categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
education
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 8)
SM: Does this include the kids chatting with each other? JK: At launch we will not do that, and we are targeting that age range where today it is delicate. We have another product that is an expansion of our gaming line, where we are getting old enough kids that we will be able to
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 6)
SM: What is the strategy you arrived at? And what is the process you used to get there? JK: It is pretty simple looking back. The process started simply by getting the various constituencies lined up. There was a board constituency, a senior management constituency, and you had key movers and shakers; people who, once
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 5)
SM: How did LeapFrog miss the Internet? JK: This is an interesting question, one that I used to ask a lot. The company was, in 2001, very active with a product called MindStation which was a dial up hub where customers would subscribe and get learning applets from LeapFrog. It was a flop because it
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 4)
SM: While you were doing Orbitz, did you already join the board of LeapFrog? JK: No, I joined the board in April of 2005. SM: How did they find you? JK: Leapfrog had been in the process of restructuring its board of directors, moving from insider directors to independent directors. They were looking for somebody
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 2)
SM: The Airlines had huge optimization problems. JK: They really did. In fact, there was a huge optimization problem on every front; how to set capital, prices, routes, seats, everything. I joined American Airlines in 1980, and over the course of 17 years at American Airlines I got sucked from one role to the next.
Leapfrog’s Turnaround Strategy May Yield Success in ’08
LeapFrog Enterprises (LF) was last left off in this blog with the March 2007 analysis of a possible turnaround strategy. Unfortunately, if you compare the stock charts then and now, they are eerily similar. To understand what is going on over at its Emeryville headquarters, I sat down with CEO Jeff Katz (great guy) last
Turning Around LeapFrog: CEO Jeff Katz (Part 1)
SM: Jeff, let’s start with your background. Where do you come from, where did you go to school, and how did you get into technology? I know that you went to MIT, and I have to say that it is a pretty good school! JK: Of course! We always referred to Harvard as the best
Apollo Needs Succession Planning
The Apollo Group, Inc. (APOL), provides educational programs through its subsidiaries the University of Phoenix, Institute for Professional Development, the College for Financial Planning Institutes, Western International University, and Insight Schools. I previously discussed Apollo under potential LBOs, and later on in the context of Educate’s buyout. Apollo, however, is still public. Apollo announced Q4
