Day: October 7, 2013

Recently there’s been an article about the potential move of Microsoft to ask its wealthy co-founder and current Chairman, Bill(ionaire) Gates, to step down, following the soon-to-be-former CEO of the Company, Steve Ballmer. It provides that the top 20 investors in Microsoft is lobbying the board to “press for Bill Gates to step down as chairman of the software company he co-founded 38 years ago”. The main cause for this, as we can all guess, would be money, or ‘capital allocation’, as used in the article.

Apparently, Microsoft, and its Office products specifically, are in a declining market, yet still brings in a great amount of profits each year. The argument as to whether or not Gates would keep on doing wonders for the company arises from the strategy Microsoft has been using with its money. As a goliath in a shrinking market, all Microsoft needs to do is to remain effective a monopoly. Nevertheless, the Gates or Ballmer strategy is to invest all the profits into new businesses, most of which have never before related to the Company value proposition, such as its recent purchases of Nokia, Skype, aQuantive or Bing. Shareholders believe that doing the opposite, maximizing profits and allocating them to shareholders to do whatever they want, would be the better choice (well for you obviously). Surely this sounds like a plan to phase Microsoft out of the market, maybe in 10-15 years, which is also the reason why people want Gates to step down, as who would go ahead with a strategy to abandon his own ‘son’?

This’s got me thinking about the ethics that we business students are often taught about. After all, even in one of the wealthiest corporations, money still comes across as the biggest concern, always being a motive for people to ‘kick others out’, including the richest man on Earth. Even in this case of Microsoft, when there’s no ‘correct answer’ in terms of the future yet, everyone seems to prefer a happy ending with a pocketful of money to go home and play with the kids.

Nam,

On a different note, aside from the Gates & Melinda foundation, I wonder how the ‘super fanatic workaholic’ Bill Gates would do when he … runs out of work?

*I’m splitting my original entry to 3 small ones by each main point, as I realized it went way over the 200-word limit.

Recently I read an interesting article on BusinessInsider which talked about the flaws in our brains that subconsciously affect how we behave on a daily basis. One of them, though not as surprising as the others, seemed fascinating to me: The confirmation bias. It states that the majority of us want and try to surround ourselves with people  and things that present the same believes. For example, you would rather get along with people who share the same opinions as you do, read the articles that share your topic of interest, and of course, ignore ones that do not (which I hope is not happening now). The article considered this phenomenon a flaw, and advised readers to challenge their beliefs on a regular basis. Basically, it claimed that we’re reluctant to change, and (ironically) had better change it. This kept me thinking. About Change.

Throughout the course of history we human have witnessed so many stories about great leaders and visionaries who seem to be born a genius and just keep on being themselves and defying other trivial beliefs to eventually arrive at greatness. In fact, many of them have become popular inspirational anecdotes, such as one about The Beatles when they were told that their music sucked, did not care, and went on to become worldwide famous. But is never agreeing to change really the case, or is it the opposite as suggested by the aforementioned article?

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Well, like many other answers to questions aroused from business and life, we cannot be sure. But one thing I strongly believe, we do change, for the better.

In business we care a lot about brands, and consider a big brand a business success, but brands (that represent success) also exist in many other aspects in life. It may seem pretty random a thought, but take Roger Federer for example. In modern tennis, Federer seems like a living monument. He owns almost every possible record in the field. And the most important thing: everyone reveres him, from fellow players to the sport’s fans, and even its legends. As a ‘brand’, he represents perfection, class, elegance and true sportsmanship. Another reason why Roger can be considered a brand is that there are actually some true successful business brands that partner with him, to share the same viral image. The Nike clothing that he always wears, most of them have now been customized for himself only, the Rolex that he wears every time he lifts a major trophy, the Mercedes that he drives. How does Roger relate to change nevertheless? Well, take a moment to get out of the fancy story, and step back to reality to figure this out: Roger is also a human. As a young athlete, in general, Roger was a hothead. He is described to always be smashing his rackets and even offending his partners. But yes, the changing point of the story, Roger partnered with a wise Australian coach who helped put sense into him and eventually turned the bad-tempered kid to the classy legend. Apparently Federer changed for the better. But that’s just an one-sided story. There have been many cases when Roger had to choose whether or not, and eventually refuse, to change. For example, at the age of 11 he was (already) faced with a career choice, between soccer and tennis. Though how Roger’d be doing as a soccer player now remains a mystery, tennis turned about to be enough good a choice. Despite the importance of the decision for a 11-year-old, Federer somehow managed to stick to what he was doing well, given that many of his family members were soccer pros and encouraging him to choose soccer in those early days. Who would imagine Roger now had he agreed to change in that situation?