Tag: apple

Latest Read: The Four

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date December 26, 2021

The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google by Scott Galloway. Scott is a Professor of Marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business. He led startups at Prophet, Red Envelope and L2, which was acquired by Gartner.

Scott has also served on the boards of media companies including The New York Times, Dex Media, Advanstar, Gateway, Urban Outfitters and Eddie Bauer. He joined the faculty of NYU’s Stern School of Business in 2014.

So Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are deemed by Scott as the Four Horsemen. The data Scott provides is rich at the time of publication. It would be well worth hit time to release a second edition: The Four Horsemen of the Pandemic, as their metrics will be even more amazing to understand how they have grown from 2017. This is amazingly, just four years from the release as well.

Throughout the book Scott addresses his move from private business to teaching at NYU, where the cost of education is $500 per minute.
While reading Scott’s book at the close of 2021, the omicron variant is surging and according to Scott in 2017 their reach (and profits) should be soaring to new gigantic heights.

Surprisingly, Scott not only portions each company in the marketplace they dominate, but also how they are now digging in to complete with one another.

Tags amazon, apple, facebook, Google, Scott Galloway, The Four

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Latest Read: Trillion Dollar Coach

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date October 11, 2020

Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle. This is one of a few books that I recommend without hesitation to anyone. In addition, you do not need to be a manager to benefit from Bill’s coaching others to wild success.

Surprisingly Bill Campbell spent five years coaching football at Columbia. Then he coached many of the most successful technology teams driving innovation across Silicon Valley.

This book was written by three Google leaders in other words, based upon their coaching relationship with Bill over many years.

Eric Schmidt is the former Executive Chairman of Alphabet and ex-Google CEO. Jonathan Rosenberg was a Senior Vice President at Google. Today he is an advisor to the Alphabet management team. In addition, he ran the Google product team from 2002 to 2011. Alan Eagle is Director of Executive Communications at Google. He has been working at Google since 2007. As a result, all three grew as leaders via Bill’s wisdom.

Similarly Bill was a driving success for several prominent companies including Apple, and Intuit.

Bill’s relationships with Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and many more CEOs throughout the book reveal Bill’s coaching mantra.

Tags apple, Bill Campbell, Coach, Google, Intuit, leadership

Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: Start with Why

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date July 25, 2020

Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek helps identify an idea of a ‘golden circle’ in three consecutive rings. The Why, How, and What provide a foundation to show certain stories are successful. When measuring ‘why’ they succeeded against, in some cases overwhelming odds.

Simon acknowledges that many talented companies make good products. But they are also a short term success story. Simon shows how Tivo fits this example.

But only a few really understand ‘the why’ that makes their efforts timeless. These groups (or individuals) succeed beyond all expectations. Focusing on your purpose and cause you cannot only find success, but also differentiate yourself.

Above all, Simon’s story of the Wright Brothers success is a key example of ‘Why’ matters. Simon provides a vivid example of achieving success based upon the Golden Circle.

Samuel Langley worked to become the first man to fly an airplane. He was very qualified to tackle this challenge. In 1880 he invent the Bolometer. Langley was a professor of mathematics at the Naval Academy. He also worked at Harvard University. By the late 1880s, Langley was a senior officer at the Smithsonian Institution. Then the US War Department funded ($50,000 grant) his airplane project. Langley assembled a team of very talented engineers. Even Alexander Gram Bell followed Langley and photographed early test flights. So by all accounts he was gong to be the first to fly a plane.

Tags apple, golden circle, Martin Luther King, Simon Sinek, start with why, Wright Brothers

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Latest read: The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date October 9, 2015

Tim Wu’s second book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires is wonderful examination how American information empires were established and stifled innovation at the same time. This is my second book by Wu following his brilliant Who Controls the Internet.
Wu identifies long business cycles surrounding the birth of information systems. While they begin open over time they were consolidated and driven by the market to become closed.

We displays how they become open again following amazing innovations force a business change in order to survive in the new marketplace.

The Master Switch opens with the birth of the Bell AT&T telephone monopoly. This is a facinating story when held against the garage startups of Apple and Google.

There is an amazing look at how countries and cultures also view information empires differently. The case for Wu is the capitalist, independent market approach to radio vs the UK’s BBC dominated by the royal family.

The Master Switch reveals how four key markets actually hold government infrastructure: telecommunications, banking, energy and transportation. These four and their capitalist owners for generations established control over any citizen’s attempt at challenging their monopolies. The lesson Wu establishes is corporate control by closed technologies. Yet one cannot help but understand they magically protected the country from the devastating affects of revolution leading up to and more importantly the horrific aftermath of World War I that forever removed Paris as the hub for film entertainment.

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Latest Read: Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date April 28, 2015

Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution is a remarkable book about the explosive relationship between Apple and Google as smartphones and tablets came to dominate the PC marketplace. This is a historical view of the final battle of Steve Job’s life and the work by Google to win over the digital battlefield from both Apple and Microsoft.

Dogfight is a smashing success in revealing how human technology companies really are today and the enormous demands they place upon their employees. They create the tools for our digital lifestyles and the means in which it drives new business models (and society) on a global scale. Its truly magnificent.

Since Dogfight is centered around the last days of Steve Jobs many readers may be intrigued to learn how he was personally making Apple vulnerable to Google’s Android by placing so much trust in Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Schmidt. Interesting lessons for us all.

The most interesting aspect for me was understanding the complex relationship between Google and Apple when Microsoft was in charge of the PC market. Clearly Microsoft missed the smartphone and tablet market and now may be forever a forgone player in that space. Even industry leaders are acknowledging that in the mobile space there are only two OS platforms to consider: iOS and Android. Amazing how Microsoft lost its way.

Tags android, apple, business, Design, Eric Schmidt, Google, ipad, iphone, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, steve jobs, Technology, tipping point