“If you have to swallow a frog, don’t look at it too long.” — Jim Clayton, quoting his grandfather Jim Clayton nearly lost everything. His assets were seized. He refused to waste time complaining about it or feeling sorry for himself. The morning after nearly losing it all, he met his wife and team at a […]
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“We give our customers what they need, not just what they have.” — Michael Bloomberg Today, it’s easy to look at Bloomberg and see a durable competitive advantage. But it wasn’t always that way. Far from it. In 1981, after being forced out of Salomon Brothers at age 39, Michael Bloomberg received roughly $10 million from
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“To succeed, you must string together many small incremental advances rather than count on hitting the lottery jackpot once.” — Michael Bloomberg If you’ve ever wondered how to achieve success, Michael Bloomberg’s answer is surprisingly simple: keep moving. In 1981, Michael Bloomberg left Salomon Brothers with $10 million and set up a tiny operation called Innovative
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“We need to build the concept that will kill Dick’s Sporting Goods.” — Ed Stack Industrial carpet manufacturer Ray Anderson faced an unexpected question in the mid-1990s. A customer asked what Interface was doing for the environment. He froze. The honest answer was nothing. Interface simply complied with environmental regulations. Then one book changed everything:
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“Sometimes the most profitable decision on a spreadsheet is the worst decision for a business.” — Ed Stack In the mid-2010s, Dick’s Sporting Goods bought GameChanger, an app used by baseball and softball coaches for scorekeeping, live-streaming, and scheduling. Dick’s turned the app into a data engine disguised as a coaching tool. It gave the product
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“Do right for the company. Do right for society. You can’t prosper unless the community around you prospers.” — Ed Stack At the start of the 2000s, British Cycling barely mattered. Then British Cycling hired Dave Brailsford. In more than a century, Britain had produced no Tour de France winners and just one Olympic gold medal.
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Ample Hills Creamery began as a husband-and-wife ice cream shop in Brooklyn, serving some of the city’s best ice cream. It quickly attracted famous fans, including Bob Iger and Oprah Winfrey. Success brought opportunity. The founders chased nearly every opportunity that came their way. They stopped focusing on the thing that made the business special.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to make internet search dramatically better. They built a search engine that was clean, fast, and almost unnervingly good at finding information. It quickly left its rivals behind. Their new company, Google, became something very close to a monopoly. AdWords turned it into one of the greatest money-printing machines
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Peter Thiel’s venture fund is looking for the next big winner. It’s the early 2000s. His team comes across a little-known startup called Facebook. Instead of spreading their money around, they make a highly concentrated bet. That single investment returns thousands of times its original cost. The Facebook investment ultimately generated more profit than every
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Dietrich Mateschitz decided to take Red Bull global in the 1980s. Market researchers and consultants told him it would fail. Testers said the drink tasted terrible, and advisors warned he couldn’t compete with Coca-Cola. Early losses seemed to prove them right. What they missed was the Dietrich Mateschitz philosophy: keep moving. For a goal-obsessed entrepreneur,
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