Tom Gardner - Value Investor

This is an excellent interview with Tom Gardner the founder of the motley fool. Interestingly he stresses, amongst other things, the importance of a good company culture. The interview can be found here.

Jeff Immelt of GE - Interview

This is another Stanford Interview - this time with Jeff Immelt of GE. Geoff is an engaging and entertaining speaker. He talks about GE, managing GE dealing with problems and the challenges that he faces and will face. Here is a summary of some of the things that I got out of his lecture - but there is a lot in it.

• CEO needs a point of view of the world - and needs to invest using the world as you see it. If you are investing in a company it would seem to be a good idea to have some kind of faith in the management vision.
• We are in a reordering of global economy - this is something that is well mentioned by other leaders 20% have 80% of GDP this is changing. Also in his opinion europe will be slower growth region 5-10 years.
• Notion of productivity & cost - there will more products at more price points. Sell products at low price points and still make money as you attack new emerging markets.
• Resource scarcity - resource rich parts of world will be interesting. For example Angola. Kazakhstan Ubikistan Russia. Also conservation technology (to conserve scarce resources) is/will be interesting.
• Networked world. Not only IT but also collaborations - joint ventures etc.
• State economy - Governance through the world are very influential in business.
• World is and will become more volatile.
• You have to plan for the long term.
• You need to understand how things fail.

"A CEO drives change and develops other people."

Ed Catmul - Pixar (Great Interview)

Generally I post videos of investors or managers - that give me insight to specific points that are sort of investment related. I post them amongst other things because I use my blog as a record of things that I am interested in and can refer back to. A couple of weeks ago I was looking for that great video with Ed Catmul and could not find it.

So this video by Ed Catmul is just a really good video. It tracks the change of Pixar from being a company that produced software to a company that produces (primarily) animated films - the growing pains, the issues and how they were solved. It is a really excellent video and shows some really good management. Good management has undefinable qualities - I seem to remember somebody one saying "I don't know how to define obesity - but I know when I see it" - there is a lot of good management (I can see it) and good learning in this video. Enjoy!

Bret Clayton (Rio Tinto) Stanford Interview

This is another interview that has been published on youtube from Stanford University. Bret Clayton is an executive director of Rio Tinto.

This interview gives an interesting insight into the world of mining. Projects are huge, budgets are massive and timescales are of a completely different order to what most businesses consider. The time from inception to operation of a mine could well be 15 years. Again this echos with the excellent talk I attended from David Mayhew.

There are also insights into his view of what will happen to commodities like copper over the next many years.

AB InBev's Brito: 'Hire the Right People'

Another interview from Stanford university. Brito covers many things but gives real insight into the value of leadership, good management and corporate culture. You also get a hint of the value of brands. He also mention something I first heard from Guy Kawasaki - "B players don't hire A players" (or something like that) - he puts it as mediocre people don't hire good people.

The interview and subsequent questions are well worth watching.