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Yes. This is really funny: > I once gave a talk to Disney executives about "new ways to kill the geese that lay the golden eggs". For example, set up deadlines
by bambax 9y ago
Yes. This is really funny:
> I once gave a talk to Disney executives about "new ways to kill the geese that lay the golden eggs". For example, set up deadlines and quotas for the eggs. Make the geese into managers. Make the geese go to meetings to justify their diet and day to day processes. (etc.)
however it's really hard to argue that Apple, Microsoft, or indeed IBM or Disney ever killed the geese that lay the golden eggs.
Or if they did, they had plenty others running around.
- tzahola 9y agoExcept when Apple forced Jobs to step down in the 90s.
- Pulcinella 9y agoEh Disney came closer than they would have liked during the second half of the Eisner era. They released some bombs (e.g. Treasure Planet) and the quality of the parks was decreasing because of Eisner’s cost cutting.
- rbultje 9y ago> however it's really hard to argue that Apple, Microsoft, or indeed IBM or Disney ever killed the geese that lay the golden eggs. In this context, you're not talking about the geese, but about the eggs. For example, for Apple, one such golden egg is the iPhone, and what Kay talks about is how there are many capable people to turn this golden egg (invention) into coins or platinum (product => shareholder value). But the geese are not the products; the geese are the inventors. Jobs turned the failing Apple around from outside its own context. Microsoft missed out on the entire phone eco-system. Lots of people would attribute these long-term business fails to exactly what Kay talks about here.
- valuearb 9y agoJobs gutted Apples version of PARC when he came back, yet somehow it kick-started Apples greatest ever period of innovation.
- cwzwarich 9y agoWhich, fittingly, involved getting rid of Alan Kay.
- bambax 9y agoFair enough, but if one follows your reasoning, then Apple didn't kill the geese laying the golden eggs, they killed (or failed to let live) the geese about to lay golden eggs. Which makes more sense. It's hard to kill successful projects, but incredibly easy to build an atmosphere where creative people and new ideas are not welcome.
- oldpond 9y agoReminds me of seeing Tom Peters at Planet Tivoli one year, raving about big, dumb companies to 10,000 loyal big bluers. It's not hard to argue about golden eggs dying at these big companies. I won two Master Innovation Catalyst awards in IBM's Thinkplace program, and I firmly believe now that if you want innovation, you have to think small.