Fabrice Grinda

The May issue of Fast Company has a great article on Steve Jobs’ “wilderness years”. This 1985-1996 period during which he was exiled from Apple is often seen as his least productive. However, the writer forcefully and successfully argues that that these years played a pivotal role and made him a better CEO and person which set the stage for his triumphant return at Apple.

Read the article at: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/165/steve-jobs-legacy-tapes

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I loved the examples given in the article:
http://www.inc.com/harvey-mackay/how-to-accomplish-the-impossible.html

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My “superstar” influences are appearing everywhere :) I even got cut into bite size pieces in a recent article on French entrepreneurs taking refuge in New York, for which I was not interviewed: “Besides superstar Fabrice Grinda, the ubiquitous imp who made a name for himself by launching cookie cutter versions of U.S. startups (eBay, Craigslist) in Europe, there are a number of French entrepreneurs in the city.”

You can read the article at:
http://www.betabeat.com/2012/02/02/french-startups-take-refuge-in-new-york/

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I really enjoyed this New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/health/elderly-experts-share-life-advice-in-cornell-project.html?_r=2&smid=fb-nytimes

I loved this quote: “I chose to live each day as if it could be my last — but with a watchful eye on the future in case it wasn’t.”

Enjoy!

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I highly recommend this amazing New York Times article on how to instill “performance character” (as opposed to “moral character”) in children. It shows how children can become more grateful and grittier when they overcome failure which in turn gives them happy, meaningful and productive lives.

The findings are so contrary to the current dogma of instilling “moral” values in our children and of shielding them from failure, that it should be required readings for all parents.

Read the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/what-if-the-secret-to-success-is-failure.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

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I just came across this very well thought through article on everything that could go wrong for the US in the 21st century should we continue down the current path.

It covers all aspects of the problem: consumer debt, government debt, tax policy, education policy, immigration policy, political dysfunction, etc.

It should be required reading for all politicians, policy makers and voters!

Read it at: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-a-22nd-century-textbook-will-describe-the-collapse-of-america-2011-10?op=1

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Great interview of Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer in Foreign Policy.

Read it at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/05/just_how_bad_is_bad

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I was shocked that the statistics I came across in a recent article in The Economist which presented Pankaj Ghemawat’s research on globalization.

We seem to take it as a given that we live in a globalized world, but on many indicators global integration is far from complete:

• Only 2% of students are at universities outside of their home countries
• Only 3% of people live outside their country of birth
• Only 7% of rice is traded across borders
• Only 7% of directors at S&P 500 companies are foreigners
• A few years ago less than 1% of all American companies had any foreign operations
• Exports only represent 20% of global GDP
• Air travel is restricted by bilateral treaties and ocean shipping is dominated by cartels
• Foreign direct investment (FDI) accounts for only 9% of all fixed investment
• Less than 20% of venture capital is deployed outside a fund’s home country
• Only 20% of shares traded on stock markets are owned by foreign companies
• Less than 20% of Internet traffic crosses national borders

More worryingly globalization seems reversible. Emigration levels today pale with those 100 years ago when 14% of Irish-born people and 10% of native Norwegians had emigrated. Back then you did not need visas. Today the world spends $88 billion a year on processing travel documents and in a tenth of the world’s countries a passport costs more than a tenth of the average annual income. Nearly a quarter of North American companies shortened their supply chains in 2008. It takes three times as long to process a lorry-load of goods crossing the Canadian-American border as it did before September 11th 2001. Even the internet is succumbing to this pattern of regionalization, as governments impose a patchwork of local restrictions on content.

Read the full article at: http://www.economist.com/node/18584204?story_id=18584204

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My good friend Auren Hoffman just wrote a great article on the difference between entrepreneurs and McKinsey-type strategy consultants.

Read it at: http://blog.summation.net/2011/02/entrepreneur.html

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