April 26, 2004
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I am going to blog whether or not I have anything to say. I don’t want to be shunned for insufficient blogging. Better to be shunned for insufficient content.
The company that I work for held its 30 year anniversary party last Friday. It was a nicely done affair, representative of the personality of the company; diverse, eclectic, non-mainstream, etc. The current CEO spoke and then the founder of the company spoke. Both addressed the past and also the future, but in different ways. The CEO spoke in specifics; accomplishments, humorous anecdotes, status of the business, and future possibilities. The founder spoke in platitudes and visions, “if onlies” and “what ifs”. The presentations from each seemed to mimic the role they have played in the evolution of this small, intellectual, ecologically and humanity focused company.
Without the person of vision this company would never have happened. The founding invention would have been presented as a technical achievement (maybe even revelation) as a paper in some obscure conference; yielding the author some brief notoriety among his peers. Passion is probably the key concept. Even awareness of need, human condition, pending environmental disaster would not necessarily be enough motivation to drive one to chuck the relative security of academia and venture into the quagmire unknown of starting a private venture. Passion is the key. Passion is the only driving force that would make a professor of technocracy dive into the horrors of…eeeuuughh…hiring employees. Indeed, if passion was the key ingredient, it sufficed to propel the company forward for twenty plus years through hundreds of business and technical setbacks and achievements. At some time, however, it was inevitable that the company would need a different type of leadership. I think this is quite common if not universal in technology based companies. There are rare exceptions (Bill Gates/Microsoft come to mind) as with any rule of thumb, but I think the basic truisms that drive this evolutionary trend in entrepreneurism are quite transparent and obvious to the most casual observer. As the business grows and the tentacles of responsibility and accountability spread ever wider area, the reins must pass from the inventor to the business-focused executive. The altruism is still present but must be blended with corporate viability, market driven awareness. One must depart from the comfortable notion that, “if you build it, they will come” to the more realistic concept, “know your customers’ needs”. When your goal is to save the world from itself, this can be untenable conflict. The current CEO and leader appears to be able to strike a nice balance with the conflicting goals of making a business out of doing good. Although, maybe…just maybe… he has been handed the golden egg on a silver platter.
Is it the current marketing and negotiating prowess that explains the company’s ever-improving fiscal outlook or is it that we have built “it” and “they” are starting to come? Is the thirty year old vision of what the world would need starting to come to fruition?
These are rhetorical questions that popped into my head for my musings and are of little interest to anyone else. Thanks for reading, I have blogged my way out of obscurity.
Comments (4)
Out of obscurity and into my heart, anyway
(although I did have my doubts when I got to “platitudes and visions,” the doubt was amply denied thereafter 
).
I’m sure a million theses have been completed about the standard schematic for the growth of a successful business. I expect ours is but one — but that it’s certainly not unique. What I expect is uniqu-er than the average (if such a phrase made any sense) is that passion-and-vision-thing you so well describe. There aren’t many with the courage/naivete/sheer hubris to act on it. And not many who can follow it up with the more standard, but also rare, business focus.
Well summed, Sir!
Well said indeed.
You know, they say the same thing about highways. If you build it, they will use it. (Same with increasing the capacity of an existing one.)
I used to be subbed to you under a different name, but had to change names because of the unfortunate actions of someone. I hope you blog again soon. Even your “insufficient content” is better than most.
Insufficient content indeed! pffft
I believe there is a scripture in The Bible pertaining to vision, it says; “without a vision the people perish.” It makes me think of this in that, a person having enough… whatever the stuff is that makes one begin a company, they have vision in truth. It takes that and passion you mentioned and more intestinal fortitude than many of us have. You got to the heart of it with the key that turns the lock for the company remaining a company, the ability to turn it over at the right time, not allowing it to dwindle for lack of adaptabiltity.
My musings seem to me the same as yours seem to you, but as far as I can tell, yours are of interest to several of us.
Keep musing…