Comments

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Posted by Dustin at January 28, 2005 12:31 PM

Tom,

As I read your CEOs are Idiots #20 (re: ego)… I was reminded of a startup I recently left because the ego of each member of the management team simply distracted them from the vision of the company and from successfully running the business. This is not to say I did not make mistakes, I did. But what became very clear to me, early on, was that the group preferred fighting each other on fighting its competitors and that this was a recipe for disaster.

Which made me think... would you please share with us your top 10/15/20 "ENTREPRENEURS are Idiots"?

Thanks in advance,

DSL

Posted by daniel leon at January 28, 2005 12:38 PM

What about 'Entrepreneurs are Idiot Geniuses'? 10 examples of stupid ideas that have made people lots of money?
Here's a starter: Mr Blobby made Simon Cowell (Pop/American Idol) his first million.

Posted by Marks Mason at January 28, 2005 5:36 PM

Tom, there was a very good research paper called "The CEO's Path to the Top: How Times Have Changed" at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1121

Here is the quote from that paper: “The road to the executive suite and the characteristics of the executives who get there have changed significantly over the last two decades. To summarize: Today's executives are younger, more likely to be female, and less likely to have Ivy League educations. They make their way to the executive suite faster than ever before (about four years faster than their counterparts in 1980), and they hold fewer jobs along the way. They spend about five years less in their current organization before being promoted, and are more likely to be hired from the outside”.

Sort of what you were saying all along!

Posted by Dmitri at January 28, 2005 6:35 PM

I'm no economist, I've always thought that the logic was as simple as, much cash=many acquisitions. At least Microsoft gave the money to investors.

Posted by Paul Davidson at February 1, 2005 2:22 AM