Except it is not spring. Wow. It is a season of CEO firings. First, it was Carol Bartz (Yahoo), and today it is Leo Apothekar (HP). Meg Whitman (ex-CEO of EBAY) replaces Leo. Read the NYTimes article here.
Category: leadership
Microsoft vs Apple
“For apple to be successful, we have to let go of a few things. One of the things that we need to let go, is the notion that, for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace the notion that, for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us, thats great, because we need all the help we can get. And if we screw up, and we dont do a good job, it is not someone else’s fault, it is our fault. So, if we want Microsoft Office for the Mac, we’d better treat the company that puts it out, with a little bit of gratitude. The era of setting up the stage as a competition between Microsoft and Apple is over, as far as I am concerned. ”
Steve Jobs, MacWorld 1997.
This was the time, when Gil Amelio was ousted, and Steve Jobs came back to Apple. Apple was close to bankruptcy. Microsoft bought some shares, which helped the company financially. A bunch of agreements got signed – including making IE as the default browser for Mac.
I (personally) think, Jobs showed a lot of maturity and humility in this speech. If you want to see the whole speech, see below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEHNrqPkefI&w=640&h=390]
Disney on money and movies …
Walt Disney’s mantra was, “I don’t make movies to make money—I make money to make movies.”
I just read this in an interview with Brad Bird of Pixar, on innovation and creativity. Disney’s quote is a beautiful one. Shows that, one cannot focus on money and innovation. at the same time.
360 degree leader summarized
Jason and Micheal have dedicated fridays to leadership in their excellent ‘blackbelt productivity’ blog. They have an excellent summary of John Maxwell’s book on 360 degree leader. Very very nicely written.
Check it out here. [weblink]
Great Mistakes in Technical Leadership
A gold mine of a find – hacknot.info website. The archives section contains a brilliant section of articles. Ranging all the way from Debugging 101 to the article titled the subject line of this post. The author (who says that he has about 13 years of experience in the software industry) says that he compiled this list of Great Mistakes in Technical Leadership by observation. He says there is no way of learning this, other than taking note of stupid mistakes committed by others.
The article starts off with the following quote :
If you are a good leader who talks little, they will say when your work is done and your aim fulfilled, “We did it ourselves.”
— Lao-Tse, cited in Becoming A Technical Leader – G. M. Weinberg, Dorset House, 1986
Read the full article here. [weblink]