Trip Hawkins: evaluation

Transcript context

…Too many. While you're at Apple though, it's there that you realize that all of this software is a creative art. Was it at Apple that that's where you kind of started coming to this... Well, I think one of the things I had learned from some of the courses I had taken in business school, that you probably don't want to start a company. I mean, the term distinctive competence was already around in those days, so you better be good at something. I had latched onto the notion that you'd better have a big idea and I don't know how that seed first got planted. There are people like Jim Collins later, they would call it the BHAG, the big hairy audacious goal. I thought, yeah, there's got to be some angle. There's gotta be some unique dimension. In fact, my favorite way to think about it is what's called a hedgehog concept. It's not really about distinctive competence because you can have a lot of competent competitors, but the hedgehog has to compete with the fox. Fox is really big, it's really fast, it's smart, it's got big long teeth, and hedgehogs are not good at being a fox. What it can do is, roll up into a ball in a spiky fur and that's all it needs to do to defend itself from a fox. Fox will eventually get bored and leave it alone. So that's really what it's about. I'm thinking about that while I'm at Apple. I know 1982 is coming and I know that's gonna be the year. Wow, so that’s at the back of your head had the whole time.…

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