] Gore is a strikingly contradictory company: a place where
] nerds can be mavericks; a place that's impatient with the
] standard way of working, but more than patient with
] nurturing ideas and giving them time to flourish; a place
] that's humble in its origins, yet ravenous for
] breakthrough ideas and, ultimately, growth. Gore's
] uniqueness comes from being as innovative in its
] operating principles as it is in its diverse product
] lines. This is a company that has kicked over the rules
] that most other organizations live by. It is tucked away
] in the mid-Atlantic countryside, 3,000 miles from Silicon
] Valley and even further (in its mind-set) from Wall
] Street. And in its quietly revolutionary way, it is doing
] something almost magical: fostering ongoing, consistent,
] breakthrough creativity.

Someday. Hopefully. I'll make/work at a place like this.

The Fabric of Creativity

] Families can now easily shell out more than $100 a month
] for local and long distance phone plans, subscription TV,
] pay-per-view, Internet and cellular phone service. New
] demands in the form of Internet media--music downloads,
] interactive games, satellite radio and video-on-demand
] services--promise to push costs, and bundling
] opportunities, to even greater heights.

yep. and it's finally working. through lack of competition and slow roll out of services, the bill has crept up, and bundling will be the tool to get you to shell out $200/month for those services by nickel and diming you to death. that's been the holy grail since 1993.

DSL wars come down to a battle of the bundles

] These changes in the entrepreneur profile represent an
] enormous return on our collective investment in the
] irrational exuberance of the late 90s. As a nation, we
] have probably spent something close to $500 billion on
] entrepreneur development over the past 10 years, if you
] consider the venture capital, corporate capital, and
] public capital that has been spent on high-tech startups
] during that period. We tend to focus on the flood of
] money that was wasted on goofy ideas and flawed business
] models, but we have not given full respect to the value
] that investment has created%u2014not just the eBays and
] and Googles of the world, but (more importantly) the
] experience pool and the knowledge base that has been
] created, and the propagation of best practices throughout
] our economy.

I've been saying this all along... there's a tremendous amount of gold to be mined from the boom-bust. Not just in intellectual capital, but experience and perspective. It will reverberate and echo for decades.

The New Entrepreneur

University of Maryland's archive of failed businesses.

Business Plan Archive

] Mr. Elder's vehicle was one of at least 60 new CR-V's
] nationwide to catch fire suddenly while on the road. In
] most cases, the vehicles had just been serviced for their
] first oil changes.

YIKES!

Why Are Honda CR-V's Catching Fire?

] At the moment, homeowners can deduct interest they pay on
] their mortgages from their income taxes. Without an
] income tax, this subsidy, long seen as part of what made
] the American dream come true, would disappear. Bringing
] it back, perhaps through direct grants, would require
] raising the national sales tax rate to 21 percent.

a great analysis on why flat taxes, whether income or sales, would not work very well.

Economic View: What if a Sales Tax Were the Only Tax?

A: You don't. You hire good people who will challenge each other every day to make the best products possible. That's why you don't see any big posters on the walls around here, stating our mission statement. Our corporate culture is simple.

Voices Of Innovation: Steve Jobs

Interesting that despite having $250B (yes, Billion!) in revenue, they spend less than 1% on IT. Proof positive that technology investment does eventually scale to efficiency? Or is it just that $2.5B a year buys too much stuff?

WalMart IT

] Great firms can be undone by disruptors who analyze and
] exploit an incumbent%u2019s strengths and motivations.
] From Clayton Christensen%u2019s new book Seeing
] What%u2019s Next.

The Innovator's Battle Plan

] Congress has become another battleground. Technology
] companies claim a bill called the Inducing Infringements
] of Copyrights Act, introduced in June by Sen. Orrin
] Hatch, R-Utah, is so broadly written that it could make
] products such as Apple Computer's iPod an illegal inducer
] of copyright infringement.

Proof once more that Orrin Hatch is an idiot.

Learning from the Napster case, the entertainment industry is trying to block new technology before it takes off