From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The factory isn't something to hide away or outsource to the cheapest option. It's something to cherish, to be proud of. We can be trendy, we can be a brand, but it means nothing if the product that goes out the door isn't exceptional.
The accidental perpetrator is a team player. Their involvement in misconduct isn't driven by personal greed, but could result from simply following orders from higher-ups, a commitment to their team, or an unwavering loyalty to a CEO or CFO. However, such blind obedience could inadvertently lead to involvement in fraudulent activities.
Culture is not aspirational, it's observational. It's not something you and your co-founders sit down, dream-up, put into PowerPoint, and create some posters from, for the break-out room. Culture, simply, is how you behave and how you treat your co-founders, employees, and customers.
The story is told sincerely, but the cumulative effect is misleading – a subconsciously organised trick. The whole show is ultimately anchored around the wizard, a character who comes on stage one day to reveal how they got to the very top – they will tell a moving story often involving their mother, how they were taught about hard work, seizing opportunity and being resilient.
It has certainly affected the appetite to investors to engage in LIBOR denominated contracts. Financial markets depend on trust, and we had precious little trust as it was. The LIBOR scandal has done nothing to restore that trust.
Entrepreneurship is not for everybody, and it's also worth noting that you're not entitled to be a great entrepreneur. You're not entitled to be successful if you start a company, in fact the most likely outcome is that you won't be. Sometimes I meet founders and entrepreneurs who complain about how hard their fundraising or engineering challenges are… Guess what… yes…. It's really f***ing hard. That's the truth.
The first thing to do for our ecology is not to use less electricity, it's to cease buying things that are not useful.
Big firms can get credit and are not using it while small firms cannot get credit at all.
As an entrepreneur you have to know your market. You shouldn't take too much advice, and you need to believe in your own ability and be ready to tackle problems. You also have to be prepared for the fact that it may not work!
Innovative companies are not afraid of failure – they're willing to take risks, fail forward, learn from missteps, pivot, and keep going.
One of the things which is a really distinguishing factor about our markets in contrast to the OTC derivative market is that we're completely open, competitive and transparent with a very high degree of participation, a very high turnover, and a high degree of pre and post trade price transparency.
Today, information is omnidirectional – you have to respond to it immediately- and you have to empower people, in the field, to make decisions, or you will fail. Leaders today are far less involved with telling people what to do, and much more involved with setting goals and providing guardrails.