short order, the Company rapidly grew from its infancy to adulthood.
Little did management/the board know that its life-stage was closer to old age than to infancy. Expectations were that a foundation was being built to serve a long and healthy corporate life. Nevertheless, over the past 90 days, in reaction to a vastly altered stage of its target market, the Company has been living life in reverse; shedding assets, becoming 'younger', just like Benjamin Button.
We're not talking about a cut here and a cut there, these are actions being taken by an experienced, and decisive management team. Not needing the prodding of a Sequoia memo, or a series of soul searching board meeting, offices have been shuttered, employees laid-off, unworthy customers terminated, and brand marketing severely reduced. Though only a couple of years old, the Company seems to be preparing for the second half of a hoped for up ->down->up round-trip life cycle.
With a few million dollars of revenue, management is close to reducing the team back to its few core employees, thereby forcing profitability and deferring 'aging' investments till a more favorable customer solution/environment presents itself.
In the annals of our Industry's history, not many firms have successfully navigated the Case of Benjamin Button; though quite a number completed mid-course corrections (Google, Yahoo, and Apple to name a few) with profoundly positive shareholder outcomes.
Friday, January 23, 2009
8 miles high and when you touch down....
A bit prematurely, Roger McGuinn really hit the tone that describes global economic sentiment.
Today, I spent time with a long-time friend who has spent a successful career making GDP sized bets around macro market themes. As a reference, last winter he was a raging pessimist as he was bemoaning that a prudent person could not short the market enough to reflect true underlying value. In our meeting, he shared an updated perspective for his core concerns:
1. The lead US banks are heading towards being nationalized. We are caught between choosing amongst a lesser evil; the existing mismanagement and misalignment between employers, shareholders and customers on one hand, and on the other, the potential that, under government management, it could be worse.
2. Our economy experienced faux growth over at least the past 5 years, the only question is how rapid will be the adjustment to a more normalized (lower) standard of living be.
3. This adjustment is deflationary and governments, with decades of experience in handling inflation are woefully ill equipped to handle declining prices, tax bases, and output.
4. Odds are that well meaning government actions will give us unintended consequences which only exacerbate an unsteady situation.
Given this sober perspective, he also noted that the best safe port he sees in this maelstrom is the Information Technology sector. "It is an industry with the mindset that next year's products must be less expensive, and offer more value than last year's. It is not capital intensive, and balance sheets tend to be flush with cash."
While I agree with many of his points, I think an important extension of the thesis is in order. When innovating, Information Technology companies export deflation to their customers. They enable them to perform tasks with less labor, lower overall costs, and to do them faster.
In the past few years, our industry was built on a 'permacheap' product management culture, fueled by Moore's Law, and augmented by Metcalf's . Over the past 25 years, customers learned to rely on important vendors, such as MSFT, CA, and Oracle to help them reduce costs, and share that value with their customers. They looked forward to learning about new vendors, with innovative sparks, that may accelerate this trend. In many ways, we have strayed from that vision...and our customers are letting us know it.
The fundamental elements (reduced infrastructure and development expenses, real-time feedback, and a wired globe) are in place to recapture the customer value that drove extraordinary shareholder returns for decades. A return to the time tested trilogy of 'faster, better, cheaper' seems like true religion to me.
Today, I spent time with a long-time friend who has spent a successful career making GDP sized bets around macro market themes. As a reference, last winter he was a raging pessimist as he was bemoaning that a prudent person could not short the market enough to reflect true underlying value. In our meeting, he shared an updated perspective for his core concerns:
1. The lead US banks are heading towards being nationalized. We are caught between choosing amongst a lesser evil; the existing mismanagement and misalignment between employers, shareholders and customers on one hand, and on the other, the potential that, under government management, it could be worse.
2. Our economy experienced faux growth over at least the past 5 years, the only question is how rapid will be the adjustment to a more normalized (lower) standard of living be.
3. This adjustment is deflationary and governments, with decades of experience in handling inflation are woefully ill equipped to handle declining prices, tax bases, and output.
4. Odds are that well meaning government actions will give us unintended consequences which only exacerbate an unsteady situation.
Given this sober perspective, he also noted that the best safe port he sees in this maelstrom is the Information Technology sector. "It is an industry with the mindset that next year's products must be less expensive, and offer more value than last year's. It is not capital intensive, and balance sheets tend to be flush with cash."
While I agree with many of his points, I think an important extension of the thesis is in order. When innovating, Information Technology companies export deflation to their customers. They enable them to perform tasks with less labor, lower overall costs, and to do them faster.
In the past few years, our industry was built on a 'permacheap' product management culture, fueled by Moore's Law, and augmented by Metcalf's . Over the past 25 years, customers learned to rely on important vendors, such as MSFT, CA, and Oracle to help them reduce costs, and share that value with their customers. They looked forward to learning about new vendors, with innovative sparks, that may accelerate this trend. In many ways, we have strayed from that vision...and our customers are letting us know it.
The fundamental elements (reduced infrastructure and development expenses, real-time feedback, and a wired globe) are in place to recapture the customer value that drove extraordinary shareholder returns for decades. A return to the time tested trilogy of 'faster, better, cheaper' seems like true religion to me.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Windows 7, AJAX,, Bberry and my living room
Walt Mossberg wrote a positive pre-review of Windows 7 in the WSJ. He's a wonderful writer with a honed skill to express himself with the voice of you and I. His perspective is that Windows 7 looks to be Vista done right, with one major advancement towards UI support of touch screens for the desktop/notebook.
Perhaps, he's right that after 3 painful years, where hardware vendors 'upgraded' us to the PREVIOUS Windows version for $150, Windows OS' will again provide acceptable performance. I think not. What was designed as acceptable 3 years ago, pre iPhone/Blackberry Bold is no longer state of the art in this fast changing computing environment. Nor, as a platform supportive of where the going forward opportunity is for the industry and its entrepreneurs.
Over the past 3 years, many of us have enjoyed a steady migration away from desktop applications, towards cloud based services, including storage. I would love my PC to support, even enable this phenomenon. After watching a seamless feed of Mr. Obama take the oath of office via Hulu it's apparent that bandwidth, though not HD capable yet for a streamed environment, is a good enough, and rapidly improving, viewing experience.
Important innovations in the AJAX world are fueling a rich client feel to web based applications. No doubt we will shortly enjoy measurable improvements in the serving of content, and the web based application experience that will accelerate our move away from a client-centric OS. Already, GOOG's suite of applications, Zimbra/Yahoo, and Salesforce's experiences rival current 'rich' client experiences; and they are rapidly improving with steady browser, UI and computational innovations that are notable for MSFT's absence of leadership.
I would also like a PC to be as DUMB as possible, give me bullet proof appliance-like hardware, browser at the ready, with sufficient bandwidth to fetch cloud based applications, content, and bring relationships to me, or enable me to discover new and exciting places of interest. Facilitate a device to be my personal media server, on call to send my content, or web preferences to a chosen remote device (smart phone or XBox) on demand. Free me from limited content ownership by supporting access (like Pandora). While the PC is getting simpler, let's have an OS design philosophy that supports the stunning price/value equation embraced by consumers in the netbook market.
The metaphor of PC based computing, which happens to be web enabled, has reached its innovative dead-end. Cloud based computing, brought to a device (which may be a PC), is the present and near future. Till MSFT shows the courage to more aggressively 'eats its young' we will remain dissatisfied, as users, with their direction. Sure, Windows 7 boots faster and supports almost as many devices as XP...yawn.
MSFT rightfully earned its dominant position by commoditizing the desktop. They brought incredible value by simultaneously reducing the initial cost of applications, decreasing training through standardization of the UI, and plummeting our total cost of ownership. They have lost their 'permacheap' credentials to a host of competitors ranging from Google, to Red Hat and even a not for profit, Mozilla. This is only a sampling of the first generation of vendors attacking aging application and infrastructure 'permacheap' holdouts. I expect many more will savage the rising cost of ownership numbers, reduce user networked complexity, and cast a light on implicit relationships.
As an investor in early stage software/internet companies, I could not be happier that an older generation of vendors has built a walled-garden of maintenance drug-like revenue annuities. The IT industry's hardware, software and internet vendors are in the midst of a consolidation wave that exacerbates their exposure to permacheap, disposable solutions.
I am wishing them many more good reviews to support their somnolence while they cling to the tyranny of a client-centric time, whistling our favorite Cricket tune
Perhaps, he's right that after 3 painful years, where hardware vendors 'upgraded' us to the PREVIOUS Windows version for $150, Windows OS' will again provide acceptable performance. I think not. What was designed as acceptable 3 years ago, pre iPhone/Blackberry Bold is no longer state of the art in this fast changing computing environment. Nor, as a platform supportive of where the going forward opportunity is for the industry and its entrepreneurs.
Over the past 3 years, many of us have enjoyed a steady migration away from desktop applications, towards cloud based services, including storage. I would love my PC to support, even enable this phenomenon. After watching a seamless feed of Mr. Obama take the oath of office via Hulu it's apparent that bandwidth, though not HD capable yet for a streamed environment, is a good enough, and rapidly improving, viewing experience.
Important innovations in the AJAX world are fueling a rich client feel to web based applications. No doubt we will shortly enjoy measurable improvements in the serving of content, and the web based application experience that will accelerate our move away from a client-centric OS. Already, GOOG's suite of applications, Zimbra/Yahoo, and Salesforce's experiences rival current 'rich' client experiences; and they are rapidly improving with steady browser, UI and computational innovations that are notable for MSFT's absence of leadership.
I would also like a PC to be as DUMB as possible, give me bullet proof appliance-like hardware, browser at the ready, with sufficient bandwidth to fetch cloud based applications, content, and bring relationships to me, or enable me to discover new and exciting places of interest. Facilitate a device to be my personal media server, on call to send my content, or web preferences to a chosen remote device (smart phone or XBox) on demand. Free me from limited content ownership by supporting access (like Pandora). While the PC is getting simpler, let's have an OS design philosophy that supports the stunning price/value equation embraced by consumers in the netbook market.
The metaphor of PC based computing, which happens to be web enabled, has reached its innovative dead-end. Cloud based computing, brought to a device (which may be a PC), is the present and near future. Till MSFT shows the courage to more aggressively 'eats its young' we will remain dissatisfied, as users, with their direction. Sure, Windows 7 boots faster and supports almost as many devices as XP...yawn.
MSFT rightfully earned its dominant position by commoditizing the desktop. They brought incredible value by simultaneously reducing the initial cost of applications, decreasing training through standardization of the UI, and plummeting our total cost of ownership. They have lost their 'permacheap' credentials to a host of competitors ranging from Google, to Red Hat and even a not for profit, Mozilla. This is only a sampling of the first generation of vendors attacking aging application and infrastructure 'permacheap' holdouts. I expect many more will savage the rising cost of ownership numbers, reduce user networked complexity, and cast a light on implicit relationships.
As an investor in early stage software/internet companies, I could not be happier that an older generation of vendors has built a walled-garden of maintenance drug-like revenue annuities. The IT industry's hardware, software and internet vendors are in the midst of a consolidation wave that exacerbates their exposure to permacheap, disposable solutions.
I am wishing them many more good reviews to support their somnolence while they cling to the tyranny of a client-centric time, whistling our favorite Cricket tune
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Apple's CFO summarizes core values
Peter Oppenheimer, CFO of Apple, outlined the company's core values:
1. We believe in the simple, not the complex.
2. We believe we need to own the primary technologies that we make, and only participate in markets where we can make a significant contribution.
3. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups. We don't settle for anything less than excellence. We admit when we are wrong and have the courage to change.
On a somewhat related topic, here's a link to the 2005 Stanford commencement address by Steve Jobs
1. We believe in the simple, not the complex.
2. We believe we need to own the primary technologies that we make, and only participate in markets where we can make a significant contribution.
3. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups. We don't settle for anything less than excellence. We admit when we are wrong and have the courage to change.
On a somewhat related topic, here's a link to the 2005 Stanford commencement address by Steve Jobs
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