Management

Charlie : The guru I never met

Yesterday (Nov 28, 2024), Charlie Munger passed away. Charlie is someone I learnt a lot from. Even though I never had the opportunity to hear him speak in person, his speeches and talks have played a profound influence on me. He was wicked smart, down-to-earth and brutally honest.

One my favorite quotes of Charlie is from his 2007 Commencement speech at USC. On choices in life, he said “Let me use a little inversion now. What will really fail in life? What do we want to avoid? Some answers are easy. For example, sloth and unreliability will fail. If you’re unreliable it doesn’t matter what your virtues are, you’re going to crater immediately. So, faithfully doing what you’ve engaged to do should be an automatic part of your conduct.”

You will be much missed Charlie :-(.. RIP.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast

Interesting article on Arstechnica (https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/revealed-the-secret-notes-of-blue-origin-leaders-trying-to-catch-spacex/) about an internal memo from Blue Origin. The memo is about the discussion and feedback from senior leadership at Blue Origin on a report put together by an external consulting company on challenges facing Blue Origin.

Bezos is famous for growing Amazon into a behemoth by focusing on principals like Customer Obsession, Hire and Develop the best, Frugality… https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles .

Wonder why he did not implement the same tried and tested playbook at Blue Origin.

My take, it is as important to have a team that can execute on your vision as it is to have a vision.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Overheard : Process

Love this quote about process attributed to Tobi Lutke in multiple interviews. He said it in different ways, but here is the gist

There are three kinds of processes

  • Process that makes things that were previously impossible to do, possible. That’s good.
  • Process that makes something that was previously possible significantly simpler, which is also good.
  • Remaining 99.9% of all process that exists in corporate America is the third category, which is actually just telling people to behave slightly different from what common sense tells them to do.

Source :

Overheard : Giving your best

A power quote by Abraham Lincoln. Ran across it while reading The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World . BTW, the book itself it a great read on history and leadership.

I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so to the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won’t make any difference.