Adam Grant: “Givers add more value than takers. Studies show that tech companies are more profitable when servant leaders are at the helm. The competitive advantage comes from treating people better than they expect and earning their trust, which makes it easier to attract, motivate and retain talent. That doesn’t mean being soft on people. Servant leaders aren’t shy about dishing out tough love. But they put their mission above their ego, and they care about people as much as performance.”
Stanley McChrystal: “Fear defines us. Not by its presence, but by how we respond to it. There are two kinds of fear. The first is primal. It grips us when lightning strikes too close or when the crack of a bullet signals imminent danger. In those moments, our bodies freeze, and our focus narrows. But with time, experience and discipline, we recover. We learn to navigate perilous situations, even to function in the face of fear. The second kind of fear is more insidious. It seeps into our daily lives, lingers in the background and dictates our choices without us realizing it. America has always known fear — war, economic pain, uncertainty…There is no magic cure for fear. But there is an antidote: rules.”
WSJ: “As China produced more and more stuff, America became even more adept at producing services. Many of these can’t be traded globally: Somebody in London can’t easily go to a dentist in San Diego. But some, like software and other intellectual property items, can. In 2023, the U.S. exported $24 billion in advertising services, for example. The U.S. now exports in excess of $1 trillion-worth of services—far more than any other country. Moreover, America’s services exports are undercounted as a result of companies moving overseas the rights to intellectual property developed in the U.S.—like patents and trademarks—for tax purposes…In new research, Hanson and Enrico Moretti find that in 1980 manufacturing accounted for 39% of the U.S. jobs where workers earned high wages (after adjusting for factors such as education). By 2021 that had dropped to 20%. Over the same period, the share of high-paying jobs in the finance, professional and legal industries jumped from 8% to 26%.”
Marc Benioff: “I would say that it is the beginning of digital labour and that it has been fun being in the software industry. Enterprise software is maybe a multi $100 billion or total addressable market right now. It is a $3-12 trillion opportunity in digital labour, and agents and robots – and yes, apps and data are still going to be a critical part of it, though.”
FT: “Factories across China at the low-end of manufacturing are facing the same dilemma — either they invest in automation that shrinks the number of jobs, or they slowly wither away. The result, in the view of researchers and economists, is a painful shift away from low-cost, labour-intensive production that could leave millions of older, lower skilled workers in the lurch. Analysis of 12 labour-intensive manufacturing industries between 2011 and 2019 by academics at Changzhou University, Yancheng Teachers University and Henan University found that average employment shrank by roughly 14 per cent, or nearly 4mn roles, between 2011 and 2019. Roles in the textile industry shrank 40 per cent over the period.”
