Andy Grove Research Articles

System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot

System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot

Mapping the Volkswagen Diesel Dupe Crisis, its Implications and Sustainability of their Responses

The Volkswagen ‘Diesel Dupe scandal’ is no stranger in the automobile industry and the entire business community. This scandal is a fruitful reminder on the extent to which corporations can blatantly flout regulations and distort business ethics and morality. Many writers have written on this crisis and of course from various perspectives. Some approached the crisis from a technical standpoint, reviewing the ‘marvel’ of Volkswagen’s technological manipulation. Others approached the scandal from the standpoint of moral philosophy, demarcating the firm’s inherent immorality that has detracted the ethical values of the company. Journalists conversely have promulgated the scandal as a sensational headline in many reports. Of course, these writings are often detached with some paying overload responses to philosophies, others on strategic woes and a handful addressing the scandal from a techy perspective. This writing differs from previous works and attempts to fuse and associate the philosophical and strategic issues of the scandal to produce a remarkable analysis. Firstly, by improvising Andy Grove’s ‘strategic dissonance’ theory, this work attempts to plot the precise point in which Volkswagen’s diesel crisis relent a tsunamic moral repercussion. An improvised version of Grove’s model contributes to understanding the philosophical intricacies of this scandal capable of understanding the phenomenological moral repercussions in Volkswagen. Secondly, by using this phenomenological understanding, the current authors were able to accurately charter the precise impacts of the scandal and of course lastly to instill a distinctive evaluation on the effectiveness of Volkswagen’s crisis response strategies. The main contribution of this paper expounds beyond merely theoretical implications, but more importantly, the ability to connect and associate the philosophies of ethics with strategic implications.

Design Rules, Volume 2: How Technology Shapes Organizations: Chapter 14 Introducing Open Platforms and Business Ecosystems.

The purpose of this chapter is to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive theoretical investigation of open digital platform systems. To do this, we must first recognize that, although there is a strong family resemblance among all platform systems, there are different types of platforms, each with its own set of technological requirements and challenges. I first develop a taxonomy of open digital platforms. I go on to argue that the success of open platforms and ecosystems in competition with vertically integrated firms gave rise to the “vertical-to-horizontal” transition of the computer industry described by Andy Grove in 1996. In effect, the technology of open platforms not only shaped individual organizations but changed the structure of the entire computer industry.

President's Message

In my last couple of messages to the Society, I cited Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, who, in his 1998 book, Only the Paranoid Survive, advanced the concept of the “strategic inflection point” (see figure), and then discussed its implications for our Society, both from the standpoint of influence and relevance. I think that the Society is making good progress in that regard.
 Our Society has an important role to play as the go-to organization for learning how to effectively implement system safety engineering and management, regardless of the application. This is part of our “export” strategy, whereby we help other sectors to adopt the system safety approach. In mid-December 2016, I represented the Society as an invited speaker at a conference on NORM (naturally-occurring radioactive material) in Abu Dhabi, which focused on the upstream oil and gas industry. It is significant that many of our members are active outside of the traditional defense/aerospace sector, and they are doing great work to expand our influence in business, industry and academia.
 In memoriam: Erskine Harton

The Passing of an Era

The Passing of an Era

President's Message

In my last message to the Society, I cited Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, who — in his 1998 book Only the Paranoid Survive — advanced the concept of the “strategic inflection point” (see figure). I discussed the implications of this concept for our Society. Since I wrote that column, a couple of salient developments have transpired: Andy Grove has passed on to the next life and BP has reached an historic $20 billion settlement with the U.S. government regarding its responsibility for the major spill at the Macondo drilling site in the Gulf of Mexico (you may better know the event by the name of the rig, Deepwater Horizon). Some readers might wonder why I’d mention an IT pioneer and an oil industry event when addressing a Society whose members are predominantly from the defense/aerospace sector. I believe that there are lessons to be learned from both, but I’ll first address the oil sector, asking, “How is the practice of process safety and asset integrity engineering different in the current climate of cheap(er) oil, versus the business environment that existed when oil prices were above $100 per barrel?”

Inflection points and industry change: Was Andy Grove right after all?

We examine whether the ‘strategic inflection points’ described by former Intel CEO Andy Grove correspond to mathematical inflection points in the product/technology life cycle. We find one sense in which they do and two senses in which they do not. This leads to a mapping of colloquial uses of inflection point, tipping point, volatility, chaos, and turbulence against the scientific definitions of these terms. The mapping should be of use to researchers and educators, and also suggests to managers that the possibility of foresight and control in technology-dependent industries is more sharply limited than generally believed. The paper highlights implications for organizational sustainability and offers possible coping mechanisms for managers and directions for educators and researchers.

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson

Reviewed by: The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson G. Pascal Zachary (bio) Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, Simon & Schuster, 2014. When chroniclers of technological change in the 20th century worship innovation as if it were a god, they often feel freed of the obligation to define the object of their worship. So it is with Walter Isaacson and his popular 2014 book, The Innovators, which begins with a beguiling confession by the author that innovation is “a buzzword, drained of clear meaning” (p. 1). Rather than address the implications of the elusiveness of the innovation concept or set down the terms of his engagement with the history of computing, which is more closely the subject of his book, Isaacson does neither, thus squandering a chance to present himself as what he probably aspires to be: a bridge builder between the two mighty rivers of innovation studies. On the one hand, he recounts the birth, life, and death of digital artifacts; on the other hand, he highlights the people and subcultures that shape digital innovations. But without a framework for understanding innovation, as activity and aspiration, he squanders an opportunity to clarify the relationship between the imperatives of digital electronics (to what extent these technical factors determine the digital field at play) and the various ways in which cultures and personalities construct and reconstruct their computers and computer networks in pursuit of human aims. Isaacson, a journalist who penned the authorized biography of Steve Jobs after writing popular biographies of Einstein and Ben Franklin, fails to embed these trajectories into the wider context of technological developments in the United States and the world in the second half of the 20th century. In the wider frame of innovation, or why societies and national economies grow and change, Isaacson is even weaker, more uncertain and thinner in his use of sources. Because he only examines successes in computing, rarely looking at losing approaches, his insights into how innovation occurs are usually tautological. His logic is insufferably circular and rarely rises above the level of empty truisms. “The most successful endeavors in the digital age,” he writes in his closing pages, “were those run by leaders who fostered collaboration while also providing a clear vision” (p. 484). For example, since plenty of leaders fail despite possessing widely admired traits, Isaacson resorts to identifying successful computer people—say Andy Grove, Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs—and then posits that they must have these traits because they certainly succeeded in a big way. On closer inspection, however, these super-successful digital tycoons don’t possess all of these traits or have them in the combinations seemingly required for grand achievements. Isaacson is then forced to concede that a great innovator can be both passionately self-possessed and highly open: “The best leaders could be both,” he writes (p. 484). Such post-hoc analyses end up looking like history written by the winners (and for the winners). When Isaacson does invoke an actual trait of successful innovators—that they know how to design and built the novel products they are selling—he again lapses into tautology. Innovators, he writes, share “one thing in common: they were product people.” True, but what else could they be? If the definition of an innovator is to back a novel thing or service and win in the marketplace against inertia or the power of tradition, how could they not possess mastery of their products? Isaacson has written a book that demands attention becauseofthe author’s statureand thescale andscope of the capacious subject he tackles. But alas, The Innovators is not about innovation broadly construed or even innovators as individuals ranging across diverse areas. Rather, Isaacson concentrates on a specific area of innovation: computing and related digital electronics and communications. Following well-established paths that attempt to humanize computer history by associating a person or a set of people with major historical shifts in computing, Isaacson presents a series of potted biographies, largely if not completely derived from existing literature (some of which is decades old) that is organized around...

ЭКОНОМИКО-МАТЕМАТИЧЕСКОЕ МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЕ ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНЫХ КОНТРАКТОВ ПРИ НАЙМЕ РАБОТНИКОВ В ФИРМУ

The paper considers an economic-mathematical model of the recruitment procedure. In the real sector of economy, employers are often incapable of evaluating professional skills of a candidate for a certain job position. This problem is becoming more pressing nowadays, when managers are usually proficient in managing skills but do not have a relevant job experience. Under these conditions, a specialist from among the employees could be better at assessing qualities of a candidate from outside the company. Thus, the principal (a firm owner/manager) may wish to use his employees' knowledge to hire new smart (skilled, talented) staff. However, workers know that the firm will only keep a limited number of workplaces. That may be for various reasons: perhaps, in a division inside a big company there is a quota on the number of workplaces; or the firm needs a limited number of qualified employees to produce its optimal output. Thus, workers have incentives to prevent more talented candidates from getting a job because those people may later recommend the principal to replace less gifted ones. In the paper, we consider this conflict using the modeling approach of game theory. The research appears to be currently relevant since there is a necessity to solve personnel problems at all levels, including the level of the firm's activity. The novelty of the solution to this task in Russian scientific literature is provided by the solution method and the essential content – application of the game theory to decision-making problems in the contract theory. Unlike foreign analogs, the problem of delegation of powers is considered as a solution to the task on social optimum, when the profitability of the company reaches the maximum but the amount of payment to workers does not decrease. It is shown that to achieve the social optimum the owner has to delegate powers to competent employees. Keywords economic-mathematical model, game theory, decision theory, recruitment procedure contract theory.

President's Message

During recent years, the International System Safety Society has been adjusting to a changing environment. In many ways, we’ve been buffeted by a number of outside factors, only some of which we might be able to influence. I am reminded of a 1998 book by Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, titled Only the Paranoid Survive. In that book, Grove talks about the importance of changing with the times, lest being left behind as a mere historical mention. Groove has also discussed the concept of the strategic inflection point, as depicted here.

The Intel trinity: how Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove built the world's most important company

Based on unprecedented access to the corporation's archives, The Intel Trinity is the first full history of Intel Corporation-the essential company of the digital age- told through the lives of the three important figures in the company's history: Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove. Often hailed the most important company in the world, Intel remains, more than four decades after its inception, a defining company of the global digital economy. The legendary inventors of the microprocessor-the single important product in the modern world-Intel today builds the tiny engines that power almost every intelligent electronic device on the planet. But the true story of Intel is the human story of the trio of geniuses behind it. Michael S. Malone reveals how each brought different things to Intel, and at different times. Noyce, the respected high tech figure of his generation, brought credibility (and money) to the company's founding; Moore made Intel the world's technological leader; and Grove, has relentlessly driven the company to ever-higher levels of success and competitiveness. Without any one of these figures, Intel would never have achieved its historic success; with them, Intel made possible the personal computer, Internet, telecommunications, and the personal electronics revolutions. The Intel Trinity is not just the story of Intel's legendary past; it also offers an analysis of the formidable challenges that lie ahead as the company struggles to maintain its dominance, its culture, and its legacy. With eight pages of black-and-white photos.

Digital Media Innovation and the Apple iPad: Three Perspectives on the Future of Computer Tablets and News Delivery

Today, the combination of news information on the Internet coupled with the ease and access of posting news information and blog commentary has fundamentally challenged the economic business model for newspaper and magazine production on a worldwide basis. This paper will look at the state of the newspaper industry and will consider the role of the Internet (and digital media) as both a major cause of the problems now faced by today’s newspaper industry as well as its potential solution. Special attention is given to the design and development of the Apple iPad. A major argument of this paper is that computer tablets like the Apple iPad present a unique and historic opportunity to reconsider the meaning and purpose of news delivery. This juncture represents what former Intel CEO. Andy Grove refers to as a strategic inflection point; a time when a triggering event in the competitive marketplace requires new solutions or face the prospect of business extinction.

Manufacturing Decline Yields Drug Shortages

From our vantage point within the world of pharmaceutical development and manufacturing, we welcome your effort to draw attention to shortages of the irreplaceable cancer drug cytarabine (“Shortages of cancer drugs put patients, trials at risk,” J. Kaiser, News & Analysis, 29 April, p. [523][1]). The scarcity of not only cytarabine, but also numerous other drugs, is an urgent public health problem that both the drug industry and the government have an obligation to address. To do this successfully, both the causes and the solutions of this issue need to be understood in their broader context: the neglect of manufacturing, especially high-tech manufacturing, in the United States. The proximate cause of the most recent cytarabine shortage was a failure of production. However, what turned this error into a tragedy was a failure of the market. As the News story explains, the profit margin on generic drugs such as cytarabine is often very small. At the same time, the technical and regulatory burden—especially for cytotoxic sterile injectibles (again, like cytarabine)—is as substantial as it is for extremely profitable, brand-name drugs. Few businesses could be expected to enter such a market, and indeed, few have. In this respect, the pharmaceutical industry is far from exceptional. Business leaders like Andrew Liveris (CEO, Dow Chemical), Michael Porter (founder, Monitor Group), and Andy Grove (CEO, Intel) have sounded the alarm at the decline of America's manufacturing capacity. They note that manufacturing has a tremendous multiplier effect on economic growth and job creation ([ 1 ][2]–[ 3 ][3]). Nonetheless, a perfect storm of laissez-faire public policy and bottom-line business decisions has allowed the sector to atrophy. Constituents of both the public and the private sectors work under the mistaken belief that American firms can continue to innovate domestically while leaving manufacturing to someone else. The flaws in that logic are evident in our industry. We have seen that R&D and manufacturing are most effective when communication is reciprocal, the lessons learned in the plant feeding back to the drawing board (or the lab bench) ([ 4 ][4]). As a result, in many industries, where manufacturing goes, innovation tends to follow. The cytarabine shortage shows us that the wasting away of the U.S. manufacturing sector may not just shut us out of future prosperity; it can actively do harm in the present day. Today, across the United States, patients with leukemia are being told that they can't have the one drug that could extend or save their lives. We join with Liveris, Porter, and the like-minded thinkers mentioned in the News story in their call for more meaningful government incentives to make manufacturing in the United States a logical choice. Targeted incentives can be an investment not only in the future of the economy, but in the future of individual Americans as well. 1. [↵][5]1. A. Grove , “How America can create jobs,” Bloomberg Businessweek, published online 1 July 2010 ([www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_28/b4186048358596.htm][6]). 2. 1. A. N. Liveris , Make It in America: The Case for Re-Inventing the Economy (Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, 2011). 3. [↵][7]1. M. E. Porter, 2. M. R. Kramer , Harv. Business Rev. 89, 62 (2011). [OpenUrl][8][Web of Science][9] 4. [↵][10]1. P. R. Connelly, 2. B. P. Quinn, 3. P. Hurter, 4. J. Condon, 5. P. Mueller , Pharm. Outsourcing 11, 16 (2010). [OpenUrl][11] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.332.6029.523 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-3 [4]: #ref-4 [5]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [6]: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_28/b4186048358596.htm [7]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3 in text [8]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DHarv.%2BBusiness%2BRev.%26rft.volume%253D89%26rft.spage%253D62%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [9]: /lookup/external-ref?access_num=000285569000030&link_type=ISI [10]: #xref-ref-4-1 View reference 4 in text [11]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DPharm.%2BOutsourcing%26rft.volume%253D11%26rft.spage%253D16%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx

Predict the Future Better

Our minds are at the same time in the past, present and future. Our experience, personality and values, formed in the past, are the lens through which we view the challenges of the present, and our expectation of the future colors our emotions and motivation. We feel hopeful when we look forward to a positive future, fearful when we expect danger, and anxious when we are unsure and worried about the future. In turbulent times, like the present, we look to leaders with foresight, able to anticipate the future and act to make us hopeful. This is a major challenge for CEOs, and they need all the help they can get from research/ technology managers. Because they would like to believe in a positive future, leaders tend to be optimistic. In good times optimism works to make leaders seem prescient. In turbulent times, optimism can become a liability, and to avoid wishful thinking leaders need to sharpen the skills of foresight. Methods used to predict the future in the steady-state economy of the past are worthless in turbulent times. When I worked with large market-controlling companies in the 1970s and '80s, corporate strategy was based on using formulas to extrapolate from the present to the future as a basis for deciding how to plan and budget. If a certain number of people were likely to buy cars or install telephones next year, companies like GM and AT&T would use algorithms to plan on producing enough product to satisfy the expected demand. Bureaucratic managers liked having the hard numbers, and in a steady-state economy the predictions were usually good enough. But that methodology was useless when they were dealing with innovation. For instance, in 1980, AT&T used surveys to predict that the market for cell phones would be small in the year 2000, not a good business. In the early '90s, AT&T top management rejected a proposal from John Petrillo, an insightful executive, to make a large investment in the Internet. He was told there was no hard evidence that there would be many customers for it. One top executive called it science fiction. The entrepreneurs who profited from mobile phones like Craig McCaw, and the Internet, like Steve Case, Sergey Brim and Larry Page, were not only trying to predict the future, but more important, to create it. You Need Methods Chastened by their slowness to recognize game-changing technologies, executives now stay awake worrying about market inflexions and disruptive innovations. Andy Grove's book, Only the Paranoid Survive (Doubleday, 1996) was a wake-up call for complacent corporate executives. For Grove, paranoia meant being prepared at all times for attacks by innovative companies that could destroy your market position. However, a paranoid treats possible attacks as though they were probable, and you could go crazy trying to prepare defenses for every dangerous possibility, however implausible. To predict probable or at least plausible futures, you need methods. There are two methods for predicting the future in turbulent times. Scanning is the most direct approach for anticipating the currents of change that might affect your organization. The executives who best demonstrate foresight continually scan for patterns of change. They seek out and listen to people with specialized knowledge who might reveal dynamic trends that could become threats or opportunities for their organizations. Those in business quiz customers about their future needs. They observe the buying behavior of innovators and first adoptors. If you lead a business, your foresight also depends on studying the factors that will change the market, like new products and technologies. You should also pay attention to demographic and social trends that might impact customer behavior and the skills and talents available in the human resource market. Scanning the Audience When I spoke at the Industrial Research Institute annual meeting in Boston last Spring, I was asked to predict whether there would be a cultural change in people's attitudes to saving rather than spending. …

The Drive Toward the Electric Mile - A Proposal for a Minimum Winning Game

The paper reports the research done in the Stanford University Graduate School of Business 2008 Bass Seminar Strategic Thinking in Action - In Business and Beyond: The United States' Quest for Energy Resilience, taught by Professors Robert A. Burgelman and Andrew S. Grove. The goal of the seminar was to present a strategic plan for converting one million pick-up trucks, vans and SUVs to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in three years, and to get the students to do research on key issues related to its implementation. The first chapter provides a discussion of the instructors' general conceptual frameworks presented in the class to frame the analysis of the strategic importance of energy resilience, and to structure and guide the students' research for implementing the strategic plan. Chapter two is an article written by Andy Grove and Robert Burgelman for The McKinsey Quarterly, which presents the strategic plan of retrofitting one million vehicles to PHEVS and key issues related to its implementation in the form of a policy proposal to the incoming Obama Administration. Chapters three through seven constitute the edited papers written by the students and cover four important aspects of the plan in detail: retrofit manufacturing capabilities; retrofit marketing, sales and delivery; battery technology; and retrofit policy recommendations. Chapter eight concludes the paper with a summary of the paper and alternate viewpoints articulated by some of the students.

Wholesaling Social Change: Philanthropy's Strategic Inflection Point

There are times in almost every sector that forces of change come together to fundamentally disrupt the way that sector works. Former Intel Chairman Andy Grove calls this a strategic inflection point. Philanthropy is on the brink of its own strategic inflection point. Just as the internet changed the face of commerce, so it can change fundamentally the way that social change can happen. Today, organizations can wholesale social change or develop programs that almost overnight touch millions of people. These `wholesaling' organizations share many common characteristics such as: (1) intent to impact the masses; (2) marginal, incremental cost to serve the next customer; (3) borderless service delivery; (4) grants plus' business model; (5) redefining fundamental power relationships; (6) engage markets and market-driven solutions; (7) redirect ongoing flows of public or private sector funds to institutionalize desired change; and (8) use technology itself to provide innovative solutions. Philanthropy should define what `wholesaling activity' is, recognize it, and create mechanisms that will support acceleration of wholesale social change.

Nightly Business Report presents lasting leadership: what you can learn from the top 25 business people of our times

Paths to greatness: Actionable lessons from today's most remarkable business leaders Incisive profiles from Knowledge@Wharton and Nightly Business Report Andy Grove, Mary Kay Ash, Lou Gerstner, Richard Branson, Herb Kelleher, Charles Schwab... and 19 moreIn this book, two of the world's most respected sources of business insight come together to select and profile the 25 most influential businesspeople of the past quarter century. These incisive profiles teach specific lessons you can use to discover, refine, and nurture your own leadership style... achieve breakthrough results... and accelerate your career progress.The team: Nightly Business Report, the United States' #1 daily TV business news program, and Knowledge@Wharton, The Wharton School's online journal of research and business analysis. Together, they offer powerful new insights into familiar faces--and reveal the passion and brilliance that allowed less-well-known leaders to achieve the extraordinary.From corporate culture to brand management, risk-taking to pricing, this book's insights won't just help you: they'll inspire you.What outstanding leaders do, and how they do itActionable insights for achieving your own form of greatnessBuilding corporate culture that can withstand anythingWhat you can learn from Southwest's Herb Kelleher and J&J's James BurkeKey attributes of lasting leadershipGiving voice to customers, giving voice to truthGetting smarter, fasterCase studies in building organizations that learn--and actReinventing your business: when it's time, how to do itLessons from the master: Steve JobsDiscovering underserved markets--and serving them profitablyMohammed Yunus: Profiting from entrepreneurship in the world's poorest communitiesThe greatest business leaders of our generationHow they achieved the impossibleWhat you can learn from themHow to use those lessons to supercharge your career25 compelling profiles from two of the world's leading sources of business insight:Nightly Business Report and The Wharton School's Knowledge@Wharton25 extraordinary leaders, 25 incisive profiles:Andy Grove, IntelBill Gates, MicrosoftJohn Bogle, The Vanguard GroupSteve Jobs, Apple & PixarWarren Buffett, Berkshire HathawayHerb Kelleher, Southwest AirlinesSam Walton, Wal-MartJack Welch, GEJeff Bezos, AmazonMary Kay Ash, Mary KayMichael Dell, DellPeter F. DruckerAlan GreenspanOprah Winfrey, Harpo, Inc.George Soros, Soros Fund ManagementJames Burke, Johnson & JohnsonLee Iacocca, ChryslerPeter Lynch, Fidelity InvestmentsFrederick Smith, FedExMohammed Yunus, Grameen BankTed Turner, Turner BroadcastingLou Gerstner, IBM & RJR NabiscoCharles Schwab, Charles SchwabRichard Branson, VirginWilliam George, Medtronic © Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Strategy as Vector and the Inertia of Coevolutionary Lock-in

To examine the consequences of a period of extraordinary success for the long-term adaptive capability of a firm's strategy-making process, this comparative longitudinal study of Andy Grove's tenure as Intel Corporation's chief executive officer (CEO) documents how he moved Intel's strategy-making process from an internal-ecology model to the classical rational-actor model during 1987-1998. His creation of a highly successful strategy vector pursued through an extremely focused induced-strategy process led to coevolutionary lock-in with the personal computer market segment, in which Intel's strategy making became increasingly tied to its existing product market. Intracompany analysis of four new business development cases highlights the inertial consequences of coevolutionary lock-in. The paper examines implications of coevolutionary lock-in in terms of its effect on balancing induced and autonomous strategy processes and exploitation and exploration in organizational learning.

Masters of Enterprise: Giants of American Business from John Jacob Astor and J. P. Morgan to Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey

From the early years of fur trading to today's Silicon Valley empires, America has proved to be an extraordinarily fertile land for the creation of enormous fortunes. Each generation has produced one or two phenomenally successful leaders, often in new industries that caught contemporaries by surprise, and each of these new fortunes reconfirmed the power of fanatically single-minded visionaries. John Jacob Astor and Cornelius Vanderbilt were the first American moguls; John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan were kingpins of the Gilded Age; David Sarnoff, Walt Disney, Ray Kroc, and Sam Walton were masters of mass culture. Today Oprah Winfrey, Andy Grove, and Bill Gates are giants of the Information Age. America has again and again been the land of dizzying mountains of wealth. Here, in a wittily told and deeply insightful history, is a complete set of portraits of America's greatest generators of wealth. Only such a collective study allows us to appreciate what makes the great entrepreneurs really tick. As H. W. Brands shows, these men and women are driven, they are focused, they deeply identify with the businesses they create, and they possess the charisma necessary to persuade other talented people to join them. They do it partly for the money, but mostly for the thrill of creation. The stories told here -- including how Nike got its start as a business-school project for Phil Knight; how Robert Woodruff almost refused to take control of Coca-Cola to spite his father; how Thomas Watson saved himself from prison by rescuing Dayton, Ohio, from a flood; how Jay Gould nearly cornered the gold market; how H. L. Hunt went from gambling at cards to gambling with oilleases -- make for a narrative that is always lively and revealing and often astonishing. An observer in 1850, studying John Jacob Astor, would not have predicted the rise of Henry Ford and the auto industry. Nor would a student of Ford in 1950 have anticipated the takeoff of direct marketing that made Mary Kay Ash a trusted guide for millions of American women. Full of surprising insights, written with H. W. Brands's trademark flair, the stories in Masters of Enterprise are must reading for all students of American business history.

May the worst man win

This article presents the author’s premise that success in business requires a high degree of self‐serving behavior and exclusionary methods on the part of a company’s leaders. Using numerous examples, including Tom Watson at IBM, Bill Gates at Microsoft, Andy Grove at Intel, Phil Knight at Nike, and Robert Moses in New York City, he shows how both savory and unsavory human behaviors help to accomplish objectives and eventually find their way into commercial settings. Thus, aggressive and manipulative business dealings are a direct result of basic human nature.