The sales department isn’t the whole company, but the whole company better be the sales department.

My parents, and their interest in making the world a better place for more people inspired me.

The most common conception of Capitalism is that it is an economic system consisting of privately owned businesses and large corporations that are run for profit. The profit comes from running the business efficiently and keeping the products and services up to date and competitively priced.

Too much of the income gains go to too few people, even though all of the stakeholders worked together to make their companies successful. By failing to put enough income into more hands, the GDP grows slower and consumers manage to meet their needs by incurring high levels of debt.

Strategy is indeed about choosing what not to do as well as what to do. A business unit needs to decide what need it aims to satisfy in what group of people and with what value proposition that distinguishes the business from its competitors.

Requiring the payment of higher wages will lead to a loss of some jobs and a raising of prices which drives companies to search for automation to reduce costs. On the other hand, those receiving higher wages will spend more (the marginal propensity to consume is close to 1 for low income earners) and this will increase demand for additional goods and services. Henry Ford had the clearest vision of why companies can actually benefit by paying higher wages.

Whenever someone wonders how I could have written 57 books, I remind them that Isaac Asimov wrote 500 books. I like Asimov's view that great insight comes from seeing something as odd and finding out why. Curiosity is the starting point for great science.