A Quote by John Harvey-Jones
It is surprising, in the welter of questions that one gets at (AGMs), how few actually relate to the performance of the company, or the decisions taken by the board in particular areas.
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Most of us think that decisions such as where shall I live, with whom shall I partner, what shall I pick as a career for my life are the most important decisions that we make. But from the point of view of the universe these decisions are not that important. Within you, you have already made decisions about who you are, what the universe is and how you will relate to other people and how you will relate to the universe and these decisions are creating consequences in your life moment by moment.
There's a whole range of areas that we'll be looking at, so I'm not at this very early stage going to specify any particular areas. As you will know, there will be a limit to how far we can go in terms of a formal free trade agreement until we've actually left the European Union. I think there is much that we [with Donald Trump] can do in the interim in terms of looking at how we can remove some of the barriers to trade in a number of areas.
The bigger a company gets, the more people are involved in decisions, the slower decisions get made. Look, the whole theory of startups is that three motivated people can go and do something that every company can't.
It's surprising how a minor slump in sales can have a huge impact, and can actually cut so significantly into margin that the company really feels it.
The company [Microsoft] really has to chart a direction in mobile devices. Because if you're going to be mobile-first, cloud-first you really do need to have a sense of what you're doing in mobile devices. I had put the company on a path. The board as I was leaving took the company on a path by buying Nokia, they kind of went ahead with that after I told them I was going to go. The company, between me and the board, had taken that sort of view. Satya, he's certainly changed that. He needs to have a clear path forward. But I'm sure he'll get there.
Lose your schematic conventions by finding some surprising symbol or shape in the welter of shades, and draw that.
Actually, having a few questions of your own shouldn't prevent you from sharing the gospel with others. You can explain to them that while you still have a few unresolved questions yourself, you don't have enough faith to not believe.
we need to make a few critical decisions in major areas of life and then manage those decisions day to day.
Too often in business, only financial data is gathered - and then it is distributed only to management. Other key indicators that relate to performance areas also need to be tracked. Information on performance has to be made available to those people who can best use it - those doing the work.
So I let them be responsible for there particular areas. Then by the time it gets to me that means that there is a problem. I have my eyes open and I need to know something about every department but you don't want to micro manage any particular department.
The big idea we start with is: "How is the genome interpreted, and how are stable decisions that affect gene expression inherited from one cell to the next?" This is one of the most competitive areas of molecular biology at the moment, and the students are reading papers that in some instances were published this past year. As a consequence, one of the most common answers I have to give to their questions is, "We just don't know."
Everybody grows up and they have to make decisions, and they try and make the best decisions that they know how to. It's taken them their whole lives to finally step out and start making their own decisions.
In the entrepreneurial world, when you launch a company, you have a particular idea, a particular product, a particular service, almost always you pivot, you shift. The market reacts to your initial idea. You make some adjustments. It's only after making a few adjustments that you see the success.
I remember watching Swan Lake and everybody looking exactly the same, but being able to relate because they were the only company I had ever seen even on video that had Asian dancers. The Asian community in Hawaii is actually almost as dominant as the Caucasian community. I thought "I can relate to that company because they look like people that I see every day." They weren't all little stick-thin Russian ballerinas.
I definitely see a correlation between how many things a company gets right and how fast a company grows.
Obviously I've got a great team of people within the company. You can't operate all by yourself. We have a good board of directors and a big bench, and they can make decisions if I'm not around.
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