Steve Ballmer

And the only thing I can think of that is comparable is Amazon with the growth of the internet, sort of powering their early growth. But here's the stat. From 1975 to 1986, 11 years prior to their IPO, so founding to IPO, PCs grew at a compound annual growth rate of 98%. It grew from 4,000 units per year to 9 million units per year shipped.

You can almost not mess up when you have a Tilwyn like that.

You can almost not mess up when you have a Tilwyn like that.

Right. They managed to make themselves the point of integration for the whole industry. Yes. So oftentimes I find myself when we're looking at these companies that are like among the most successful in the world or like Microsoft, the most successful in the world. It's basically like a multidimensional multiplication problem where you're like, okay,

Right. They managed to make themselves the point of integration for the whole industry. Yes. So oftentimes I find myself when we're looking at these companies that are like among the most successful in the world or like Microsoft, the most successful in the world. It's basically like a multidimensional multiplication problem where you're like, okay,

They had this unbelievable one in a zillion thing going for them, which you can sort of multiply by this other one in a zillion thing. And so it's the like zero marginal cost, zero distribution costs, unbelievable secular growth of the PC, Moore's law happening. They're the single choke point for the whole industry. It's just crazy how many things you multiply together.

They had this unbelievable one in a zillion thing going for them, which you can sort of multiply by this other one in a zillion thing. And so it's the like zero marginal cost, zero distribution costs, unbelievable secular growth of the PC, Moore's law happening. They're the single choke point for the whole industry. It's just crazy how many things you multiply together.

And of course, it should end up in a number over three trillion.

And of course, it should end up in a number over three trillion.

And personal computers, like creating software for desktop computers was a really good idea, and they wanted to be the best at it.

And personal computers, like creating software for desktop computers was a really good idea, and they wanted to be the best at it.

Yeah, you're right. It's both the hedging, but also then the ability to read the world and quickly, entirely change your strategy if you need to, and having your hedge be far enough along that you can jump quickly to it and shift your whole organization to get on board with it. That's a hard leadership thing to do.

Yeah, you're right. It's both the hedging, but also then the ability to read the world and quickly, entirely change your strategy if you need to, and having your hedge be far enough along that you can jump quickly to it and shift your whole organization to get on board with it. That's a hard leadership thing to do.

Right. Which I think you're seeing play out with most CEOs today. There's a big difference between a founder CEO and the stuff that they can do. Zuckerberg with the metaverse or Jensen with betting the whole company and going all in again on AI versus Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai, certainly very different type of CEO. Satya is interesting.

Right. Which I think you're seeing play out with most CEOs today. There's a big difference between a founder CEO and the stuff that they can do. Zuckerberg with the metaverse or Jensen with betting the whole company and going all in again on AI versus Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai, certainly very different type of CEO. Satya is interesting.

He's almost, despite the fact that he doesn't own half the company, he's got a lot of founder-like control, which I think is pretty interesting. Yeah.

He's almost, despite the fact that he doesn't own half the company, he's got a lot of founder-like control, which I think is pretty interesting. Yeah.

Moving along. Other playbook themes. A big one that jumps out to me is that new generations of technologies enable market dislocations. And unless you are in a transformational moment in terms of a new technology came out that enables something that wasn't possible before that's going to rearrange the whole value chain and open up new markets... It's pretty hard to go challenge an incumbent.

Moving along. Other playbook themes. A big one that jumps out to me is that new generations of technologies enable market dislocations. And unless you are in a transformational moment in terms of a new technology came out that enables something that wasn't possible before that's going to rearrange the whole value chain and open up new markets... It's pretty hard to go challenge an incumbent.

No one was going to challenge IBM really until the microcomputer, even the minicomputer people. Did DEC really challenge IBM? Not really. It never made a dent.