tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post6831842637480248234..comments2024-03-17T05:15:55.634-04:00Comments on The Brooklyn Investor: Cost Cutting, R&D etc.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-28198700993827607092014-07-30T09:33:54.125-04:002014-07-30T09:33:54.125-04:00Feel free to beat it to death. Opposing views are...Feel free to beat it to death. Opposing views are always welcome here. I see your point. I thought that about Good to Great and some of those other management books (but after reading about 3G Capital and seeing Brito pound the table on how great a book it is, I have to read it again). <br /><br />I understand your point and I feel that way about a lot of things out there. For me, I am not that skeptical because these CEO's are actually highly regarded CEOs. It is cherry-picking in the sense that he chose great CEOs, but that's sort of the point so you will always sort of have that hindsight bias. The key is to figure out if there is something there that is more than chance and some common threads and in that, I do think that the book succeeds.<br /><br />As for the performance, I haven't looked in detail year-to-year so you may have a good point there too. But great CEO's need not have the share price outperform in every time period. Teledyne's flatness starting from 1965 is not surprising given that the stock market was flattish since then through the early 1980s. <br /><br />The key is if the CEOs were able to increase the intrinsic value over time; the stock price may not reflect IV consistently through time. Hopefully, though, by looking at returns over long periods, the end-points become less relevant (starting point, end point of return calculation). And over time, we assume that the stock price has reflected IV... (again, if the end point stock price far exceeded IV, it would only push up long term returns a little bit as illustrated in my first response). <br /><br />Even BRK has had flat periods in the stock price while IV kept growing. <br /><br />So I wouldn't be overly concerned with that.<br /><br />Anyway, if you take a closer look at these CEOs, there are probably many things like what you say, and people will have various opinions about it. <br /><br />At the end of the day, though, if you look at what those CEO's have done and see what the typical CEO does, that contrast is what really is striking to me and there is something there to learn from. <br /><br />As for Buffett/share repurchases, I did wonder about that too. If BRK acted more like Loews and repurchased tons of shares, BRK might be much smaller now, and if it was much smaller, imagine what Buffett could do in terms of investment performance. <br /><br />The problem with that is that I think it has been rare for BRK to trade cheap (only once in 1999 before the recent run of cheapness). The stock has been cheap in the past few years, but there is no liquidity so it is questionable how much stock BRK could have bought. BRK needs to put billions to work. I don't think he can buy billions of BRK stock since it's so illiquid... IBM BRK is not. <br /><br />Also, if BRK kept buying back shares over their history, how much would Buffett own? His ownership percentage would go up, perhaps to a point that he would not feel comfortable, but I don't know if that's a factor...<br /><br />Anyway, thanks for the discussion. I know that for any book, CEO, investor or just about anything, there will be varying opinions about it so it's good to hear what others think. kkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06299974418283948333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-81263716512617802422014-07-29T23:45:37.944-04:002014-07-29T23:45:37.944-04:00Oh, I would be remiss if I didn't add that it&...Oh, I would be remiss if I didn't add that it's ironic that (historically) Buffett is most hesitant to use the main/easiest capital allocation tools, buybacks and/or debt to fund the buybacks. I mean, could you just imagine the difference? I'm sure he (or Munger) has discussed this before, but seriously, why? villainxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-63476668206655808182014-07-29T22:36:19.323-04:002014-07-29T22:36:19.323-04:00I won't beat this to death. I think, in princ...I won't beat this to death. I think, in principle, what Thorndike views as the CEO's virtue are exactly correct, basically do whatever you can to increase shareholder value, with capital allocation decisions offering great tools to do so. <br /><br />And I was going to go through the CEOs Outsiders profile, but I think my point can come across just by going through the a few, in order of appearance.<br /><br />Tom Murphy and Cap Cities - for the first 20 years it was basically dead even with comp group, and the outsize returns started in 86, with ABC acquisition, and a huge part of it was also due to the sale to Disney. (for example, what would Disney's return be in that same period?) <br /><br />Singleton and Teledyne - for the first 15 years or so, looks like it was dead even with the comp group too, but '75 was the start of the buyback and also increase involvement in insurance investment, during a bear market. <br /><br />With GD, Mellors (93 - 97) seem to match S&P, and likely trailed comps, and even taken the whole period (which included 3 different CEOs), outperformance was +5% of comp group, I don't think it's excessively compelling.<br /><br />Malone and TCI, I have less to quibble about here.<br /><br />Graham and Wash Post, doesn't look like it did much during the first 10 years, which changed in 80s, which coincides with main competitor closing, and investments in cellular and cable? which... in that case, I don't know, luck? Invest in cellular and cable instead?<br /><br />At some point, even while agreeing with the belief that capital allocation should be an important part of CEO's duty and how it affect shareholder return, I feel Thorndike's research or presentation is cherry picking, biased, or somehow forced. Something is not exactly kosher, that's the nagging feeling I got while reading (among other nagging thoughts), and I think this post just confirms it (for me). <br /><br />Part of this was just looking deeper at Post and Stiritz (thanks to your posts on Post), and then reading the Stiritz chapter, and looking at the chart in the book that showed the outperformance occurring in 2000-2001 and the buyout of Ralston. Even with that, it was just 2.5% over Stiritz's peers. villainxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-26036896709020124502014-07-29T09:59:14.416-04:002014-07-29T09:59:14.416-04:00Hi,
Thanks for the great question. That's a...Hi, <br /><br />Thanks for the great question. That's a very good point. But selling out is all part of the rational behavior of these CEO's so it doesn't bother me at all. The alternatives are not accepting a deal at a high price and then posting mediocre returns going forward for the shareholders (for example, Yahoo's rejection of the MSFT bid). <br /><br />These CEO's sell stock at high prices to fund acquisitions and repurchase shares cheap to return capital to shareholders etc., and to me, selling is all a part of that so it's not a big factor. <br /><br />But are these CEO returns just a function of great timing/selling in a bubble? Actually, I think not. I can think of some billionaires that sold that young companies in 1999 and I agree those guys seem to be lucky (well, they did put in some work too, but...). <br /><br />Is the well-timed sale a "big chunk" of the returns? Actually, I think not. I haven't done a detailed analysis, but you have to remember that these CEO's have performed very well over a very long period of time. <br /><br />A quick calculation from my table in the original post shows that these CEO's on average served for almost 30 years and far outpaced the index. <br /><br />Now, if you got lucky on the exit, say, you get to sell the firm for TWICE what you think it might have been worth, it looks like the CEO created most of the wealth on that day (a good 50% of the total value is due to overvaluation).<br /><br />This is not to say that that was what happened. Just as an exercise, let's just say that the companies were sold for twice fair value. <br /><br />Yes, on a dollar basis, it looks like most of the wealth was created by the exit. <br /><br />But let's look at it another way. How much of LONG TERM RETURN is due to the high exit price? <br /><br />That's easy. Assuming we are looking at 30 year returns, selling a firm for double it's fair value at the end of 30 years would add 2.3%/year to the return. Yup, just 2.3%. Over 20 years, it's 3.5%/year. <br /><br />If you look at the long term returns of the CEO's, 2.3% or 3.5%/year is not a "big chunk" of the overall return. <br /><br />Just to illustrate, let's say a company has a book value at $100 and it earns 20%/year for 20 years. Book value at period end is 3833. That's 20%/year. What if this CEO gets lucky and gets to sell out in a bubble and gets 2x book value. Then he sold for $7666. So yes, it looks like he made as much money on the exit as he has made in the previous 20 years! Lucky bastid! <br /><br />But what we are interested in is long term returns, right? So from $100 -> $7666 over 20 years is 24.2%. <br /><br />So this CEO's performance of 20% was boosted to 24.2% thanks to the high exit price. That's not really a "big chunk". Even if he sold out at book value with no bubble benefit, it would be impressive. <br /><br />Over 30 years (which is the Outsider CEO average tenure), this bubble "bump" would be even less. <br /><br />You can try this with other figures; 2x, 3x, 4x etc... and see what you get. <br /><br />I think you will find that the CEO performance was pretty impressive even considering a high exit price. <br /><br />But then again, I go back to what I said in the beginning; selling out at a good price or a great price is as much a part of good capital allocation as anything else, I would think. (Just ask YHOO shareholders from a few years ago!) <br /><br />Thanks for reading, and thanks for the great question. kkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06299974418283948333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-63240739170327365312014-07-28T21:37:31.941-04:002014-07-28T21:37:31.941-04:00This is as good of a place for me to ask about you...This is as good of a place for me to ask about your thoughts on The Outsiders. I read it, and respect a lot of the things in it, but found too many examples veer too much to companies (and CEOs) that basically sold out or got bought out, and the fortuitous timing of the sale/spinoff/merger/etc. When there's an exit, especially during a bubble, that's bound to yield great looking numbers. <br /><br />As much as the secret is capital allocation, for many of the (non Berkshire) CEOs, the biggest chunk of the returns came at good exit price. That kind of bothered me a little. villainxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-5616405085310907932014-07-18T09:18:39.425-04:002014-07-18T09:18:39.425-04:00Hi,
Funny about the timing, but this big cost cutt...Hi,<br />Funny about the timing, but this big cost cutting has probably been in the works for some time (so has nothing to do with this post). I don't know, the new CEO looks promising and he is saying the right things, but I have no idea if he can make the changes that seem necessary there. We'll see. <br />kkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06299974418283948333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-48942288997469714952014-07-17T11:04:23.690-04:002014-07-17T11:04:23.690-04:00Someone at Microsoft must have read your post. Any...Someone at Microsoft must have read your post. Any thoughts about the new CEO? Would he be a "product guy" in Steve Jobs eyes?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-82691514851913851972014-07-15T05:03:32.656-04:002014-07-15T05:03:32.656-04:001. I don't think that Jobs was the genius that...1. I don't think that Jobs was the genius that he pretended to be; I think that the Apple cult is built on mostly on nonsense. <br /><br />2. If you go to youtube.com, you can find a old tape of Jobs answering questions at a company meeting shortly after he announced a large cost cutting program - this would have been a few months after he returned to the company. Essentially, he tried to explain to disgruntled employees why it was that he was canning some of their pet projects. Some of the things he said there made sense (which would be in contrast to the BS he usually spouted). Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-82427687527341831262014-07-14T16:44:32.402-04:002014-07-14T16:44:32.402-04:00Didn't mean to "point out an error,"...Didn't mean to "point out an error," just think Masa is misunderstood a lot of the time. Now Masa has 2 assets with recurring cash flow to lever up, so maybe he has the goods now more than before. Albeit he still needs to turnaround Sprint.<br /><br />Thought the original post and the more recent one too were very good and helped me think about business issues and investing.<br /><br />My take is that IBM has been poorly managed for years, I speak to a lot of tech company mid-level executives and consistently get feedback that IBM bought such and such company and "it went away." In other words, they buy these software assets that were good assets and then the companies disappear inside IBM. So my problem with IBM isn't that they are fudging their numbers per se, it is that the company is deteriorating and they are trying to cover it up to some degree (not sure to what degree).<br /><br />Anyways, thanks for the thought provoking posts, appreciate it, keep up the good work.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17565336056962586657noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-40642373959098609492014-07-14T10:26:15.710-04:002014-07-14T10:26:15.710-04:00Hi,
Thanks for the comment, but poetry? I have ...Hi, <br /><br />Thanks for the comment, but poetry? I have never gotten a good grade in English, ever, and if any of my former English teachers read this, they would be ashamed, lol... and I know it's not great writing. But I appreciate your thought. I guess there is something casual and email-ish about it that makes it easy to read even if not grammatically correct much of the time. <br /><br />And yes, this is more of a thought provoking post than anything definitive or factual. <br /><br />You have a good point about mature companies. And I am not entirely dismissing the value of non-commercial R&D, but I wonder of all theh patents and inventions/innovations going on at the big companies, how many of them are actually meaningful at all even commercially or non-commercially (social benefit). <br /><br />I wonder if people just don't maintain a certain, fixed percentage of R&D to sales just because of their competitors, or institutional inertia. Those are the things I wonder about. <br /><br />And yes, small companies are mostly owner-operators, but there all types, right? Even the guy selling hot dogs from his food cart (even though most of them these days tend to be employees; they don't own their own food cart) is an owner-operator, as are many ice-cream trucks.<br /><br />And obviously, the start-ups have high risk (venture capital), so it's not an easy business to find the future winners. That's why the established owner-operator or founder-operator busiensses are so attractive. <br /><br />And thanks for your input on Uniqlo. I can't judge fashion at all. I have never seriously considered buying Fast Retailing stock anyway so it's not an issue for me. What turns me off is the industry itself (highly unstable with trends coming and going; Gap ruled the world once and then it didn't etc... I LOVE H&M and Zara too as stores, but they too will come to a saturation point with many other competitors adopting the 'fast fashion' model. <br /><br />Plus the fact that Uniqlo stumbled once when Yanai retired is a big, bad sign for me. He will eventually have to go again at some point and I would hate to be a stockholder on the day it is announced. Plus his huge ambition is scary. I tend to think Japanese companies have awful M&A track records overseas. The only way Yanai is going to hit his target is a huge deal, and that scares me. <br /><br />Also, I tend to think that H&M, Zara etc. did well globally because they had to be competitive in multiple markets with different tastes from the beginning. Japanese and U.S. retailers have huge domestic markets that they adapted to which sometimes doesn't travel well... H&M/Zara/IKEA didn't have that problem; they had to adapt to different markets from day one. Once you get too big, it's hard to start to adapt. I think that's why Gap didn't do as well as say, H&M. And Uniqlo too. kkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06299974418283948333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-56928751435848437422014-07-14T10:12:29.807-04:002014-07-14T10:12:29.807-04:00Hi,
That's a good point. It's more of a...Hi, <br /><br />That's a good point. It's more of a consumer electronics company, maybe. It also relates to what Alan Kay calls innovation versus invention. Apple innovates but doesn't invent.<br /><br />There are varying degrees of black and white here, but I tend to give Apple a little more credit than a fashion company as it's more than just the look that got Apple where it is. Maybe the technology already existed, but the iPod was better (functionally too, not just looks) than anything out there at the time, and so was the iPhone which was revolutionary to end users regardless of whether or not there was anything technologically new. It was a huge leap. The iPad was an extension of that. <br /><br />Apple also does create it's own operating system and other software, so it's definitely not just a pure assembler like Dell, for example. <br /><br />But in any case, they are spending a lot now on R&D, so maybe there is more science now than before. But let's see where that goes! <br /><br />Thanks for posting. I always appreciate thoughts from 'real' people (as opposed to us financial folks who see everything through balance sheets and cash flow statements!). kkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06299974418283948333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-54727780132464356462014-07-14T04:39:24.088-04:002014-07-14T04:39:24.088-04:00Very thought provoking post (read: financial poetr...Very thought provoking post (read: financial poetry as usual from BI)<br /><br />While reading it I thought of:<br /><br />All of these companies are already mature, in the sense of multiple innovations, they are not one hit wonder. In other words there's a clear proof for the CEO abilities.<br /><br />If someone has that ability for multiple innovations and entrepreneurship, there's a higher chance they'll start their own company instead of working as CEOs for someone else.<br /><br />Having said that, it would be interesting to find innovative companies without founder owners who managed to continue to innovate.<br /><br />Apple almost BKed at one point and was saved by MSFT (which wanted to avoid patent wars) so this might also be a double edged sword where companies got burned by a too enthusiastic CEO. I know a few small companies like that who never lived long enough to become big companies due to the founder owner's "vision".<br /><br />R&D costs in these companies are often personnel costs, right? I'm wondering if Nokia being a finnish company means they would have higher R&D costs almost by definition due to local regulation (higher social benefits etc. then again salaries might be lower)<br /><br />BTW about Uniqlo, in the past year or two there's a clear downward trend in the quality of their products, it's becoming more and more like trash and other brands such as Gap are fighting back with pricing. We'll see how that ends.<br /><br />Most tiny companies and micro companies have owner founders, if we follow your argument, could it be one of the reasons for the higher upside in small companies (other than obvious reasons of marketcap etc.)<br /><br />Thanks again for sharing your beautiful poetry with us mere mortals :)<br /><br /><br />Royhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09325498485905547125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-55910279638023100982014-07-14T02:29:06.894-04:002014-07-14T02:29:06.894-04:00KK,
I work in Silicon Valley. Apple is a fashion ...KK,<br /><br />I work in Silicon Valley. Apple is a fashion company - its products have sex appeal and are a highly desired fashion accessory. For example, nobody knows if they even have a CTO, but they have a design guru - Jon Ive. Microsoft/Intel/Google are genuine tech companies. Apple is like Louis Vuitton or Coach (handbags).<br /><br />The R&D/technology that goes into Apple's products is very little because there is nothing new there. What is new is the sleek packaging - for example, people like the exterior of Apple's devices - they are better to look at than the competition. <br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-63467335213696027692014-07-13T10:51:22.798-04:002014-07-13T10:51:22.798-04:00It sure took more than a laptop and a dropout for ...It sure took more than a laptop and a dropout for sure, and you are right, I suppose it took a lot more capital to get FB up to profitability, but I'm not sure how much. As of the IPO, total paid in capital as $3.3 billion, and cash/marketable securities was $3.9 billion. I think a lot of the late stage funding sat on the books as cash. <br /><br />In any case, the value creation has been pretty incredible in any case, and that's the point. But then again, these are rare events.kkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06299974418283948333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-74460919885795151772014-07-12T15:50:53.879-04:002014-07-12T15:50:53.879-04:00Twitter and Facebook weren't created with very...Twitter and Facebook weren't created with very little capital. In fact, they took in enormous amounts of funding. Twitter is still burning money.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-74028784539675967412014-07-11T09:28:02.720-04:002014-07-11T09:28:02.720-04:00Hi,
Thanks for that. Yes, you are right; Masa does...Hi,<br />Thanks for that. Yes, you are right; Masa does set targets at the operating level, just not for all of Softbank, I suppose. It's interesting that he talks about optionality/sustainability when he was very levered up in the 1990's. It's a wonder he got through it borrowing against his internet holdings. I guess he learned his lesson and won't be doing that again. The guys I follow who are levered usually levers against steady (or at least steady-ish) cash flow. <br /><br />Maybe Son is past all of that now. But he does tend to bet big so his style is not for everyone. <br /><br />And yes, IBM does all sorts of things to make the number as do a lot of other companies. I rather they don't do things like that, but for me, the important thing is the quality of the business and long term potential. GE is well-known for fudging numbers for years during the Welch period, and Welch even admits in his book that he loved his direct reports because they can go and find and extra penny here or there when they were running short on a quarterly number; he will let someone book an order early in this quarter or do something in GE Finance (which was sort of an accounting cookie jar). <br /><br />I don't think that's the reason why GE stumbled. They got killed like all other financials for the same reason. <br /><br />Also, even JPM does some fudging too. To offset some of the whale loss, they realize some unrealized gains in their securities portfolio. It did absolutely nothing to the economics of the business except make the EPS figure look a little better. If you look at their huge charges over the years, there are often gains against it (selling Visa shares etc...). So that's sort of fudging in a sense. <br /><br />American Express had an uncanny run of special charges that were beautifully offset by one time gains, and this went on for a long, long time. <br /><br />There are a lot of other examples. <br /><br />But I still think AXP and JPM are amazingly well-run companies and I don't really hold all that fudging against them at all. What's really important to me is the underlying quality and outlook of the business, not what happens in the short term. Sometimes this fudging happens to smooth over rough times and a bunch of one-time charges/expenses, but if the business despite the short term bumps still looks good over time and the fudging isn't fraudulent (falsely marking up the book or whatever), it's not that big an issue for me. <br /><br />Anyway, thanks for pointing out my error. kkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06299974418283948333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-59628658223914381662014-07-11T08:49:26.172-04:002014-07-11T08:49:26.172-04:00What Masa means by his 300 year plan is that his c...What Masa means by his 300 year plan is that his company spreads out bets across a wide range of companies/entrepreneurs, which prevents Softbank from the risk that any one technology or Internet asset is disintermediated. It's not that he's really planning for 300 years, but that his business structure provides more optionality/sustainability. He thinks technology changes so quickly and the Internet is so unpredictable that his structure makes Softbank more sustainable than most companies in the space. I think he has a good point and has proven it out with Alibaba, Gungho, Yahoo! Japan, etc. He does actually lay out 3-5 year plans and hit targets. For instance, he laid out a plan to achieve higher EBIT and EBITDA than NTT DoCoMo when he bought the wireless assets from Vodafone several years ago. So what you're saying about Masa not laying out a plan and hitting targets is factually incorrect.<br /><br />Meanwhile, IBM fudges their numbers on EPS by all kinds of financial permutations, i.e. selling businesses to include the number in their EPS, non-GAAP accounting, etc. Look at their cash flow statement, it is a disaster. Jeff Mathews blog takes them to task pretty well.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17565336056962586657noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-82344810854184482572014-07-11T08:41:11.309-04:002014-07-11T08:41:11.309-04:00Phillip Morris R&D expenditure: (13/12/11) $44...Phillip Morris R&D expenditure: (13/12/11) $449M / $415M / $413M. Now I know rolling fags takes a bit of a knack but I'm pretty sure I could do it more cheaply.H. Rougehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11111535967884013397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-164093301310728462014-07-11T06:54:31.876-04:002014-07-11T06:54:31.876-04:00Some random thoughts fwiiw.
My (outside) impressi...Some random thoughts fwiiw.<br /><br />My (outside) impression is that GOOG has a proper process built around its R&D. They seem to do a shotgun approach but they follow up closely on what works and what doesn't. Things that don't work are cut quickly without many questions asked. Given that nobody knows in advance what the next big thing will be this sounds like a reasonable approach to me. But I might be wrong of course.<br /><br />The discussions around incentives reminds my of what Charly Munger said ones. He was probably among the top five people to understand the power of incentives and even he underestimated how powerful they can be. Think about your efficiency expert... :-)Eddienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-8955404170826560612014-07-11T00:31:13.032-04:002014-07-11T00:31:13.032-04:00I know what you are talking about. :)
Couple comm...I know what you are talking about. :)<br /><br />Couple comments:<br />Big revolutionary things mostly don't appear from nowhere. They are usually based on previous incremental research. Take self driving cars. That's based on tons of incremental research into machine learning, planning, sensors, etc, which had to be done somewhere. Some of it was done in universities, but some at IBM, Microsoft, Xerox, etc. So I would not discount working on "incremental things" too much although I agree that ROI is not great.<br /><br />There's also a big issue of structuring research in a company and attracting good/best people. Their motivation is not necessarily the same as company's motivation, so you might have to choose: go for company's motivation and lose the best people or go for best people and let them to do what they want, which may not be very useful to the company. You can try to mix, but this might work even worse.<br /><br />I think that Google maybe has managed to deal with this a bit better than others, but even they have some stars that are possibly not very productive.<br /><br />Anyway, I'd rather not talk about concrete details and companies publicly. If you want to discuss more of this or anything else, email at firstname dot lastname eta gmail Jurgis Bekepurishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17296485135088902877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-2388195748709765612014-07-10T20:38:20.119-04:002014-07-10T20:38:20.119-04:00Hi,
I don't know what to think. Masa Son is...Hi, <br /><br />I don't know what to think. Masa Son is an incredible guy and has achieved a lot. And I do appreciate his long term thinking. But when he says 300 years, it sounds a little grandiose, grandstanding or whatever. How can you plan for 300 years? What would anyone do differently planning for 10 years and 300 years? What would be the difference? I don't really know. We can't know what the world will look like in 10 years or 300 years so I don't really get it. But I understand the 'spirit' of what he says. He wants his business to survive that long. <br /><br />IBM is different, though, because that $20 plan by 2015 is just an extension of what they have already achieved with a similar plan before. They lay out a plan and they achieve it. And then they lay out another plan for the next five years and go for it. Buffett said this is one of the things that impressed him about IBM. They say they are going to do something and then they actually do it. <br /><br />I don't think Masa Son lays out a plan and hits targets, necessarily... kkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06299974418283948333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-19169017634356798702014-07-10T20:34:13.414-04:002014-07-10T20:34:13.414-04:00Alas, they are only available (as far as I know) i...Alas, they are only available (as far as I know) in Japanese... If you can read Japanese you can search on Amazon. kkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06299974418283948333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-15313801747656523462014-07-10T18:40:25.100-04:002014-07-10T18:40:25.100-04:00Great post as always. Softbank's CEO mention ...Great post as always. Softbank's CEO mention a 30 and 300 year plan. What do you think about companies talking about long-term business plans like Softbank? Do they ever get achieved? IBM is infamous for it's $20 operating eps by 2015. Henryhttp://livingathome.weebly.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-60504241878905363822014-07-10T17:41:48.916-04:002014-07-10T17:41:48.916-04:00KK - do you have links to the Tadashi Yanai books ...KK - do you have links to the Tadashi Yanai books you mentioned?Colin Leehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08873635211698431518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5389144729834496735.post-69237313499931569102014-07-10T17:03:16.853-04:002014-07-10T17:03:16.853-04:00Thanks, that sounds right to me. Thanks, that sounds right to me. kkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06299974418283948333noreply@blogger.com