Remove Career Remove IPO Remove Marketing Remove Productivity
article thumbnail

Hackers and Hummingbirds: Leadership Lessons from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Terry Starbucker

In his IPO letter Mark Zuckerberg wrote: “I started off by writing the first version of Facebook myself because it was something I wanted to exist. At Facebook, allegiance to the hacker way permeates every aspect of the business, from product innovation to organizational structure to management and training.

CEO 335
article thumbnail

Founding a Company Doesn’t Have to be a Big Career Risk

Harvard Business Review

After five years, in 2004, Tickle was profitable with more than $20 million in revenue; it received an acquisition offer for $100 million, as well as IPO entreaties. The financial risk of a career in entrepreneurship is the chance of spending 20 years in startups with nothing to show for it — neither money nor an impact on the world.

Career 8
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

The Best Companies Invest Aggressively in These 3 Areas

Harvard Business Review

We were reminded of this a few years ago, when we studied a major European conglomerate with more than 50 distinct businesses spread across dozens of markets. The company’s success has made it one of the best-performing IPOs in Asia in the last decade. We soon figured out why.

article thumbnail

What Entrepreneurs Should Ask Themselves When an Economic Crisis Hits

Harvard Business Review

After the stock market’s rocky ride in recent months, some analysts are wondering whether a new economic crisis might be around the corner. Senapathy “Kris” Gopalakrishnan, a co-founder of the India-based Infosys, saw his company’s market value on NASDAQ drop 90% from 2000 to 2001. Jonathan Knowles/Getty Images.

Crisis 8
article thumbnail

What Spinning Off a GE Business Taught Me About Managing Ultra-Fast Change

Harvard Business Review

Major organizational changes, covering everything from recruiting and branding to regulatory approvals and marketing, happened in rapid succession, with a hard deadline of 12 months to get it all done for the IPO — and 18 months from the IPO until our full separation from GE. Very quickly, common concerns bubbled up.

article thumbnail

Hire a Great Chinese Engineer by Impressing His Girlfriend's Mom

Harvard Business Review

After all, China produces 600,000 engineering graduates each year, and as a former Google product manager I thought knew how to attract them. They wanted to know what my plans were for IPO. I thought hiring good engineers would be easy when I launched my startup, Julu Mobile , in Shanghai in early 2011.

article thumbnail

What African Start-Ups Need to Do to Hire and Keep Great Talent

Harvard Business Review

With limited exit opportunities via initial public offers ( IPOs ) and acquisitions, smart young people understand that stock options rarely bring a big payday. He invested in training his staff, but that backfired as those individuals then became more marketable and moved on.