May 20, 2011

Success and the CEO

There are some corporations in the world that are destined for success. Others flounder to even make a dent. What makes the difference between these companies? Is it their products, their opportunities, or their personality?

The CEO of an organization is CRITICAL in establishing the personality of a company. It is this personality that makes all of the difference in how the company acts, whether the company succeeds, and whether the company is a star. And that personality is usually linked to what job the CEO is doing (no, not how good of a job...WHICH job).

Let's take some examples for discussion:

Apple Corp - Steve Jobs is primarily a usability tester and product visionary. Think about what Apple is...the results of user-focused device development.

Facebook - a company with thousands of function points and in constant growth...the product of the fanatical software developer that leads it - Mark Zuckerberg

Microsoft - what it used to be vs what it is now - great example of a company that used to be driven by madman software developer Bill Gates. Now being driven (to its grave?) by Steve Ballmer - no longer focused on generating software to meet business needs - now focused on what? Ray Ozzie is probably asking that question as he reinvents himself. Exactly - you have no idea, because neither do they. Steve seems more worried about being the consultant than what kind of company they are.

IBM - Stuffy and exacting - definitely a company led by college-trained engineers.. Too bad that's not what the general population wants or needs or they'd have a more complete market share. With open source biting into their marketshare more and more every day, they're turning into consultants rather than tech leadership...just like MS.


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