On Tuesday, Amazon.com reported third-quarter earnings that fell far short of Wall Street’s expectations. Its earnings were down 73% from the quarter a year earlier and it missed the analysts’ consensus estimate of $0.24 per share by nearly a dime. By all accounts, this was a sizable earnings miss and the stock responded as such, […]

“Steve Jobs Put a Ding in the Universe” “Obama: Wall Street Protests Show Frustration” When I logged on to CNN.com yesterday, these were the top two headlines. As I flipped through the television news channels, these two stories were touted side by side. As I digested these two stories — America’s heartbreak upon learning of […]

On Wednesday, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos introduced the Kindle Fire tablet. The Fire, priced at $199 and lacking many of the features of Apple’s iPad, garnered a mixed response from analysts. On the one hand, they noted that Barnes and Noble and many of the Android-based competitor tablets should be worried. On the other hand, the […]

Observations on Steve Job's legacy - and Apple's leadership future - are only just beginning. In recent years, many leading thinkers have contributed...

On Friday, President Obama will sign the America Invents Act, resulting in the largest overhaul of the U.S. patent system in over half a century. The primary result of the legislation will be to transition America from a “first-to-invent” to a “first-to-file” country. Supporters of the new measure argue that it will streamline the patent […]

In the decade since September 11, 2001, Americans have learned how to get along in a new world. For most of us, that means we show up earlier at the airport and we don’t complain when we’re asked to take off our shoes there. But for the U.S. military, the last decade has been one […]

Last night in after-hours trading, Apple’s stock dropped precipitously. The prophets of Apple’s doom emerged after a very long hibernation. Even those bullish on Apple’s prospects could hardly muster more than lukewarm praise of Tim Cook’s appointment to CEO of Apple Inc, saying, “he’s pretty good, but he’s no Steve Jobs.” We believe they’re all […]

In the second quarter of 2011, China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth slowed to 9.5%. That was down from 9.7% in the previous quarter and from its blistering 11.9% pace in the first quarter of 2010. From the vantage point of many in the United States, where optimistic estimates of GDP growth continue to be […]

“Alright, you caught us. We’re actually not making any money. In fact, we are really losing a lot of money.” This is the essence of Groupon’s declaration last week that it will remove the controversial accounting metric called Adjusted Consolidated Segment Operating Income (ACSOI) from its financial statements. ACSOI essentially measures Groupon’s profits before subtracting […]

A Lieutenant leading a platoon in Iraq must make a complex ethical, military, and leadership decision: whether to risk his life and that of other soldiers...