America's Business
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Why Rumsfeld Soared as CEO, Sank at Pentagon
Continue reading… 0 CommentsBusiness leaders love to emulate battlefield commanders as they deploy their troops and make critical decisions. That's why otherwise-arcane military books like The Art of War by Sun Tzu and On War by Carl von Clausewitz remain brisk sellers: They're considered obligatory titles on the bookshelf of any executive with a taste for corporate battle.
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Five Things I've Learned From Andy Grove
Continue reading… 0 CommentsRichard Tedlow's new biography of Andy Grove has a thoughtful subtitle: "The Life and Times of an American." Our brains have been conditioned to expect one more oversaturated word at the end of phrases like that: American hero, American journey, American icon. But Tedlow, a Harvard Business School professor, does us a favor with his understatement, reminding us that Grove was ordinary before he was extraordinary.
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Five Reasons GM Is Rebounding Faster Than Ford
Continue reading… 0 CommentsThe Big Three. We tend to think of the three domestic automakers–General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler–in lock step. And, yes, all suffer from common problems: aging infrastructure, outdated technology, overreliance on big trucks and SUVs, and huge healthcare and "legacy" costs that pump up the expense of every vehicle they make.
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An Airline Profit Party (Finally!)
Continue reading… 0 CommentsIt has taken six years, but the airline industry appears to be making money again. A little bit, anyway.
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Airlines Should Fly Planes—Not Hunt Terrorists
Continue reading… 0 CommentsLet's give the airlines a break. Just this once.
An important new book, Unsafe at Any Altitude, highlights a number of glaring holes in aviation security that were supposed to have been plugged after the 9/11 attacks and the creation of the Transportation Security Administration. Several were condensed into a recent exposé on 60 Minutes: a shoddy government "no-fly list" that includes thousands of people who shouldn't be on there and excludes many who should; continued turf battles between the CIA, FBI, and other government agencies that undercut aviation security; and chronic security breaches behind the scenes at the nation's airports.
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One More Reason Your Kids <i>Must</i> Get Into Harvard
Continue reading… 0 CommentsDid you know that Harvard people think they're special?
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Bad News, but a Good Day for Hewlett-Packard
Continue reading… 0 CommentsConfused about developments at Hewlett-Packard? Follow the stock price.
News that California Attorney General Bill Lockyer plans to indict former HP Chairman Patricia Dunn and at least four others involved with the company's boardroom spying scandal sounds like a rout for the former darling of Silicon Valley. But in reality it's a big step forward for HP–one that investors have blessed.
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Hewlett-Packard: tawdry, but no Enron
Continue reading… 0 CommentsWhen you're a CEO who does something stupid, here's the drill: Congress holds hearings. Lawmakers spank you silly. The press hyperventilates. Then you go back to work, while real prosecutors and market forces determine your fate.
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We're Number … 6!?
Continue reading… 0 CommentsThe United States is falling from No. 1 to … where exactly? Well, this year, it's No. 6, according to the competitiveness index published by the World Economic Forum, an annual ranking of 125 countries that shows where the business climate is best and worst. Bumping us from the No. 1 spot was Switzerland, followed by three Scandinavian countries—Finland, Sweden, and Denmark—along with Singapore.
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Why isn't Bush <i>better</i> at manipulating gas prices?
Continue reading… 0 CommentsLet's assume for a moment that President Bush has a little dial underneath his desk that lets him send gasoline prices up or down, depending on what best suits his political needs. This, evidently, is the belief of a considerable number of Americans, like the 42 percent of respondents in a new Gallup Poll who think the Bush administration is deliberately lowering gas prices to help Republicans in the upcoming November elections. The suspicion isn't really that surprising, given Bush-Cheney ties to Big Oil and Persian Gulf potentates, not to mention demonstrated dishonesty on other big issues like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
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Finally, executives at Ford have seen the light -- or so they say.
Continue reading… 0 CommentsIn its third big restructuring announcement in three years–and its first under new CEO Alan Mulally–Ford says it plans sweeping changes to make the automaker competitive again and return it to profitability. There will be huge numbers of job cuts, painful downsizing, revamped plans to build hot cars, and the discontinuation of sluggish models.
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At HP, a scandal that's good for investors
Continue reading… 0 CommentsOh, how the press revels in embarrassments like the boardroom-spying scandal at Hewlett-Packard. Myself included. Yet no matter how damaging the brouhaha is to HP's image, investors seem quite pleased with the way the whole matter has played out.
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Hewlett-Packard's pretext for lying
Continue reading… 0 CommentsHas Donald Rumsfeld been running Hewlett-Packard? The unfolding boardroom scandal at the tech giant sounds like one of the Pentagon brawls between the autocratic defense secretary and his equally hard-nosed generals: There's a big dispute over strategy. A dissident unhappy with the organization's decisions leaks his gripes to the press. That triggers a witch hunt, complete with shady tactics that raise tensions to the boiling point. The ensuing protest resignation of a senior official is papered over with world-class euphemisms and obfuscation.
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Bill Ford: the self-removing CEO
Continue reading… 0 CommentsSo Bill Ford has shown himself the door. While Wall Street is busy analyzing the merits of his replacement as CEO of Ford Motor Co.--Alan Mulally, a 37-year veteran of Boeing--it is well worth spending a moment to examine the spectacle of a well-known American CEO voluntarily handing the reins to somebody else.
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The next Internet gold rush
Continue reading… 0 CommentsAre you wikiliterate? If not, start studying!
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Your space, not mine
Continue reading… 0 CommentsI want an online social network! You know, a group of friends with whom I can electronically share music and pictures and whimsical moment-by-moment observations. I'm only 40, after all. Hey! That's not too old to enjoy music and pictures. Plus, my 9- and 7-year-old kids keep me up to speed on all the latest online developments. So I'm hip.
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Our heat wave is a cool day in Iraq
Continue reading… 0 CommentsGosh, it's hot! Haven't you heard? Temps in New York City have crested at 100, with the mayor urging anybody who feels nauseated to get to a hospital. In sweltering Chicago, there has been the predictable evacuation of thousands from high-rise ovens after the power failed on the South Side. Several consecutive triple-digit days in California have been blamed for 140 deaths, with average temperatures in Los Angeles averaging 6 degrees higher than normal. America is so hot you'd think it's Iraq.
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General Motors' two-degree turnaround
Continue reading… 0 CommentsRick Wagoner might have been boasting too soon. When General Motors recently announced second-quarter earnings that surprised and impressed Wall Street, the CEO crowed, "Conventional wisdom is that you can't turn a ship as big as GM around quickly. We aim to prove that conventional wisdom wrong."
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Detroit blows more smoke on hybrids
Continue reading… 0 CommentsSo now that hybrids have enjoyed their moment in the sun, the obligatory backlash seems to be forming. Ford Motor Co., struggling to return to profitability, recently backed away from its bold, less-than-year-old plan to build 250,000 hybrids a year by 2010.
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Why E-mail doesn't bring happiness: A tech guru confesses
Continue reading… 0 CommentsN.R. Murthy tells a vaguely amusing joke. It's worth listening to, since Murthy is chairman of the Indian info-tech juggernaut Infosys and one of the world's leading technologists.
It goes like this: An American do-gooder goes to Africa and sees an African man loafing on the beach. He implores the man, "Hey, you should get a job! Make some money!"
"Why?" the man asks.
"Because you can buy a nice house, and get a nice car, and go on a nice vacation."
"Why do I want to go on a nice vacation?"
"So you can sit on the beach and relax!"
"But I'm already sitting on the beach and relaxing."
