by Brooks Talley on November 16, 2009
“Well, I don’t want to leave money on the table.”
I’ve heard that a lot recently. And it’s driving me insane. It’s a perfectly good metaphor, but as a business concept, it has almost no relevance to industries or businesses that are in emerging or growth stages. In the tech industry, and especially for emerging products and markets, the resistance to “leaving money on the table” is basically a shorthand way of saying “we have no long term strategy, so we have to maximize short term returns at all costs.” If the market is growing, it’s often more profitable to have more competitors than fewer, and to have partners who are more profitable rather than less.
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by Brooks Talley on November 16, 2009
Note: I’m posting this on behalf of the lovely and talented Anna, who took it upon herself to write the wrapup when it became apparent, after only two months or so, that I wasn’t going to. She originally wrote and posted this as a Facebook note, and I’m reposting it here for those who didn’t see it there. -Brooks
We hit London after a couple days in beautiful Croatia. It was hard to believe we had only a couple days left in our trip and it was surreal to hear English being spoken after not hearing much of it for the previous six weeks. I’ve wanted to go to London *forever*. Really. Some of my favorite things are from England, so I was super excited to “mind the gap”, ride the odd looking taxis, watch the double-decker busses pass and check out the nifty red phone booths. It turns out that the phone booths are generally covered in porn business cards. And No, I didn’t take any. Brooks and I were both really excited by the prospect of eating in a real British Indian Curry House. More on that later.
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