I would like to share with you this very insightful commencement address that Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers and Pixar Animation Studio delivered for the Stanford Graduation Ceremony, on June 12, 2005. Stay inspired.
The original text can be found here and a French translation there.
Le “web sémantique” est souvent une appelation pompeuse pour un domaine qui n’a pas encore émergé. Cependant, quelques initiatives isolées mettent en avant la puissance de l’organisation sémantique du contenu. Parmi celles-ci, TheyRule propose de visualiser le graphe “social” des membres des boards des plus grandes sociétés et institutions américaines.
Vous pouvez consulter ici une map que j’ai créée avec les principales firmes high tech du NASADQ et d’autres entreprises importantes. Je m’attendais à un peu plus de connections, notamment entre des firmes du même secteur. Mais j’ai déjà observé cet effet à moindre échelle sur Facebook. Une chose est sûre, vu la quantité de “grands” au pouvoir, et les faibles interactions entre eux, on se demande bien comment une théorie du complot pourrait avoir lieu.
Pour ceux qui veulent en savoir plus sur le pourquoi du comment, ils peuvent commencer à se documenter sur l’article relatif au FoaF (Friend of a Friend) de Wikipedia.
In this video, Loic Le Meur is very prolific and pragmatic. Web entrepreneurs should keep in mind the many advices given here, even if it does not always look as the more convenient path:
You may find a written transcription and some extra links on his original blog post.
Here is an interesting post regarding some reasons why startups might fail. They can look obvious but any entrepreneur should be aware of them.
Clairvoyance & Simplicité
For those who would be lazy reading the full article (although not that long), I have drawn the following outlines :
And I would personally add a few more:
Regarding these potential factors of failure, or if properly avoided, factors of success, I wonder where a promising startup company like Goojet will go. Millions of euros have been invested and they have been developing their product for one year and a half, but they only went into public beta a few days ago, while the field is highly competitive and there is a strong need for network externalities (the more people the better), especially since their revenue model is based on a large user base.
Would the best outcome for them be to sell their technology/platform before other players catch them up (and they can make tens of millions that way, which is not bad for a company without clients!), or to meet the challenge and keep on faster with a much more reactive and adaptative strategy? You should not doom a company unless you are shortselling it…
Je viens de lire un article autobiographique de Gordon Moore publié sur le site officiel de la Nobel Prize Foundation, particulièrement intéressant quant aux enseignements de cette fabuleuse épopée à Fairchild et Intel :
J’ai relevé ces conseils hautement profitables pour toute start-up ambitieuse :
Et ces passages que je préfère laisser verbatim.
From the beginning at Intel, we planned on being big. Since we had already been fairly successful at Fairchild, anything less successful in our new venture would have been a disappointment. So, at the very beginning we recruited a staff that had high potential and that we thought would be around to run the company for some time. This is an opportunity that many start-ups miss. There is no better chance to train managers than in a start-up, where they have the opportunity to see the entire company as it grows. It starts small and simple; one can see all the operations as they get bigger. I think that people looking at start-ups, venture capitalists in particular, ought to push very strongly not to squander the opportunity to develop management during that time period.
(…)
Another thing we had learned along the way was to raise money before we needed it. One thing you find out after a little bit of experience as an entrepreneur is that the bank will lend you money as long as you don’t need it. You can sell stock as long as you really don’t have to. With good advice from directors such as Arthur Rock, we have always had plenty of capital on hand, so that we haven’t been hindered in our ability to raise more.
Vous trouverez l’article au complet sur le site de la Nobel Prize Foundation, ainsi qu’une interview de Gordon Moore datant de quelques jours sur le toujours très excellent Spectrum.
Voilà un article intéressant de Telos sur le cas Alitalia, qui illustre une fois de plus l’irresponsabilité de certains syndicats vis-à-vis même de ceux qu’ils sont censés protéger.
Les chimères d’Alitalia – Andrea Boitani – 09 Avril 2008
Ceux qui, en Italie, ont accueilli avec soulagement la décision d’Air France-KLM de se retirer des négociations devraient comprendre que la procédure de dépôt de bilan mène droit à la faillite car Alitalia n’est pas en mesure de dégager des ressources suffisantes pour satisfaire ses créanciers. Les organisations syndicales d’Alitalia et les politiques qui les ont soutenues ont fait preuve d’une grave irresponsabilité, perdant le peu de crédibilité qui leur restait. (more…)
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