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What Ebola Teaches Us about Business

10/5/2014

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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge

As an update, evidently Firestone Tires plantation in Liberia has made fantastic progress against the ebola virus.
Which proves how powerful leadership + aligned interests are. It certainly sounds like the US Government and other aid organizations should be talking to and learning from Firestone.
Firestone Stops Ebola In Its Tracks >>

Ebola in the US?

You've had to have been living in a cave not to have heard about the unfolding ebola situation that has now reached the US, in Dallas, Texas, via index patient Duncan Hunter.

There's been potentially deadly bungle after deadly bungle starting with a visa issuance system which allows an entrant to self-administer their own questionnaire about their exposure to ebola to a horrible misdiagnosis and mishandling of the index patient at a local Dallas hospital which was later blamed away on "electronic record keeping"  and a "miscommunication" between hospital staff and the attending doctors.

Beyond this, there are even more questions about the mechanics of dealing with ebola. For example, it's one thing to say that hospitals need to be on the outlook for ebola both by profiling a patient (recent travel to West Africa, in particular, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea? Any contact with a person, living or deceased with ebola or suspected  of ebola?) and also by looking for indicators of ebola (temperature, unexplained bleeding, diarrhea, etc.) but it's quite another thing to say what to do when you have a confirmed case on your hands.

Specifically, there seems to be a dearth of information (from all of the reading I have done and that is quite extensive) about specifics such as:

  • How to handle soiled bed sheets, clothing and waste? 
  • What is the decontamination protocol for hospital staff? 
  • How to deal with human waste and disinfecting hospital and hospital room surfaces?
  • How to safely draw blood (e.g, use plastic, avoid glass)?.
  • And so on.
And there are critics within the medical community:

"I don’t care how advanced any industrialized nation is, there is a threshold where we will outstretch the resources and it becomes uncontrolled.”
  
Through all of this, we can see that the medical system from the CDC on down appears to be completely leadership and that's about the nicest thing I can say. Oh sure, we've gotten boilerplate statements about this ebola incident being a "one-off" situation and that there's nothing to worry about as well as statements from the CDC and other's about their confidence in our medical system "containing this before it becomes an outbreak" but the actual execution of this by the so-called medical profession has been a sideshow if not a freak show.

How could this handling be improved? Well, it first entails an understanding of what's missing. And specifically the missing pieces include:

1. Leadership
2. Communication

"The major flaws that we really found were about communication".

A leader is someone willing to step up and take charge and responsibility while also being able to handle the arrows fired into his or her back, because in a situation like this, it boils down to heavy politics and political correctness. Those persons in a position of power who take the path of inaction, will continue to be inactive until they finally see a benefit to be active or until the hits being inactive are greater than the risk of acting.

A person who is a true leader will step up immediately to the plate. In fact, any person looking for huge political gain (including a scoundrel), on either or any side of the aisle could gain enumerable benefit and power by doing so, though they would have to have a strong constitution and be street smart to stand up to the continuous volley of blackened arrows fired by the other political players.

The benefits, though, that would accrue to the savvy leader would more than offset the negative hits incurred.

The other point is that of communication. It is very clear that true communication as well as clear step-by-step planning on the very  nuts and bolts of what should be done at a hospital or medical facility either suspecting or confirming an ebola patient has not occurred or is severely lacking.

So what can we learn from this for business? What are the takeaways?

Simple.

Most persons in a position of power, including in business, cower in fear or reel from having to make real, hard calls. At the same time, those that may be willing to make hard call are often hamstrung from acting by political opponents.

However, a true leader who understands how to step in to the leadership or power vacuum and how to lead will reap untold benefits and profits while doing good.

Steve Jobs was a master of this as he demonstrated at Pixar and at Apple during his second tour of duty with the development and release of the iMac, iPod, iTunes and then the iPhone.

We need to understand that while other incumbents fought and blocked each other internally (from Nokia to Sony to name just two), Apple, with Steve Jobs' steady leadership at the helm (along with his iron fist) simply engaged in a massive land grab in numerous key market spaces.

As always, any company's greatest weakness is poor leadership and heavy politics while any company's greatest advantage is a field full of competitors who, themselves, are leaderless or otherwise engaged in heavy, destructive politics.
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Why Do Startups Fail?

9/26/2014

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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge


I came across this interesting Silicon Valley Business Journal article entitled "Why do startups fail? Here are the top 20 reasons" which summarizes a large post-mortem analysis of startup failures conducted by CB Insights

One quick takeaway to highlight:

"After reading through every single of the 101 post-mortems, we’ve learned two things. One — there is rarely one reason for a single startup's failure. And two — across all these failures, the reasons are very diverse."

Here's the top twenty reasons:
(Note: percentages don't add up to 100 because sometimes there are multiple reasons for failure)

1. Building a solution in search of a problem: Falling in love with an idea or building it out with market validation. 42 percent cited this. 

2. Cash Out. No Mas: We'll assume this wasn't due to financial mismanagement or malfeasance but a natural outcome of a sane burn rate over an extended period with trailing revenues of a lean nature. 29 percent reported this.

3. Wrong team: Lacking key members or skill sets This was cited by 23 percent of the companies. 

4. Beaten by the competition: About 19 percent of the companies reported this.

5. Pricing/cost issues: Reported by 18 percent in the study.

6. Poor product: This was reported by 17 percent of the companies.

7. Need/lack business model: A lack of a viable model killed 17 percent of these companies.

8. Poor marketing: Knowing how to code or build good products isn't enough. Reported by 14 percent of the companies.

9. Ignoring customers: 14 percent of the companies in the studied pointed to this.

10. Mis-timed product (releases): 13 percent of the companies in the survey reported this. A Calxeda employee told CB Insights, “We moved faster than our customers could move. We moved with tech that wasn't really ready for them... We were too early.”

11. Lost focus: 13 percent reported this.

12. Founder/investor strife: Creative tension is far different than toxic infighting. 13 percent of the companies succumbed to this.

13. Pivot gone bad: As has been said, "The pivot used to be called the f****up".  10 percent pointed to this.

14: Lack passion: The passion to stick it out, to execute. 9 percent identified this as the reason.

15: Bad location: For hiring/retaining talent, customers, investors and so on. This was cited by 9 percent.

16. No financing/investor interest: This was pointed to by 8 percent.

17. Legal challenges: Cited by 8 percent of the companies.

18. Don't use network/advisers: Again cited by 8 percent of the companies.

19. Burnout: Never a good thing, many reasons why a team can burn out. 8 percent pointed to this as the culprit.

20: Failure to pivot: As has been said earlier, "The pivot used to be called the F****up" and while that may be true it doesn't change the fact that continuing down the same messed up path is going to get your any place faster (other than bankruptcy court) and certainly no where better. 7 percent cited this.
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Elon Musk & Divine Right

9/14/2014

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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge


Yesterday I came across what I felt to be a provocatively brilliant quote by Elon Musk which I subsequently posted into my LinkedIn Update and Facebook Status feeds.

"The reason I haven't taken SpaceX public is the goals of SpaceX are very long-term, which is to establish a city on Mars."
-- Elon Musk

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The next day, I awoke to find this little gem of a comment from my friend Chikako Uchinami of synopsis.TODAY below it:

"Elon is instructive of the principle of Divine Right.
He's not always right, but when he is he is the most interesting man in the world.
You can't inherit Divine Right- you take it."


-- Chikako Uchinami

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Besides being incredibly insightful, Chikako brilliantly articulated the concept and application Divine Right

Divine Right.

And that's what it is. 

It 's not given. It can only be taken. The right can only be asserted.

Think about the power of those statements. 

Now think about the power and effectiveness of any leader (including you) who not only understands but lays claim to and assertively wields Divine Right.
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The Sun Also Rises (陽はまた昇る): Development of the Nascent VHS Video Format

9/1/2014

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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge

The Sun Also Rises (陽はまた昇る ||  Yō wa mata noboru), starring Ken Watanabe (foreigners will know him from his appearances in The Last Samurai and Inception) is a riveting drama that captures the development in Japan of the nascent and soon to be ubiquitous VHS video format.

Starting as a stealth or more accurately, an unapproved Skunk Works projects within JVC (Nihon Victor Corporation) it culminated in 
the development and release of the new VHS standard to the industry.

On top of that, JVC's new format was royalty-free and competed directly against Akio Morita and his uber-powerful Sony Corporation (when you think of Akio Morita, think  about Steve Jobs before  Steve Jobs was even on the scene) and their Betamax.

Lots to takeways from this movie in terms of government pressure and cronyism in the form of MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry / 通商産業省 / Tsūshō-sangyō-shō) officials who had backed Betamax and, therefore, wanted JVC to deep-six their VHS format. 

Other key takeways:
- Intrapreneurship
- No Box Thinking
- Technical Innovation 
- Market-Focused Feedback Loops to ferret out new Use Cases
- Tenacity / Being Relentless
- True Leadership
- New Business Models (royalty-free industry standard)

In summation, this docu-drama really demonstrates Japanese business ethics, working styles, attention to detail and cultural expectations.

Watch: The Sun Also Rises (Trailer) >>
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Has Japan's Samurai Spirit Been Replaced By A Eunuch?

8/25/2014

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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge


Today I wanted to pose a very serious question regarding the coming failure of Abenomics (and it will fail, mark my words as economically there is no other alternative or outcome), Japan's continuing dearth of real, dynamic leadership and what it means for Japan's future.

Here we go: Has Japan's once rich, brave and bold Samurai spirit come to a crashing halt and been replaced by that of the Eunuch's?

I've deeply pondered this.

A Eunuch spirit and culture would suggest that, and evoke the feelings that, Japan's Samurai, Battlefield Culture has been replaced by something much softer and lacking in leadership.

I've written about this from various which you can find here:
  • Japan May Be Able To Compete Globally But Not Yet
  • Can Japan Compete Globally? You Betcha And Here's Why
  • Can Japan Compete Globally? You Betcha & Here's How
  • Japan's Problem: Severe Lack Of Leadership Not A Lack Of Innovation Or Creativity (The Globe & Mail)
  • The Truth About Japan: Can Japan's New Startup Spirit Revitalize The Japanese Economy?
  • Exploding The Myth of Japan's Lack Of Talent By Understanding The Tip Of The Sword

Now some may be still questioning my prediction that Abenomics will fail. I guess the only debate I can see is how one define's failure and how bad the coming failure will be. 

Abenomics is and has been economically untenable from the start, from when it was first announced.

And for those not overly familiar with Abenomics, here's a review of the so-called "3 arrows":

"The first arrow is an aggressive monetary policy. Abe appointed Haruhiko Kuroda, former president of the Asian Development Bank, as governor of the Bank of Japan in March. Kuroda has set a target of achieving 2% inflation and doubling the money supply within two years.

The second arrow is a proactive fiscal policy, consisting of a ¥10 trillion (US$100 billion) public works package.


The third arrow is a growth strategy. Structural reforms in Abe’s sights include everything from increasing women’s share of leadership positions to 30% by 2020 to joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-country free-trade agreement that should drive trade liberalization and deregulation inside Japan.

There are several things wrong with these areas and we've discussed them before. First, even if you thought all three all needed they are in the wrong order.

The first arrow should have been the biggest, heavy hitter arrow - structural reform, but given the amount of ossified, rent-seeking incumbents in Japan coupled with near complete regulatory capture in many areas, well, that just isn't going to happen.

So instead, the two simple arrow, although massive destructive arrows to the economy, will and have proceeded -- loosing monetary policy to drop the value of the yen and going on a Keynesian-spend what you don't have public works-waste the money spree to welcome inflation!

Folks, inflation is the last thing Japan needs and given the fact that Japan is oil dependent and import dependent for food and other materials, the last thing that should have been done was to drive down the yen.

In fact, it would have naturally fallen anyhow because of the current account balance for the new record oil imports.

I wrote about this in detail, what the smart play would have been:
 
V What Would Have Been The Smart Play & What Really Ails Japan?
The smart play would have been to keep the yen strong -- let it stay there -- then, simply work to encourage Japanese firms to engage in heavy non-yen foreign-based M&A. This would driven down the yen (which is what exporters want) but Japanese firms would have been holding foreign-based non-yen denominated assets and since the Japanese need to improve their global operations, much of that strong yen could have been used to purchase the critical training and know-how needed, again trading a strong yen for non-yen denominated training and knowledge.

By combining this overseas asset purchase spree with the increased energy imports, the yen would have still been devalued (albeit more slowly), however, Japan would be holding foreign assets and exporters would quickly understand from the fierce discipline meted out by the market, that they needed to improve their operational effectiveness and efficiency and not simply rely on a "cheap yen". 



Then the next step should have been or logically would have been:
 
The next step would be to understand that Japan's current business environment is full of deadwood and heavy overgrowth. This deadwood and undergrowth needs to be cleared out and the way to do that is make the Japanese economy at a minimum neutral to if not lovingly-biased towards startups. Once in place, an army of these startups would begin to nip at  the incumbents' heels prodding even the most obtuse or ossified of firms to retool and restructure. Eventually those firms that couldn't compete or refused to compete (and yes, there are some very stubbornly obtuse and ossified firms in Japan) would be killed, eaten and composted with their ashes and assets, talent and IP being quickly recycled and allowed to blow with the winds across the Japan business community.

It would also ensure that Japanese successes (and failures) are kept in Japan. Currently, due to the lack of a vibrant startup ecosystem, when big ossified Japanese firms stumble and fall or implode, it is the foreign firms that benefit and end up eating the Japanese firms bento box. For example, Apple benefited (iPod, iTunes) from Sony's stumbles as did Samsung from both Panasonic's and Sony's travails (actually it could be said that these firms, Panasonic and Sony, fell flat on their collective faces).

Don't fool yourself into believing that this concept I'm proposing is somehow unique -- it isn't. It's a plain vanilla, common sense concept and this is actually what the US in general and Silicon Valley in particular does so well.

Compete, kill, eat, compost, spread the ashes and recycle....

Now back to the Eunch problem. What Japan needs is to develop more homegrown leaders - real leaders, women and men, of all ages and persuasions that are not afraid to lead -- they are out there, but often they are forced out of the game early or left on the sidelines because they frighten the status-quo management or the ossified corporate culture.

But by paving the way for more and more startups, these leaders can move to run and drive those businesses, which in turn put heavy pressure on the ossified incumbents -- sales, business models and so on.

It's a win-win for talent, for consumers, for the country.

But Abenomics is only a symptom of a Eunuch spirit and culture (as well as a self-serving incumbency) and leadership, nascent and seasoned will continue to be rare and often smothered out or crowded out of where it is most needed.
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Speaking Event: How To Jump-Start Your Career In Japan (or Anywhere Else)

6/20/2014

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This presentation, How to Jumpstart Your Career In Japan, was delivered to a large group of visiting high school students from The Harvey School (Katonah, New York).

In the presentation we covered:
  • Developing your value and ROI as a candidate
  • How one can future proof themselves in the face of the rapidly advancing societal and economic tsunami
  • Impact and Opportunities coming from rapid adoption and utilization of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), expert systems, machine vision, robots, 3D printing, autonomous vehicles, etc.
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Psychological Jujutsu: Are You A Mind Reader?

6/5/2014

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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge



"So, what, you think you're a minder read and can read minds, right?! Ha!"

I often find myself fielding this question although sometimes it's delivered in a tone of voice that conjures up images of an accusation such as "charlatan!" rather than a genuine question.

But that's okay, as it shows interest and engagement on the person asking it and once they allow me to explore a little more with them, they are usually hooked and have an "aha!" moment.

This most often occurs when I deliver the Psychological Jujutsu, Organizational Power Dynamics or Supercharged Sales training to my group classes or when I coach an individual. It seem that almost without fail, this occurs during the course of a particular exercise or coaching session when I'll cold read a person or situation or analyze a situation that is described to me and then "nail it" without ever having met the particular party in question and most often without ever having been completely privy to all facts or details surrounding the party or situation. 

Examples have included  individuals and situations such as the problematic office admin who went from threats of power harassment to suddenly gleefully resigning, the top salesperson who had a court order for the garnishment of his wages for payment to his former spouse and who decided to resign rather than have his money garnished to the problematic country manager who was quickly read and understood as being frightened of someone internally "taking" his job.

So the simple and honest answer to this question or perhaps the rejoinder to this accusation is, of course, I'm not a mind reader nor do I purport to be. And yet my results are there and they are what they are with them being more often than not extremely uncanny in their accuracy. 

The most important insight from my work and research that I try to impart to my students, clients and skeptics is that you don't need to be a mind reader to be accurate in your reading of a situation because in most cases the party in question through their actions, reactions and inactions almost to a tee loudly and graphically telegraphs exactly what they are thinking and how they are thinking as well as their intentions.

They also communicate this through both their acts of omission (including benign neglect and mindful tarpitting) as well as through  acts of commission. In some cases the acts maybe overt in nature and in other cases covert.

It matters not.

Sometimes, I'll wait to passively receive this silhouette and then begin to outline their profile, but more often than not I do as I advise all my students and clients -- make like sonar and make like radar by actively and continually pinging and painting your environment and targets.

It's that simple. 

And you should use  this daily until it becomes a root kit script -- one that requires no conscience deployment or utilization, and one that becomes as internalized, integrated and critical to your very survival as breathing.
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Will The SEC Ever Stop Breaking The Legs of Entrepreneurs & Start Protecting The Little Retail Investor?

5/21/2014

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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge


"October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The other are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February."
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar


There is no doubt that the stock market can be a very unforgiving institution but does the SEC's tactics if not self-described mandate of breaking the legs of Entrepreneurs and rolling over little Retail Investors make it any safer?

This is highly doubtful as the SEC has arguably become a poster child for the economic concept of regulatory capture, having moved from their initial role of investment information disclosure in the 1960's to their current role of supposedly "protecting investors" since the 1990's. There is also the issue that the existence of the SEC and what I term to be their "SEC-anointed" stocks injects moral hazard into the system.

But who, prey tell (spelled as intended), is the SEC protecting? 

Surely it isn't the little retail investor who has had to contend with the like of SEC-anointed fraud stocks and scammers like Enron, Global Crossing, the Steve Jobs Options Backdating Scandal and, of course, the Big Daddy himself, Bernie Madoff.

What's most amazing about Bernie Madoff's fraud is not just that he got away with it, but that the SEC had no intention of stopping him!

That may sound like an outlandish or unsubstantiated allegation until one considers the documented facts. Starting in 2000 then again in 2001, and 2005, a forensics accountant by the name of Harry M. Markopolos repeatedly notified the SEC of Bernie Madoff's fraud both verbally and in writing.  Markopolos provided detailed supporting documents only to be ignored by the SEC again and again.

Here is Markopolos' complaint to the SEC regarding Madoff where he identifies 29 Red Flags:
  • The World's Biggest Hedge Fund Is A Fraud (slideshare)

Now it appears that the SEC is continuing their assault on both individual investors who want better returns than are available through the retail market or whom just want to invest their own money as they see fit (if they can blow their money in Vegas or on penny stocks, smokes or state sponsored lotteries why not stocks?) as well as entrepreneurs looking to raise funds for their companies.

The SEC is doing this by considering to raise the financial requirements for being designated an accredited investor. Currently, an individual accredited investor is defined as follows: 

  1. a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person’s spouse, that exceeds $1 million at the time of the purchase, excluding the value of the primary residence of such person;


  2. a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year; or

Apparently, too many Americans have now become cashed up and have too easily overcome this financial hurdle. In the last go round, the  SEC changed the rules so that an individual's home was excluded but apparently that wasn't enough to keep out the amount of new individuals looking to invest wholesale (as opposed to retail).

To remedy this our  "protectors", the SEC,  now want to index the SEC's individual accredited investor's  financial requirements to inflation. 

Here is a comparison of the current requirements and what the future requirements would mean:

An individual accredited investor is now defined as someone with $1 million in net worth, minus the value of their primary residence, or with annual income of $200,000 in each of the two most recent years and with a reasonable expectation to bring in the same income level in the current year..

The inflation indexed requirements would be about $2.5 million of individual net worth while the annual income requirement would rise to $450,000.


The SEC is offering some protection no doubt, but for whom? It seems this protection is more likely to benefit fraudsters and incumbent wholesale investors than entrepreneurs looking to raise money and the little retail investor.

http://m.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/05/20/more-than-half-of-angel-investors-could-be-barred.html
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What Does Apple's Rumored Acquisition of Beats Electronics Say About Tim Cook & The State of Apple?

5/10/2014

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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge


With Apple's rumored acquisition of Beats Electronics for up to $3.2 billion USD it begs the multi-part question:

Is this something that Steve Jobs would have done during his tenure, is this good for Apple or does it suggest that Tim Cook is simply a corporate lackey?

Looking at the M&A transaction history for Apple, even when adjusted for inflation, we see that Apple has never made an acquisition approaching this size, not even the acquisition of Next Computer.

Why is this?

Well, for one, Steve Jobs had massive business acumen, he apparently understood that in these large acquisitions there are two main risks.

First, is the integration risk of corporate cultures. 

Second is the fact that in many cases companies are just paying for goodwill that never existed or quickly evaporates once the acquisition is completed.

$500 million USD is a good chunk of change. $3.2 billion USD is even larger. With that kind of money, a stud like Steve Jobs could have built something from scratch and then owned the market.

Evidently, Tim Cook can't create or drive organic growth; he seemingly can only acquire and focus on accretive growth.

Nothing wrong with that, if it works and that's Apple's new "strategy" but it would be a massive departure from Apple under Steve Jobs since firms like Google and Microsoft are the ones who buy billion dollar businesses; Steve Jobs is the one who creates them.

And what exactly makes Beats Electronics so valuable to Apple? This reader comment found on the Register website didn't seem to think there was much there:
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Reader Comment From The Register
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So Where's The Next WhatsApp & How Did The Tech Cheerleader Press Miss It? 

5/9/2014

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By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge


After Facebook's massive $19 billion USD acquisition of WhatsApp,  two question have arisen.

The first is my question. How exactly did the Tech Cheerleader Press miss out on WhatsApp? That is, after countless posts over the years pimping Quora as "it", Twitter and others, where was the love for WhatsApp? This is actually a rhetorical question so no reason to answer it.

The second question is now coming from the Tech and even Business Cheerleader Press.

"Where's The Next WhatsApp", they ask.

Take a couple seconds now and do a quick search on that phrase and you'll be greeted by almost a dozen recent articles that are predicting or searching for the next WhatsApp. 

You'll also find that these articles specifically target audiences ranging from the tech community to business folk, ad agencies and the general public.
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Where is the next WhatsApp? There it is!
That is to be expected, of course, when such large amounts of money such as $19 billion USD are thrown around. I can live with that. In fact, I expect that from the Cheerleader Press. It's just par for the course.

But here's the part that no one or at least very few will tell you.

The next WhatsApp is already out there and it's running fine. It may even be LINE for all I know.

But it doesn't matter, because whatever it is, the Cheerleader Press probably won't find them until they make it and even if they did, they wouldn't understand them due factors such as trait ascription bias.

Further, just like WhatsApp, the future WhatsApp may be running their operation out of a moldy warehouse and they probably aren't or won't be at Launch or Disrupt or any other events.

Why? 

First because many of these startups have very little capital reserves and they are more concerned about eating and keeping the lights on. It's prioritizing capital outlays vs expected returns.

Second, even if they have the funds, they are most likely focused on building and refining their product while engaged in customer acquisition, retention and growth, perhaps employing Lifetime Value analysis or a traditional RFM model.  Going to conferences takes not only time but energy. It's draining. And what again, is the ROI?

That's just the way it is.

And that's why people are or were like, "Hey, who the hell are the WhatsApp guys?"

Where did you guys come from? How did you build this thing? Why haven't we heard about you?

And now, suddenly they are treated like rock stars, as they should be.

And yet the Cheerleader Press will never get it,because they are victims of drinking the Kool-aid cocktail of social proof, the halo effect and various cognitive biases while subscribing to the standard Myths and Memes.
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