If being the biggest company was a guarantee of success, we'd all be using IBM computers and driving GM cars. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
In the struggle between capital and labor, more often than not capital has won, because the real source of value for most… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
The desire for reinvention seems to arise most often when companies hear the siren call of synergy and start to expand beyond… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Discussions of health care in the U.S. usually focus on insurance companies, but, whatever their problems, they're not the main driver of… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
The stock market has an insidious effect on C.E.O.s' moods, because of its impact not just on their companies but on their… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
If private-equity firms are as good at remaking companies as they claim, they don't need tax loopholes to make money. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Nike used to be known as Blue Ribbon Sports. What's now Sara Lee used to be Consolidated Foods. And Exxon was once… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Companies have long gathered data to break down their customer base into specific segments. Now political parties have become adept at micro-targeting,… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
If you thought the advent of the Internet, the spread of cheap and efficient information technology, and the growing fragmentation of the… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Critics of consumer capitalism like to think that consumers are manipulated and controlled by those who seek to sell them things, but… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
To be sure, if you watch CNBC all day long you'll pick up some interesting news about particular companies and the economy… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
In a world where companies increasingly know about their business in real time, it makes no sense that public reporting mostly follows… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
There are certainly valid reasons for taking a company private, and it's also possible that C.E.O.s perform better when monitored by a… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
In the days when corporate downsizing was all the rage, Wall Street took a lot of flak for judging companies too harshly… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Self-dealing, essentially, occurs when managers run companies to line their own pockets instead of those of the companies' owners. It's been a… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
If someone really wants my company's business, why shouldn't he be able to do everything he can - including paying me off… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Disasters redistribute money from taxpayers to construction workers, from insurance companies to homeowners, and even from those who once lived in the… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
If you work for Google or Apple, stock options give you a chance to share in the increasing value of the company.… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Life insurance became popular only when insurance companies stopped emphasizing it as a good investment and sold it instead as a symbolic… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
What an economy really wants, after all, is not more investment per se but better investment. It wants capital to flow to… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Steve Jobs was rare: a C.E.O. who actually had a huge impact on his company's fortunes. Contrary to corporate mythology, most C.E.O.s… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Lack of confidence, sometimes alternating with unrealistic dreams of heroic success, often leads to procrastination, and many studies suggest that procrastinators are self-handicappers: rather… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Downsizing itself is an inevitable part of any creatively destructive economy. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
In the business world, bad news is usually good news - for somebody else. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
You might think of consumption as a fairly passive activity, but buying new products and services is actually pretty risky, at least if you… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Corporations hope that the right concept will turn things around overnight. This is what you might call the crash-diet approach: starve yourself for a… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Instead of mindlessly tossing billions at or taking billions from the Net as such, investors should be spending their time making sure that it's… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
If you thought the advent of the Internet, the spread of cheap and efficient information technology, and the growing fragmentation of the consumer market… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
The financial crisis of 2008 was not caused by investment banks betting against the housing market in 2007. It was caused by the fact… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
A consumer-finance agency is a good thing, but it would do well to teach consumers a simple lesson: if you don't understand the deal… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
What corporations fear is the phenomenon now known, rather inelegantly, as 'commoditization.' What the term means is simply the conversion of the market for… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Making loans and fighting poverty are normally two of the least glamorous pursuits around, but put the two together and you have an economic… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
