I was struck by Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Bankman-Fried’s recent mea culpas for driving their respective companies into the ground, like it was sincere or that it mattered. Zuckerberg’s apology came as he took away salaries and benefits for 11,000 people, after having wasted $15 billion on a bad business Read more…
My name is Jonathan and I’m an Amazonaholic. It’s taken a while for me to admit my addiction because it was years in the making. As a book lover, the premise that I could get pretty much any title in the known universe delivered to my door was my gateway Read more…
The world’s leading ad groups are forecasting increased spending on consumer branding as economies slow and costs go up. They couldn’t be more wrong. The claims, articulated in a recent Financial Times story, all rely on the mistaken belief that brands have “value” in excess of their functional qualities and Read more…
Intel plans to fire thousands of employees later this month around the same time it announces likely disappointing 3Q22 earnings. Its stock is worth less than half of what it was at the start of the year. You’d think they were in the buggy whip business or something. The Conventional Wisdom Most explanations for Intel’s Read more…
“We’ve heard the rumors that accounting is nerdy and boring,” says an unnamed trade group on its website, as reported in the Financial Times. Yup, it sure looks that way. The numbers don’t lie The Big Four firms couldn’t run away faster from accounting, pretending instead to be generic management Read more…
The EU is struggling to balance its green policies with the exigencies of feeding its citizens and keeping them warm. Isn’t it strange that no big company admits to such difficult choices?
Accounting giant Ernst & Young (“EY”) is reportedly close to splitting its audit and consulting functions into two separate companies. It could change how the industry functions, though I’m not betting on it.
NASA is sending an experimental, highly innovative, totally risky rocket to circle the Moon later this month that could change the course of history. And nobody cares. NASA has been breaking my heart ever since it made the Apollo program look about as exciting as a tax audit. Granted, our Read more…
Putting a happy face on the sometimes ugly side of transformative change is more about communications and appearances than it is about strategy. Here’s a take on the leadership change at VW.
News that the Kellogg Company (it operates as “Kellogg’s”) will separate into three companies is bad news. It’s also kinda sad. The press release used typical PR bombast to herald “bold steps in portfolio transformation” to describe its plan to create independent companies out of its snacking, cereal, and plant-based Read more…