Category: business
-
Collective Creativity is Key to Pixar’s Success
Programmer and Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull leads by empowering others to achieve. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, he describes the architecture of Pixar’s Success: a community where people at all levels support one another. A movie contains literally tens of thousands of ideas. They’re in the form of every sentence; in the performance…
-
Spolsky on Starbucks’ Business Model
After a less-than-satisfactory experience at his usual Starbucks, Joel Spolsky searched-out Starbucks Gossip to find the reasoning behind a new type of employee: the ‘expediter’. What he discovered prompted him to write an article for Inc. Magazine on what happenes when Starbucks’ business models go awry. In the article Spolsky confuses operations research with operations…
-
On Business Books, Self-Education, and Mental Models
I mentioned the Personal MBA Book List last week, and today have come across this interview between Josh Kaufman and Ben Casnocha, author of My Start-Up Life. Josh runs the Personal MBA Recommended Reading List — a list of the best business books one would need to read for a comprehensive business education. It’s a…
-
The Personal MBA Book List
The Personal MBA is a site dedicated to helping people gain an MBA education without the expense of business school. It’s a self-study guide to advanced business topics and concepts. As Kevin Kelly—the founding executive director of Wired—says: No matter what they tell you, an MBA is not essential for landing or handling a good…
-
Computing and Neuroscience Links
At 24 I firmly believe that I’m still young enough to completely change my professional ‘direction’ and for it to have no discernible effect on my future earning power. As such I always have these fantastic ideas that one day soon I will go back to university and complement my CS degree with another degree…
-
Start-Ups Are Where You Want to Be
I suppose you could call Ooga Labs a conglomerate of start-ups. On their ‘About’ page they give a compelling argument to join their company, but more enticing is the open letter from their CEO imploring everyone to avoid the prestige (hype?) of big companies and do something entrepreneurial. So you’re going to take a cube…
-
Finding Underrated Geniuses
Finding it difficult to discover good/great people? Ben Casnocha (author of My Start-Up Life) suggests relaxing your usual filters (Ivy League education, big breasts, etc.) and instead suggests seeking out the underrated geniuses who aren’t amazing at what you typically seek. People who earn the label “hidden gems” are hidden because they lie unturned after…
-
Knowing When To Quit
The Intrepid Mompreneur left a big law firm after 3 years to launch her own business; has left a marriage with two kids; and walked away from her own million dollar a year law business. Now she’s telling us how to know when it’s time to leave: The pain of staying is greater than the…
-
Comparison of Maternity Leave Allowances
The Economist graphically compares OECD maternity leave allowances. Sweden is the most generous of the OECD countries, not only offering most time off but also paying 80% of a woman’s salary for 390 days. For fathers, Britain offers a measly two weeks of unpaid leave, whereas in Norway and Iceland, for example, more even division…
-
Transparent or Secret Salaries?
Penelope Trunk—The Brazen Careerist—on why salaries should be transparent (and how to find out how much you should be paid). Who is being protected by secret salaries? Certainly not the employee—the more transparent salaries are, the more accurately an employee can assess his or her value to a company. You’d think that companies benefit from…