Embracing Durability: A New Paradigm for Entrepreneurs

Number of words: 81 The overwhelming importance of future profits is counterintuitive even in Silicon Valley. For a company to be valuable it must grow and endure, but many entrepreneurs focus only on short-term growth. They have an excuse: growth is easy to measure, but durability isn’t. Those who succumb to measurement mania obsess about … Read more

The Evolution of Market Capitalization in Technology

Number of words: 67 Just as war cost the Montagues and Capulets their children, it cost Microsoft and Google their dominance: Apple came along and overtook them all. In January 2013, Apple’s market capitalization was $500 billion, while Google and Microsoft combined were worth $467 billion. Just three years before, Microsoft and Google were each … Read more

Making a monopoly by solving a unique problem

Number of words: 317 Monopolies drive progress because the promise of years or even decades of monopoly profits provides a powerful incentive to innovate. Then monopolies can keep innovating because profits enable them to make the long-term plans and to finance the ambitious research projects that firms locked in competition can’t dream of. So why … Read more

The Role of Innovation in Establishing Monopolies

Number of words: 350 The airlines compete with each other, but Google stands alone. Economists use two simplified models to explain the difference: perfect competition and monopoly. “Perfect competition” is considered both the ideal and the default state in Economics 101. So called perfectly competitive markets achieve equilibrium when producer supply meets consumer demand. Every … Read more

What important truth do very few people agree with you on?

Number of words: 122 WHENEVER I INTERVIEW someone for a job, I like to ask this question: “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?” This question sounds easy because it’s straightforward. Actually, it’s very hard to answer. It’s intellectually difficult because the knowledge that everyone is taught in school is by … Read more

Every moment in business happens only once.

Number of words: 58 Every moment in business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them. Excerpted … Read more

Plug-In Hybrids

Number of words: 221 The event and the campaign it was designed to support were the brainchildren of Austin Energy, a power-generating utility owned by the city of Austin, Texas. Austin Energy’s campaign has already won the endorsement of dozens of cities and towns, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Denver, as well as Austin … Read more

The loophole that boosted SUV sales

Number of words: 227 The tragedy is that there is no greater symbol of Detroit’s malaise than this SUV on steroids. GM unveiled its first Hummer at just about the time it decided to pull the plug on its EVI, the sleek, all-electric car that was sold only in California and parts of the American … Read more