But if you look at WorldCom, which is the biggest failure to date, they grew dramatically, they were buying companies that were bigger than they were and they were doing it off inflated stock.
So long as TARP money is wrapped up in GM, the company will never shake its 'Government Motors' image. That label, as competitors and GM employees are keenly aware, is code for one thing: 'GM is a failure.'
Every company needs to have a skunkworks, to try things that have a high probability of failing. You try to minimize failure, but at the same time, if you're not willing to try things that are inherently risky, you're not going to make progress.
Nothing helps make a leader more approachable than admitting your struggles, screw-ups and behind-the-scenes thinking on hard calls. If the leader makes this a priority, the whole company will be more open and methodical learning from failure.
Anybody who is running a marathon or doing a walkathon, doing a fundraiser for their school, their company, by far it's guaranteed the easiest and most fun way to quickly set up a fundraising campaign and send it around to your friends and family.
You can follow your favorite company or organization. You can also mix that in with your family and your social network and talk about all these interests in real time. That's the value, not the brand 'Twitter.' Twitter just provides the venue for it...
The one thing that people don't get about GE is that, to the people who work here, it's not a company. It's not just a job. You feel like you're part of a 120-year-old ever-growing, ever-improving family.
My family actually owns an MMA promotion company, so it's kind of a family deal. It's called Fight Sports Entertainment, and they throw amateur fights in California. Because of that, I've given my mom a lot of the fighters to fight in a show.
If you don't have public hangings for bad culture in a company, if you don't take people out and let them say, they went home to spend more time with the family. It's crazy.
Italy's assets are her style, her beauty, her creativity, her passion, her energy, her technology; and these will be core brand values of all our cars. Fiat as a company has a long way to go and a steep road ahead.
There was a time when I was wondering about this business of going public, so I visited about a half-dozen companies in the Boston area, all of them formed by MIT faculty and all had gone public.
Groupon as a company - it's built into the business model - is about surprise. A new deal that surprises you every day. We've carried that over to our brand, in the writing and the marketing that we do, and in the internal corporate culture.
As a company gets big, the information that informs decision-making gets massive. Depending upon the prism through which you view the business, your perspective will vary. If two people are in charge, this variance will cause conflict and delay.
I realize that a lot of business leaders may disagree with me, but I truly believe that God belongs in what my company does. By putting Him first in my operations, He can bless what I attempt.
'The Week' is my favourite magazine. Everyone from presidents to CEOs of companies love it, politicians, people in the massive charity business in America, in the arts and even more especially in the media.
But every company of the future is going to be in the business of exquisite care - which means quick turnaround time and convenience. To deliver exquisite care, you need an organization that coordinates well and listens well.
Anyone working for a big company might be skeptical that a large business, or even a strictly online business, can form the same kind of friendly, loyal relationship with customers as a local retailer. I'm saying it's already been done because I live...
The reason I grew so fast in the supermarket business, without help of the banks in those days, was through my vendors. I convinced my vendors, the companies I was doing business with, if I did more business, they would do more business.
The facts are the vice president's company that he was CEO of, that did business with sworn enemies of the United States, paid millions of dollars in fines for providing false financial information, it's under investigation for bribing foreign offici...
Google, Facebook, and other consumer web companies violate our privacy. But that's only because they have an ad-based business model. They can only make money by selling your data - and degrading the product experience with ads.
I took a job at the Walt Disney Company and after 18 months decided to go to business school at Harvard. I was awestruck by the campus. My first reaction was 'I don't belong here.' Then I said, 'I'm here; let's get on with it.'
