Skipper Sees Another Year of 'Tough Sledding' for Big Tech

I think it's amazing that the attorney general of New York hasn't figured out yet that the smoking gun is on the investment-banking side.

Am I surprised by these regulation attempts? No. Am I disappointed? Sure, I'm depressed about it. I thought this was the administration's big chance to do something great for the economy and business, and they just mangled it.

10. How do you assess management when investing in technology companies, and does it differ at all when viewing a venture opportunity or a mega-cap company?

This is a great question. I have a new prime directive. The old prime directive is: Technology is always at the top of the list. Here's the problem: The world has changed.

The analogy I would use is the military in World War I. Between the American Civil War and World War I, the technology of armament progressed very rapidly, and military strategy didn't move at all. In Europe, almost no lessons were learned from the American Civil War.

The result: People persisted with outmoded strategies in the face of mass destruction. The incredible tragedy of World War I is that, for all intents and purposes, nobody figured it out. They just stopped the war. Incredibly, the French replicated the problem with the Maginot Line. And Hitler was the first guy to figure out...

Just go around it.

Yeah, the technology allows you to fight differently. During the course of World War II, various armies made progress in direct proportion to how quickly they incorporated these lessons.

We have a similar situation today in Silicon Valley. The rules have changed. The skills that made people successful in the late 1990s are not particularly useful right now. We look for executives who have the insight and flexibility to change with the times or companies who make, in effect, battlefield promotions of people who are willing to take the world as it is and make the best of it.

It's not just that management is at the top of your list -- the skills are also different. In the late 1990s, it was people who showed well. Now it's about people who actually get something done -- it's a lot like it was in the 1980s. It's: "I don't care what you're going to do next month, what are you doing today?"

The sense of urgency in the late 1990s was about marketing communications. The sense of urgency today is about the substance of your business.

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