Starbucks was in trouble. Nearly 20% of the new stores opened during its aggressive expansion were closing. Customers were pulling back. Construction costs were spiraling. Founder Howard Schultz was scrambling to steady the company. There was only one way out: refocus on the customer and rebuild the Starbucks turnaround strategy from the ground up. In […]
Starbucks Turnaround: How Howard Schultz Saved the Brand Read More »
In the middle of trying to land a rocket that no one had ever landed before, SpaceX stumbled into the problem that became its greatest competitive advantage. The kind of problem that makes sensible companies quietly change the subject. SpaceX leaned in. Instead of asking whether a reusable rocket was practical, Elon Musk asked why
Elon Musk and SpaceX: Why Difficulty Is the Ultimate Moat Read More »
Talent density. A bias toward action. Working alongside your team to solve problems. These are the SpaceX leadership lessons baked into the operating system Elon Musk installed on day one. Liftoff tells the SpaceX story from the very beginning. Musk hired the best people in the world—and then pushed them relentlessly to act. That pressure
SpaceX Leadership Lessons: How Talent, Speed, and Presence Built the Impossible Read More »
The best product doesn’t always win. Power belongs to the person who controls distribution, access, and relationships. The Formula highlights three Bernie Ecclestone business lessons from his tenure at F1: control the game, not the participants; leverage beats authority; and the world revolves around relationships. He mastered all three. Bernie Eccelstone figured that out early—long
Bernie Ecclestone Business Lessons: From the Man Who Controlled Formula One Read More »
Big gains in performance don’t come from piling on more inputs. They come from a focus on the variable you can control and likely overlook. The ones that others are unwilling to test, or simply don’t understand. Formula One looks like a sport about speed, money, and horsepower. That’s the surface story. Beneath it, the
Focus on the Variable You Can Control: Adrian Newey, Colin Chapman, and Formula One Read More »
Repetition leads to mastery, but only if you’re repeating the right questions. It’s one of the quieter Tony Hsieh Zappos lessons in Delivering Happiness. At Zappos, repetition showed up as asking why again and again. Hsieh wanted to understand why they were building what they were building. Another lesson Tony Hsieh emphasized was deceptively simple:
Ask Why, Then Wow Customers: Tony Hsieh Zappos Lessons Read More »
The Zappos business model, selling shoes online, looks obvious in hindsight. But the real Tony Hsieh Zappos lessons come from how it was actually built—through iteration, mistakes, and deliberate choices. Founder Tony Hsieh learned a few lessons building Zappos. One: learn by doing, not overplanning. Two: never outsource your core competency. Three: invest time, money,
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Tony Hsieh founded Zappos, an online shoe company that Amazon eventually bought for over a billion dollars. Before that, he co-founded Link Exchange, an ad network Microsoft bought outright. Somewhere between these two exits, Hsieh arrived at a counterintuitive conclusion: happiness before success mattered more to him than anything else. Delivering Happiness is deceptively simple
Happiness Before Success: What Zappos’ Tony Hsieh Taught Me About Freedom Read More »
What a rewarding and fulfilling reading year this has been. I hit my goal of reading at least 50 pages a day, and along the way, I also permitted myself to stop reading books that didn’t hold my attention. The result is a 2025 reading list I’m proud of—one that spans history, business, philosophy, sports,
2025 Reading List: My 52 Best Books of 2025 Read More »
Finding work that feels like play is the holy grail of a career. Phil Knight returns to this idea again and again in Shoe Dog. To him, building something meaningful shouldn’t feel like a burden; it should feel alive. When work feels playful, it can feel like bliss. But at the same time, immersion can