NBC reorgs cable networks, or, where is the value in entertainment?

Cable providers, fresh off their media company acquisitions, are getting hit hard by COVID — advertising revenue is way down, and cord-cutting has joined the long list of transitions that were already happening but got accelerated by the pandemic. But just because a trend is accelerating, doesn’t mean that the incumbents have any idea what … Continue reading “NBC reorgs cable networks, or, where is the value in entertainment?”

Zoom acquires Keybase (or, why companies buy companies)

There was an interesting Quora question recently, about why companies sometimes buy other companies, only to “shut them down”. Zoom just acquired Keybase (a startup, launched in 2014, to create a directory for public encryption keys). They performed such acquisition in order to solve their end-to-end encryption problem. These sound like different things. In fact, … Continue reading “Zoom acquires Keybase (or, why companies buy companies)”

Size Matters

A while ago, I wrote on some key things to keep in mind when looking at opening an additional location. I was recently talking to a colleague of mine, and he said that if he were starting a new business, it wouldn’t be in Prague (for the record, at the time, I was based in … Continue reading “Size Matters”

Sales Operations

Recently, I took the responsibility for developing a sales-operations department. Naturally, I started with the question, “what, exactly, is ‘sales operations’”?

Your People

Recently, I was speaking with a manager in my organization. He said something which I hand’t heard in a while, but was once a common refrain in my own early managerial career. “Sometimes it gets to the point where it’s just easier to do it myself.”

The Great Game of Business

Back at the beginning of Summer, I put together a back-to-the-basics reading list. But as I’ve progressed through this particular summer, I’ve had more time to think about personal and collective motivation. How do you get your employees goals aligned with your goals? And I thought back to one book that has shaped my thinking … Continue reading “The Great Game of Business”

Organizational Behavior

As we move through our careers, if we’re successful (and maybe even if we’re not) we will continue to encounter unique situations and problems which we haven’t encountered before. Whether that’s managing a difficult individual, or navigating organizational change, or engaging in M&A for the first time, or managing across cultural boundaries for the first … Continue reading “Organizational Behavior”