Guess what Google search gets more results than the 20.7 million for "pornography?"
"Self help" yields 31.8 million results. Porn has company at the bottom of the e-business food chain.
There are a number of things about the self help industry that bother me. ... Read more
Quick, by a show of hands, how many of you have workplace stress? Almost everybody, great.
Now, how much of that stress do you think is self-imposed? What, no hands?
Well, I'm not surprised, but you may be in for a shock.
You see, most people make their own stress. Why do they do it? How should I know? I'm not a shrink. I'm just here to tell you that a lot of it is self-imposed.
... Read more
Technology companies run into trouble from time to time. Today it's Yahoo, Dell , and Motorola. Tomorrow it could be Google, Cisco Systems, or Apple.
Lest we forget, it wasn't that long ago that Apple flat-lined for an entire decade before ousting Gil Amelio in favor of ex-chief Steve Jobs. Jobs restructured the company by first cutting Newton and other unprofitable products, then introducing exciting new core products like iMac, and finally branching out into consumer devices like iPod and iPhone.
But that's nothing new. It happens to most companies, sooner or later. ... Read more
- Topics:
- CEOs,
- Governance,
- Strategy
- Tags:
- CEO,
- Apple,
- Google,
- Yahoo,
- Microsoft,
- Dell,
- IBM,
- board of directors,
- turnaround
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(Credit: Qualcomm Inc.)Intellectual property (IP) companies are unique business entities. Theirs is a complex, controversial world characterized by huge capital investments, epic legal battles, rollercoaster stock rides, fanatical investors, and of course, lots of patents.
Why should you care? Because, their technology helps almost all your gadgets work the way they do. And for that privilege, their executives, employees and investors go through hell. ... Read more
- Topics:
- intellectual property,
- Executives
- Tags:
- intellectual property,
- technology licensing,
- patents,
- Qualcomm,
- Rambus,
- Tessera,
- ARM
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My last post - Don't be a sucker when it comes to stocks - ruffled quite a few feathers among investors of a certain stock. There were comments and emails - mostly calling into question my journalistic integrity - but a few of them also told detailed stories about the company's situation. That's today's topic.
Just like people, every company, every stock, has a story, and everybody tells it differently. In each story there are facts, an anecdote or two, and of course, opinions. Some of them are so fascinating that people write articles, entire blogs, or even books about them.
But when you're considering joining or investing in a company, or buying a product, how do you know which stories to believe? Everybody's famous in the Internet age, so how do you know what information to base your decision on. It's harder than you think. ... Read more
- Tags:
- investors,
- careers,
- workplace,
- decision-making,
- stocks
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Updated March 22, 2008. Edits explained at the end of the post. - ST
I was reading a news item about the resignation of Mathstar's chief financial officer. I was surprised to see a publicly traded semiconductor company I'd never heard of, so I checked it out.
Turns out that Mathstar is like a number of companies I've come across over the years: they come in under the radar screen and, as such, investors think they've found something special.
Sure, these companies are special, but not in a good way.
(Credit: Mathstar)Mathstar markets itself as a development-stage fabless semiconductor company. Its products are called field-programmable object arrays, or FPOAs, and are targeted at high-performance, data-intensive applications like defense, security, medical imaging, and video.
Sounds good, right? ... Read more
Mad Magazine
(Credit: DC Comics)I was an avid reader of Mad Magazine in my youth. My favorite piece was called "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions." I have ... Read more
- Topics:
- Rants
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In the Court of the Crimson King
(Credit: King Crimson)Last night a song called "21st Century (Digital Boy)" by Bad Religion just popped into my head. I don't know why, it just did.
The lyrics seem to reject our growing dependency on technology. The chorus begins with "I'm a 21st century digital boy, I don't know how to live (or read) but I've got a lot of toys." ... Read more
- Tags:
- gadgets,
- popular culture,
- consumerization
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How do we value technology companies? Ingenuity and invention, quality of service, brand loyalty, manufacturing muscle, operating efficiency, supply-chain management, price, great place to work. There are lots of metrics.
For those unfamiliar with the wily ways of Wall Street, the stock market has its own way of expressing what it thinks of companies. It's called market capitalization or market cap for short. ... Read more
- Topics:
- Strategy
- Tags:
- market cap,
- market valuation,
- business strategy,
- Microsoft,
- IBM,
- Cisco,
- Google,
- Nokia,
- Intel,
- HP,
- Apple,
- Oracle,
- Qualcomm
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Eliot Spitzer, Governor of N.Y.
(Credit: N.Y. State)Five years ago, then N.Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was involved in an investigation into conflicts of interest between research and investment banking at ten of the nation's top investment firms during the Internet bubble.
The landmark $1.4 billion settlement helped put Mr. Spitzer on a fast track to the governor's mansion, but that's not the whole story. ... Read more
- Topics:
- CEOs,
- Governance,
- Scandals
- Tags:
- Internet bubble,
- Eliot Spitzer,
- Sanford Weill,
- Jack Grubman,
- Citigroup,
- Salomon Smith Barney,
- AT&T,
- scandal,
- fraud,
- investment banks,
- conflict of interest
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