Category: Strategy

What hath Amazon wrought (so far)?

  |   Strategy

Amazon went public in 1997. If you invested $10,000 in the S&P 500 on that day, your investment would be worth about $30,000 today. You’d have done better if you had invested in Apple. Then you’d have a whopping 2.5 million-dollar nest egg. But if you invested the same amount of money in Amazon, and held it  »  Read More

Yahoo and the strategy that never was

  |   Strategy

Yahoo’s Accidental Beginnings David Filo and Jerry Yang started Yahoo in 1994. It didn’t start out to be a business. It was a diversion, a way for Yang and Filo to avoid working on their dissertations. They tried to catalog everything on the web. In 1994 that didn’t seem impossible. The result was  »  Read More

The Draft Value Chart, models and competitive advantage

  |   Strategy

Jay Berwanger was the first winner of the Heisman Trophy and the first player chosen in the very first NFL draft held February 8, 1936. He was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, but they thought they couldn’t match his salary demands, so they traded Berwanger’s rights to the Chicago Bears. When he and George Halas  »  Read More

Learning from sports (or not)

  |   Strategy

I love sports. I loved playing them (basketball was my game) and I love being a fan. I’ve followed the Clemson Tigers for years so this year, when they played for the National Championship, I was about as whacko as a fan can get. But as much as I love sports, I cringe when I read someone suggest that sports are a  »  Read More

Dead Company Walking

  |   Strategy

You know what I miss about Steve Jobs? I miss the passion. Say what you want about him (and lots of people have taken their turn) but when Steve was around you never had to worry about someone really caring about the products his company produced. Those days are gone. Check out the rumors about grand new Apple products for  »  Read More

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