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HOT TOPICS
- 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
Leadership Profile: Sass Somekh (Part 6)
After spending 23 extremely successful years with Applied Materials, Sass joined Novellus as the President. In this next segment of our interview we discuss this transition, and some of the differences he encountered between the two companies. SM: What prompted you to leave Applied and go to Novellus? SS: I had an opportunity to become
Leadership Profile: Sass Somekh (Part 5)
Sass continues his discussion of technology innovation inside applied, and highlights the importance of experience. He also takes us into a discussion on innovation and conviction, which he believes can lead to success. SM: In that process you still needed to act a bit like a venture capitalist and decide which products go forward and
Micro-Franchise For Venture Investment
For those of you who have read my discussion with Prof. Raj Reddy at Carnegie Mellon, you are familiar with our debate over MicroFinance, MicroEquity and MicroFranchise. We continued drilling down on this topic last weekend, following Sequoia’s investment in Micro-Finance company, SKS. I also wrote a piece referring back to some ideas from 2
Leadership Profile: Sass Somekh (Part 4)
Sass has displayed a consistent and perpetual ability to introduce extremely successful product lines at Applied Materials. Here we discuss the methodologies he used to establish the environment of innovation and product development. Very few companies have been able to internally innovate after reaching a certain scale. Many have perfected the art of M&A to
Salesforce.com Playing VC
I wrote a piece earlier called Is Bootstrapping Becoming Sexy Again? In that, I made the point that given where the Internet is today, bootstrapping companies has suddenly become very easy, and gobs of venture capital are no longer required to build the vast majority of businesses. Now, many of the larger companies are actually
Leadership Profile: Sass Somekh (Part 3)
Sass continues his discussion of his early career. Of note is his constant involvement in innovation, from Bell Labs to Intel he was consistently working on developing emerging technologies which would come to dominate the marketplace. His talent for building new product based on new technologies, and scaling them into market leading businesses is at
Leadership Profile: Sass Somekh (Part 2)
Here Sass discusses his educational background, with a particular emphasis placed on his High School education which he received in Israel. Additionally, he covers the early years of his career. The disparities he notes between High School education in the United States and other parts of the world is another item of interest. In many
Bollywood Screenplays
At the turn of the century, I came to the conclusion that film is one of the most powerful mediums to affect change. That’s when, I started taking some courses in (Hollywood-style) screenwriting. This year, Al Gore has proved how effective a well-crafted film can be in conveying a message to a very large number