Intel is looking more like Kodak, Hostess Baking, ToysRUs and GE every day.  People wonder “How can a company that is so successful, so innovative screw up its business so badly?”  There really is a pattern to what these companies did wrong, which you can avoid.  Listen to this podcast, using the Intel case study to explain how leaders fall into the bad decision-making trap.  Learn how you can be more like Microsoft, Apple and Amazon today, on the edge of “the next big thing.”

People get stuck doing what they’ve always done, and reluctant to do (or invest in) new things.  Intel’s success in the 1060s as a chip manufacturer and then in the 1980s as a microprocessor manufacturer caused leadership – and the company culture – to believe that they would forever succeed if they just kept making chips and CPU microprocessors.  But the world shifted, and now chip making isn’t profitable – and Intel no longer has an advantage.  And the big growth in chip development isn’t in CPUs (like the x86 series upon which the PC business was built) but in parallel operations with neural processing units that were originally developed for gaming and now the heartbeat of AI.  Key decisions to support the historical company strength and not invest in smaller, newer but high growth markets years ago have led to Intel’s remarkable fall from success today.

Thinking Points:

• Do you know the high growth “on the edge” things happening in your marketplace(s)?
• Do you always resource your old business before even considering investing in new things?
• Do you spend a lot of your time, your people, your money and other assets protecting your current business rather than looking for new growth opportunities?
• Are you growing at 10%+ every year?  Do you have a plan to double your revenue every 5.5 years?

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