People From Washington D C

"A study of business education in the United States was recently conducted by Professors Robert A. Gordon of the University of California (Berkeley) and John E. Howell of Stanford University. Their book, Higher Education for Business, has been published by Columbia University Press. Among their major recommendations are:"

"The majority of students studying for the master's degree in business are enrolled in makeshift programs which are generally unsatisfactory... Business administration gets a much larger portion of poor students and a smaller percentage of the best students than do the traditional professional fields."

"A strategy coordinates action to address a specific challenge. It is not defined by the pay grade of the person authorizing the action."

"The kernel of strategy contains three elements:"

"When organizations are unable to make new strategies — when people evade the work of choosing among different paths in the future — then you get vague mom-and-apple-pie goals everyone can agree on. Such goals are direct evidence of leadership’s insufficient will or political power to make or enforce hard choices."

"A leader’s most important job is creating and constantly adjusting this strategic bridge between goals and objectives."

"Having conflicting goals, dedicating resources to unconnected targets, and accommodating incompatible interests are the luxuries of the rich and powerful, but they make for bad strategy. Despite this, most organizations will not create focused strategies. Instead, they will generate laundry lists of desirable outcomes and, at the same time, ignore the need for genuine competence in coordinating and focusing their resources. Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does."

"Given that background, I was interested in what Steve Jobs might say about the future of Apple. His survival strategy for Apple, for all its skill and drama, was not going to propel Apple into the future. At that moment in time, Apple had less than 4 percent of the personal computer market. The de facto standard was Windows-Intel and there seemed to be no way for Apple to do more than just hang on to a tiny niche."

"The kernel of a strategy contains three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action."

"Despite the roar of voices wanting to equate strategy with ambition, leadership, “vision,” planning, or the economic logic of competition, strategy is none of these. The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors."

"Nelson’s challenge was that he was outnumbered. His strategy was to risk his lead ships in order to break the coherence of his enemy’s fleet. With coherence lost, he judged, the more experienced English captains would come out on top in the ensuing melee. Good strategy almost always looks this simple and obvious and does not take a thick deck of PowerPoint slides to explain. It does not pop out of some "strategic management" tool, matrix, chart, triangle, or fill-in-the-blanks scheme. Instead, a talented leader identifi es the one or two critical issues in the situation—the pivot points that can multiply the effectiveness of effort—and then focuses and concentrates action and resources on them."

"In 1805, England had a problem. Napoléon had conquered big chunks of Europe and planned the invasion of England. But to cross the Channel, he needed to wrest control of the sea away from the English. Off the southwest coast of Spain, the French and Spanish combined fleet of thirty-three ships met the smaller British fleet of twenty-seven ships. The well-developed tactics of the day were for the two opposing fleets to each stay in line, firing broadsides at each other. But British admiral Lord Nelson had a strategic insight. He broke the British fleet into two columns and drove them at the Franco-Spanish fleet, hitting their line perpendicularly. The lead British ships took a great risk, but Nelson judged that the less-trained Franco-Spanish gunners would not be able to compensate for the heavy swell that day. At the end of the Battle of Trafalgar, the French and Spanish lost twenty-two ships, two-thirds of their fleet. The British lost none. Nelson was mortally wounded, becoming, in death, Britain’s greatest naval hero. Britain’s naval dominance was ensured and remained unsurpassed for a century and a half."

"Then, in 1998, I had the chance to talk with Steve Jobs after he’d come back and turned Apple around. I was there to help Telecom Italia try to do a deal with Apple, but after that business was completed I couldn’t help asking a question. “Steve,” I said, “this turnaround at Apple has been impressive. But everything we know about the personal-computer business says that Apple will always have a small niche position. The network externalities are just too strong to upset the de facto “Wintel” standard. So what are you trying to do? What’s the longer-term strategy?”"

"Back in the mid-1990s I was researching strategy in the global electronics industry. I interviewed 20 to 30 executives, CEOs, and division managers and asked fairly simple questions. Which company was the leader in their market? How did that company become the leader? What’s their own company’s strategy?"

"Some of the biggest changes have been in the process of generating business strategies—what I call “strategy work.” Around 1980, the received wisdom was to decentralize into business units, which would each generate a strategic plan. These plans were then amalgamated up the hierarchy, in some portfolio way, for senior management. That approach has all but disappeared, and we’ve seen a dramatic recentralization of strategy work."

"For Schumpeter the most important firms are those that serve as the vehicles for action of the real drivers of the system — the innovating entrepreneurs."

"A major advancement in the strategy field is the development of models where firm heterogeneity is an endogenous creation of economic actors."

"I consider myself a mainstream researcher in the field of business policy, and the ideas I want to describe in this paper concern the foundations of a theory of business strategy that is rooted in economics. But is such a paper, whatever its merits, really appropriate at a conference entitled 'Non-traditional Approaches to Policy Research'? Surprisingly, it is. The use of economic theory to model and explicate business strategy, as it is understood within the field of business policy, is distinctly non-traditional."

"This study partitions the total variance in rate of return among FTC Line of Business reporting units into industry factors (whatever their nature), time factors, factors associated with the corporate parent, and business-specific factors. Whereas Schmalensee (1985) reported that industry factors were the strongest, corporate and market share effects being extremely weak, this study distinguishes between stable and fluctuating effects and reaches markedly different conclusions. The data reveal negligible corporate effects, small stable industry effects, and very large stable business-unit effects. These results imply that the most important sources of economic rents are business-specific; industry membership is a much less important source and corporate parentage is quite unimportant."

"In summary, uncertain imitability obtains shen creation of new production functions is inherently uncertain and when either causal ambiguity or property rights in unique resources impede imitation and factor mobility."

"Ambiguity as to what factors are responsible for superior (or inferior) performance acts as a powerful block on both imitation and factor mobility."

"Prior work has shown an association between diversification strategy and profitability. This paper replicates that association using more recent and complete data and goes on to investigate the sources of the association. Theoretical arguments are advanced which predict the association which will remain once the effects of varying industry profitability are removed. Empirical tests verify this prediction and permit the discrimination between the effects of industry and diversification strategy on profitability."

"It is commonly accepted that successful performance of a firm hinges on restricting activities to cultivating a related and familiar range rather than 'bold moves into uncharted'."

"The enhanced ability to obtain external funding and ... capacity to deploy capital internally to the most promising of a wide range of divisional ventures."

"[In related businesses] common skill, market or resource applies to each."

"[ Diversification strategy is] a firm’s commitment to diversity per se, together with the strengths, skills or purposes that span this diversity, shown by the way in which business activities are related one to another."

"Changes don't come along in nice annual packages, so the need for strategy work is episodic, not necessarily annual."

"Throughout his long career Rumelt published little. But his influence grew slowly, and interest in his ideas was reignited in 2007 by a widely read interview published in McKinsey Quarterly. His most influential thoughts were contained in just two articles published some ten years apart. In 1982 he demonstrated that there was a statistical link between corporate strategy and profitability, showing that somewhat diversified companies performed better than highly diversified ones. And in 1991 he published a controversial paper arguing that neither the ownership of a business nor the industry that it was in could explain the bulk of the difference in profitability between different businesses. Being good at what you do, he maintained, counted for a lot more."

"String theory suggested that we should have a whole new set of particles called "supersymmetric partners" that were supposed to be observed at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN — we don't see those."

"... the inflationary paradigm is so flexible that it is immune to experimental and observational tests. First, inflation is driven by a hypothetical , the inflaton, which has properties that can be adjusted to produce effectively any outcome. Second, inflation does not end with a universe with uniform properties, but almost inevitably leads to a multiverse with an infinite number of bubbles, in which the cosmic and physical properties vary from bubble to bubble. The part of the multiverse that we observe corresponds to a piece of just one such bubble. Scanning over over all possible bubbles in the multiverse, everything that can physically happen does happen an infinite number of times. No experiment can rule out a theory that allows for all possible outcomes. Hence, the paradigm of inflation is unfalsifiable."

"I know of no other scientist, no other theoretical physicist alive who has a clearer focus on whether our theories and ideas are relevant to the real world. And that's always what he's after."

"(quote at 33:07 of 49:06)"

"Think of the federal government as a gigantic insurance company (with a sideline business in national defense and homeland security), which does its accounting on a cash basis, only counting premiums and payouts as they go in and out the door. An insurance company with cash accounting . . . is an accident waiting to happen."

"I will face this challenge with the same energy and determination I've relied on to climb every hill and overcome every obstacle that I've faced in my life."

"I called this press conference today to talk about a new challenge that i will face, a personal one – one that requires me, once again, to be an underdog and a fighter. A few days ago, I was diagnosed with cancer, aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma, to be specific – which is a cancer of the lymph nodes."

"Later this month, we will execute an executive order to address this heroin epidemic."

"In our proposed budget, we spend more money on education than ever before."

"And remember, every penny that is added to one program, must be taken from another."

"According to a recent Gallup poll, nearly half of all Marylanders would leave the state if they could. As a lifelong Marylander who loves this state – that just breaks my heart."

"High taxes, over-regulation, and an anti-business attitude are clearly the cause of our economic problems. Our economy is floundering, and too many Marylanders have been struggling, just to get by. 40 consecutive tax hikes have taken an additional $10 billion out of the pockets of struggling Maryland families and small businesses. We've lost more than 8,000 businesses, and Maryland's unemployment nearly doubled."

"No state can match the beauty of the Chesapeake Bay, our beaches and farms, or the mountains of Western Maryland, the Port of Baltimore, or the historic charm of every corner of our state."

"The history of our great state is rich and deep, and our commitment to freedom and justice has always been our strength. … In our hearts, Marylanders are hard-wired for inclusiveness. It's who we are, it's our founding principle, it's part of our identity, and it is our greatest strength."

"We seek the freedom to compete without the undue burden of high taxes and bureaucratic regulations, which make us less competitive. We seek opportunities to build better communities, better businesses, and better lives for ourselves, our children, and our children's children. And most of all, we cherish both the freedom and opportunity to decide our future. And today, we celebrate that freedom and opportunity. What I envision for Maryland is not just an economic and fiscal recovery, but a rebirth of our spirit, and a renewed commitment to our common purpose. … One hundred years from now, I want Marylanders to say, "This was when Maryland's renaissance began." … Let us appeal to the better angels of our nature so that we can achieve the great and shining promise of Maryland."

"Today, I am reminded of those brave Marylanders who first came to this land seeking freedom and opportunity when they landed in St. Mary's City in 1634. While the challenges facing us today are different, I know that the courage and the spirit of Marylanders is the same."

"I am a lifelong Marylander who loves this state. Every great experience, every great memory, every great moment I have ever had in my life, has happened right here, in Maryland. … The question isn't whether Maryland is a great state. The question is: What will we do, all of us, to reinvigorate this great state that we all love? What will we do to ensure that our future is better than our present or our past?"

"Despite tremendous pressure, this statesman put aside partisanship and made the tough decision, and became the first Republican to come out for the impeachment of President Nixon. That man was my dad, former Congressman Lawrence J. Hogan, Sr., who is here with us today. He put aside party politics and his own personal considerations in order to do the right thing for the nation. He taught me more about integrity in one day than most men learn in a lifetime, and I am so proud to be his son."

"To my wife, Yumi, my daughters and my entire family, please know that it is because of your incredible love and support that I am able to stand here today."

"Forty years ago, my dad gave up a safe seat in Congress to run for governor and, finally, forty years later, we're gonna have a Larry Hogan in the governor's mansion."

"We are working around the clock to ensure Baltimore City remains at peace, as it has throughout the day. The presence of the National Guard, Maryland State Police, and other law enforcement officials will continue in the days to come to ensure order is fully restored for the citizens of Baltimore."

"I, Lawrence J. Hogan, Jr, Governor of the state of Maryland, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of Maryland, including but not limited to Title 14 and Section 13-702 of the Public Safety Article of the Annotated Code of Maryland, declare that a state of emergency exists in Baltimore City, I call the Maryland National Guard into action and state service and hereby authorize the Maryland Emergency Management Agency or other appropriate state authority, during this emergency period, to engage, deploy, and coordinate available resources."