There was a great article a few years ago about how Dell ditched all of its manufacturing to improve its balance sheet for Wall St analysts. In the process, they basically built up Taiwanese companies like Asus into competition at Dell shareholder expense.
The CEO of one of the Taiwanese companies said something to the effect of “American managers like ratios, I prefer cash”.
Leadership is different than management. In a growing company if some McKinsey alum solves all of your problems with a spreadsheet and fancy PowerPoint, you’re in trouble. Likewise, if some engineering team is setting money on fire building the platonic ideal of an application, you’re in trouble. Good leaders marshal those resources to make the sum of the parts greater and better.
The CEO of one of the Taiwanese companies said something to the effect of “American managers like ratios, I prefer cash”.
Leadership is different than management. In a growing company if some McKinsey alum solves all of your problems with a spreadsheet and fancy PowerPoint, you’re in trouble. Likewise, if some engineering team is setting money on fire building the platonic ideal of an application, you’re in trouble. Good leaders marshal those resources to make the sum of the parts greater and better.