Sid Mohasseb's Blog

Who are these millennials? Customers, employees, and leaders. Being a millennial is a state of mind, an approach to living and competing. Jeff Bezos of Amazon is a millennial. Larry Page of Alphabet is one. Elon Musk is a millennial. Jack Ma, of Alibaba, is a millennial. And of course, the first generation to come in the new millennium are millennials.The millennial generation (the largest generational group in the history of United States) is comprised of those born between 1980 and 2000. Th...

The new cold war: The digital battle between privacy and comfort, between individual ownership, market control, and state jurisdiction. The fight is over “information” & “intelligence” the preferred weapon of the victors – over the ages!The last cold war: Was concurred by the capitalists bearing gifts of comfort and luxury. The defeated communists failed its ability to offer any such prize. In other words, the right and advantage of individuals overcame the need of many!This time the...

World war III, living a very healthy and a much longer life, becoming a slave to the machines, loss of hundreds and hundreds of millions of jobs or global productivity gains greater than 3 to 4 times the GDP of United States – Opinions… Opinion … Opinions … Who is right? What is the consequence or the gift Artificial Intelligence is offering us? This article is NOT about the top 5 things to do or the 7 habits to embrace … It is about the complexity of a world in flux.. perhaps w...

On a crisp cold day, sitting on an aged wooden bench under an enormously imposing and remarkably colorful dome, one thought slapped me in the face: It always starts with one!

THE SETTING …

After a speech for a group of technology CEOs in Montreal around transformation and change, I squeezed a couple of days of R&R (rest and relaxation for the newer generation) to explore the city.

First stop after a late morning start was the Notre-Dame Basilica. An almost two-hundred-year-old gothic st...

There are over 75 trillion cells in the human body and millions (between one to three million) die and are replaced every second. Some are lost through wear and tear, and others deliberately self-destruct. The body is always in a state of restructuring and flux, renewing and reorganizing. Through “Program Cell Death” or apoptosis, and based on programmed sequences in their genetic codes, cells kill themselves. When too little apoptosis occurs it can trigger cancer. Too much of it could cause...

GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE BOAT
Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from a disturbing dream. He found himself changed into a grotesque cockroach; on his back and stiff with monstrous looking arch-shaped ribs, and multiple tiny legs. Like Kafka’s hapless protagonist has experienced a metamorphosis. Leaders and companies can also wake up one morning and see themselves transformed into an inferior and immobile entity; beginning their journey toward a demise. Positive evolutions are purposeful, in...

YES AMAZON #innovates and constantly explores new arenas of #competitiveness – Envied & Feared and the topic of conversation in board rooms and #investorcalls… MY humble suggestion: #FEAR is not the answer, #ACTION is ... #HOPE is not a #STRATEGY … LEARN BUT build YOUR own unique version of future. Is #focus over rated?

 

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Here is a post from the guys at CBInsights

Guess what: Amazon isn’t just a retail/grocery giant. Or a cloud giant. Or a media/video giant. Or a logistics giant. ...

A quick story about Gaining the Caterpillar’s Edge from CHINA. Here is an email from an old Chinese student and his interaction with his investor father. I thought it might be an interesting read – here is the email:

Dear Professor Sid,

A few days ago, I finished reading your book. As soon as I finished it, I got together with my father immediately. We discussed the key points and were reminded that: “The best time to induce change is when things are good.”

As you know my father invested a...

[image error]An advice some executives and managers dish out on how to innovate and change things: “don’t ask for permission first, ask for forgiveness later” … WHAT NONSENSE!

The premise: i) move fast, ii) avoid getting tangled up in corporate politics, iii) no need for consensus, and iv) circumvent established processes; Employees, managers and leaders could initiate change without asking for permission. Later, ask for forgiveness about not seeking permission first. Valla! Problem solved: the organizatio...

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The Caterpillar’s Edge is a book about embracing change to gain a competitive edge and flourish in today’s global business climate. Its author, Sid Mohasseb, is an adjunct professor, a venture capitalist, a corporate CEO, the former strategic innovation lead in strategy for a conglomerate, a Harvard-trained negotiator, and a featured TED Talk speaker. Sid’s not...