Now enjoying my status as a sage of the industry, which is to say I am older than 20, but alas, not a billionaire, God fuck-it; people are all the time asking me for nuggets of wisdom from my vast experience at the top. Quickies from marcf #3: What IP is there to protect in OSS? B.D asks: "marcf, my open source project is starting to enjoy a measure of success, I am thinking of going professional with it, I am thinking about business models. How much thought should I put in protecting my Intellectual Property?" Answer: B.D. protecting IP in OSS is extremelly important. The only "private" property that exists in OSS are 1- brand 2- URL. Both are obviously related but really you need to protect your brand name, in other words REGISTER your trademarks, use them, declare they are yours and enforce the trademark, meaning protect against infringement. Other products, specifically based on your product should not include your name. Consultancies will be able to say the
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Given the recent BEA drama, do you think Icahn is in contact with Oracle at all?
I was somewhere on-par with the guy that would come in every month and restock the paper-clips and pencils.
he, I think the Peter's principle is a more general rule that says "you get promoted until you can't get promoted further". It is a systemic argument whose conclusion is that companies overtime will reach a paralyzing steady state with incompetence at every level.
You can deal with the Peter's principle with rules such as layoffs in the bottom 20% or dynamic HR policies that make sure no one gets too entrenched.
Icahn quote is more narrow and focuses on the damage a "dumb" CEO can do to his own organization by the necessity of his own survival. It is a chilling picture.
sorry I lifted that from an argument that didn't source this. Also I am too lazy to use google, my arms are tired.
Seriously though, I think that part of being a good CEO is letting people who are good at their job do their job. Get the best out of them, don't fight it. I never really had anything to tell a guy like "Rob Bearden" if you know what I mean.
I view this statement as more of a variant of the "David Skok" rule of people in startups:
"A players attract other A players, B players attract C players".
This statement is narrowly defining "B players WANT C players around them" which usually results in broken cultures.
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