BUSINESS – REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE

HUAWEI

There is an ongoing hybridization of American capitalism and Chinese communism. Is Trump’s authoritarianism becoming more like Xi’s communism or Xi’s authoritarianism becoming more like Trump’s capitalism? One wonders–are we growing closer together or farther apart?

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

House of Huawei (The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company)

Author: Eva Dou

Narration by: Nancy Wu

Eva Dou (Author, American journalist who reports on technology for The Washington Post.)

“House of Huawei” is a complex history of the growth and development of what became a Chinese multinational technology company that builds smartphones, laptops, smartwatches, and most importantly, telecom infrastructure for cloud services around the world. It is China’s version of Amazon that becomes a massive seller of tech equipment, internet use, and communication.

Ren Zhengfei (Chinese entrepreneur and engineer, founder of Huawei Technologies.)

There are many names of Huawei business leaders that are largely unknown to most Americans. Ren Zhengfei is the founder and most important person in Dou’s story. He is born in 1944 to schoolteacher parents during the Cultural Revolution. He served in the Chinese armies engineering corps that shaped his management style. He worked through famine, political purges, and the strict discipline of military service. He became the founder of Huawei in 1987.

Deng Xiaoping (China’s Chairman of the Central Advisory Commission of the Chinese Communist Party, 1982-1987)

The advance of Deng Xioping opens a capitalist door to the world for Huawei. Beginning in 1978 through 1989 Deng reforms the communist party and encourages a limited form of capitalism in China. When Xi takes over, Huawei becomes more directly subject to communist party oversight. As a company, Huawei is pulled closer to China’s government control. The Huawei network is classified as a national-security asset. Though Huawei may or may not have sought closer association with the CCP, it became entangled with state strategy.

Xi makes Huawei a national champion of innovation and semiconductor technology. It becomes a symbol of China’s technology ambitions while being a target of U.S. sanctions. Dou shows Huawei becomes a battleground for tech strategy between China and the Untied States

Sun Yafang (Chinese engineer and Chairwoman of Huawei, 1999-2018.)

Sun Yafang is a former chairwoman of Huawei. Her ties to Chinese intelligence services are viewed as a recurring controversy with Huawei’s involvement with America. Her relationship with China’s state power structure creates concern on the part of the U.S. with Huawei’s data collection as a part of Huawei’s practices in America.

Meng Wanzhou (aka Cathy Meng or Sabrina Meng, Deputy Chairwoman and CFO of Huawei.)

Ren’s daughter, Meng Wanzhou, becomes the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei. Wanzhou became known to the world when she is detained in Canada in 2018 at the request of the United States. Her arrest ironically leads to more familiarity with Huawei and its expansion in the world. The primary concern the author reveals is how dependent Huawei may be on the Chinese government for information about America’s technology services.

The fundamental concern of America, Germany, and Japan is Huawei’s use of data collection in their countries.

In the end, these countries decide to ban or restrict the use of Huawei’s equipment because of their ties to the Chinese Communist Party, government, and military. Beginning in 2019 the U.S. banned some of Huawei’s services and global chip supplies. By 2026, Huawei is banned from American federal networks, and telecom infrastructure services. Germany and Japan take similar actions between 2018 and 2026.

Dou explains Huawei’s history exposes deep contradictions with China’s government-directed economic growth.

The authoritarian and state-directed economic and political structure of China is a challenging contradiction to the idealism of communism. China’s communism is compelled to change ideologically from Marxism-Leninism to a state-directed form of capitalism. Huawei becomes a telecom giant euphemistically called socialism with Chinese characteristics. In truth, Huawei is structured to be more capitalist than communist with interventionist potential by the state if it conflicts with centralized control of the party.

Communist captitalism.

Dou explains how Party committees are created within Huawei’s management system. These committees exercise ideological control over Huawei’s executives. Huawei’s objectives are required to conform to national priorities. The development of 5G and telecom infrastructure becomes a national, not private asset of the company. This generates fear in the U.S. about security liabilities and foreign influence of China on U.S.’ and allied countries’ political and/or economic affairs. Dou notes China’s leadership insists on enforcing its security laws, data practices, and CCP’s rules of the road for Huawei’s operations.

Huawei discipline.

Dou notes that Xi’s anti-corruption campaign pressures Huawei to tighten internal governance. Executives of Huawei were disciplined for being too extravagant. The CCP organized ideological training for company employees to more fully align them with the Party. China’s government interference in Huawei’s management leads to U.S. sanctions and an arrest of Meng Wanzhou’s in Canada. The United States has effectively banned Huawei telecom and surveillance equipment. Federal agencies cannot use Huawei devices. American internet companies in the U.S. that receive federal funds must remove Huawei equipment. Though Huawei phones and laptops are not banned in the U.S., they are not sold by major U.S. carriers or retailers. The UK, Germany, France, Japan, Australia, and Canada have taken similar actions against Huawei services. Huawei product like laptops and mobile phones are not universally banned but many Western countries have barred telecom infrastructure because of national security concerns.

What is striking about Dou’s book is the history of Huawei shows both confluence and separation between Communism and Capitalism.

Both use the capitalist tools of competition, private enterprise, and global markets. Both are involved in the private sector and provide preferential treatment, political protection, and financing. Nationalism is a greater force than Marxism for both China and the U.S. American corporate discipline is similar to communist party discipline. Further, economic and political strategies of America and China have similarities. However, the two cultures conflict with each other over globalization and levels of interference or control of private companies. America leans toward transparency, partnership, open markets, and international trust. China opts for secrecy, political reliability, ideological conformity, and oversight to ensure national security. Furthermore, America thrives on risk-taking, experimentation, a free market and decentralized decision making while China emphasizes political correctness, Party control, ideological discipline, and insistence on corruption elimination.

In sum, it seems there is an ongoing hybridization of both American capitalism and Chinese communism. Is Trump’s authoritarianism becoming more like Xi’s communism or Xi’s authoritarianism becoming more like Trump’s capitalism? One wonders–are we growing closer together or farther apart?

A HONG KONG LIFE

Like American capitalism, Chinese communism has its faults. One big difference is American capitalism offers a higher level of individual freedom with legal rights to defend oneself in a court of law (that is, of course, if you are not an immigrant).

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Red Roulette (An Insider’s Story of Wealth, Power, and Vengeance in Today’s China.)

Author: Desmond Shum

Narration by: Tim Chiou

Desmond Shum (Author, born in Shanghai in 1968, former Hong Kong businessman who lives in the UK. with a son born in the U.S.)

“Red Roulette” is an amazing personal story of a former Chinese citizen who marries a successful Chinese woman, Whitney Duan. She is disappeared by the Xi government in 2017. Shum and Duan were married from 2004 to 2015. His wife’s fate is unknown to Shum as he writes this book. Amazingly, Ms. Duan calls Shum four years after she is disappeared by China to ask him to not publish his book. Shum believes this is the first public contact by Duan since her disappearance in 2017.

Ms. Duan had chosen to capitalize on a system of doing business in China the way it had been done for many years. That system is riven with a kind of societal corruption revealed in “Red Roulette” that has grown with communism in China.

Women simply want an equal opportunity to succeed in pursuit of money, power, and prestige, i.e. all the secular objectives men take for granted.

Desmond Shum reveals surprises to many Americans about China’s culture. Despite a presumption of many non-Chinese, Shum explains power is personal, not institutional in China. One might presume that CCP’s control of wealth and power in China comes from the party and its leaders. However, wealth in China is only influenced by the communist government through a social network of beliefs. Shum explains personal relationships and connections are built on favors, gifts, and mutual obligations that are debts that carry the reality of power in China. This explains the title of the book “Red Roulette” in the sense that success in Chinese society is a game of chance based on bets placed on the value of favors, and gifts that CCP members believe have worth.

Debt for favors and gifts is in the eye of the beholder which makes fair payment a mysterious and chance driven calculation. Adding to that complexity is the power of a CCP leader to erase a citizen socially, legally, and economically. By erasure, Shum explains citizens may be detained, prevented from family contact, denied legal representation, arrested, impoverished, and isolated from any social contact. Shum explains his ex-wife, Whitney Duan, vanished for years with no charges, no trial, and no record of her disappearance.

Xi Jinping (Leader of the CCP in China.)

The CCP elite govern China through relationships among themselves, not by official meetings or party leadership orders that are necessarily based on definable communist dogma. Everything happens behind the scenes. Official meetings, if there are any, are strictly “for show”. Shum’s admits in his personal story that he and his ex-wife became wealthy through a corrupt relationship with Zhang Beili, one of the CCP apparatchiks and power brokers. One may argue the CCP is similar to the Congress of the United States. Wealthy capitalists, like CCP apparatchiks, game the stock market and society through political connection with elected government officials

Deng Xiaoping launched an initial shift away from Maoist central planning despite ordering the crackdown on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

As somewhat of a realist, one understands governance is based on leaders presumed power, wealth, and political influence. Shum argues China’s economic modernization and capitalism began with Deng Xiaoping who rose to power after Tiananmen with Hu Jintao continuing China’s economic boom. Shum argues today’s Xi is increasing control of the CCP and the economy with the traditions of Chinese society. In the author’s opinion, China is reinstituting a Mao-style autocracy that is spreading fear across the country.

In fairness to Shum’s assessment of China, there is evidence of America’s slip into autocracy in today’s economy.

Zuboff’s scholarly examination of American internet mavens concludes “…Surveillance Capitalism” will lead to Orwell’s “1984” or B.F. Skinner’s “Beyond Freedom and Dignity”.

Shum believes Xi Jinping’s CCP anti-corruption campaign is only a pretext for power consolidation. In Shum’s opinion, Xi’s targeted removal of CCP apparatchiks is not because of their corruption but because they rival his power over the party. Xi’s campaign on corruption increases fear among CCP members and influencers that reinforce traditions of China’s rule by personal relationship and connection. Xi’s goal is to increase personal loyalty to himself which is part and parcel of the history of Chinese social norms. Shum’s evidence of corruption is the increase in disappearances, secret detentions, arrests of businesspeople without charges, and insistence on what is characterized as party discipline.

Whitney Duan and Shum when they were married.

Whitney Duan’s disappearance is Shum’s primary example of Xi’s Chinese governance. Duan is characterized as ambitious, brilliant, and determined. Her rise to power in Chinas is from close relationships she develops with people who have influence in the communist party. She befriends Zhang Beili, the wife of the Vice Premier of the CCP, Wen Jiabao. Because of that association, Duan has privileged access to information about land deals and major real-estate projects in China. She uses that information to make deals with advanced knowledge that result in great economic wealth for her and her former husband. Shum marries Duan and they both capitalize on insider information they gain from Duan’s relationships. One presumes the marriage ends because of the stresses and political dangers involved in their common business interests.

The quality of Kafka’s story in “The Trial” is the human desire for freedom that is not extinguished even in the darkest times of a country’s repression. This is a hope one presumes for both China and America, but human nature gets in the way.

In 2017, two years after the author’s divorce, Whitney Duan disappears. There are no charges, no trial, no public disclosure, and she is unable to contact any of her family including the son she has with Shum. No one knows if she is dead or alive. The state refuses to say she has been detained. One presumes, she is arrested because of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign and his purge of some party members like Wen Jiabao. Interestingly, just before the book is to be published, Whitney Duan calls Shum to ask him not to publish. Obviously, she is alive.

One big difference between American capitalism and Chinese communism is a higher level of individual freedom with legal rights to defend oneself in a court of law (that is, of course, if you are not an immigrant). That is a significant difference between China and America. However, both countries are impacted by bad actors that game the system based on personal relationship and influence with political leaders.

On the one hand, this story reinforces belief that Xi is trying to reform the CCP. On the other, the methodology of autocracy offers no defense against the injustice of being condemned without trial.

One concludes Whitney Duan lost in the game of Chinese Roulette by being part of a relationship that gave her inside information from the CCP. Her disappearance is proof of the theme of Shun’s book about the importance of relationships and connections to gain power and financial success in Chinese society. Like American capitalism, Chinese communism has its faults.

POWER

As Oscar Wilde’s dialogue between two people said in “The Picture of Dorian Gray”–“Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything.” The response is “Yes, and when they grow older they know it.” That was written in 1891. Baker infers not much has changed in the 21st century.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

How to Rule the World (An Education in Power at Stanford University.)

Author: Theo Baker

Narration by: Theo Baker

Theo Baker (Author, former student journalist for “The Stanford Daily”.)

Theo Baker wrote for “The Stanford Daily” newspaper at Stanford University and received the George Polk Award for his reporting. His writing contributed to the resignation of the Stanford University President, Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Theo Baker, as the son of two journalist (Peter Baker and Susan Glasser) appears to have learned something about research and newspaper reporting from his parents. Theo Baker enrolled at Stanford at the age of 17 in 2022 and graduated in 2026 with a degree in history. To have joined Stanford at 17 years of age says something about his intellect, and pre-college academic achievement.

The value of education.

Personally, as a graduate of no-name universities in America, the picture Baker creates of Stanford makes one envious of the opportunities offered by a highly regarded University. On the one hand, most young students interested in college cannot afford the tuitions of Ivy-plus schools and many may not have either the education, or privileges of wealth that good preparatory schools provide. The added benefit of being a Stanford student is its being located in Silicon Valley, the best area of the country for those who pursue programming skills. Though Baker is more tech savvy about programming than past generations, his chosen field of study is history.

Influence.

What Baker interestingly points out is that classroom learning is less important than networking and raising entrepreneurial capital at Stanford. What is a little off-putting in Baker’s story is it implies Stanford’s culture of entrepreneurship is more important than scholarship. The focus of students seems not on education but in the goal of becoming gob-smacking rich. Having recently read a book about the Founding Father’s of America, one wonders what would have become of America if the Founders had focused more on personal wealth than the future of the country. This is, of course, sour grapes of a book-reviewer because the reality is Ivy-plus Universities have trained many students who have become great contributors to American government and America’s way of life, without becoming gazillionaires.

Technology research.

Baker refers to student’ millionaires while at Stanford because of their inordinate wealth and early success in tech-fund raising and creative computer programing. He implies the student culture of Stanford measures achievement on entrepreneurial networking more than academic achievement. A startup founder who raises the most money is elevated above high academic achievement in Stanford’s student culture. Getting good academic grades is important but it takes a back seat to a student’s ability to raise start-up capital, sell their programming, and/or create stock market start-ups. Those who are good at raising capital become among the institutionally privileged at Stanford. Academic success is primarily important as it relates to an entrepreneurial end rather than an educational achievement. Baker is not saying Stanford academic success is not real, but it is overshadowed by social networking, entrepreneurship, and financial reward. It reminds one of a book about the history of Reddit’s early recruits and a skilled programmer who commits suicide. Aaron Schwatz went to Stanford in 2004. Ironically, he like Baker is only 17. However, he left after a year. He joined Reddit and became a millionaire, but his wealth seems to have meant little to him in regard to what he believed or what he hoped to achieve in life.

American universities.

In any case, the Stanford President resignation is only a part of Theo Baker’s book. Ivy-League and Ivy-plus schools in America are inferred to be networks of inherited privilege and social connection with Stanford student’s primary goal of becoming filthy rich more than broadly educated. Though no mention is made of Aaron Schwartz’s death, wealth seems a weakness rather than goal for either students or faculty at Stanford.

For a person to say they graduated from Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, or the University of Chicago is highly regarded by the public. When an Ivy-plus University like Stanford makes networking and making money more important than public service or academic achievement, one becomes somewhat disillusioned.

Silicon Valley,

Stanford definitely has advantage over other Ivy League and Ivy-plus schools because of Silicon Valley. One suspects the power of networking is generally much greater in Ivy League universities because of the average wealth of families who live in well-funded school districts, can pay expensive tuitions, and have either funded or been educated themselves in Ivy League or Ivy-plus universities. Becoming wealthy is a genuine achievement in life but real value should (but does not) come from equal opportunity. Without equal opportunity, society becomes less civil and inclined to believe human value is based on wealth, not character. The power of wealth creates a land of the “haves” and “have nots”.

Marc Trevor Tessier-Lavigne (Canadian-American neuroscientist. President of Stanford 2016-2023.)

Baker’s reporting is central to Tessier-Lavigne’s resignation from Stanford. Discovered irregularities of Tessier-Lavigne’s research on an Alzheimer’s cure reported by Baker in the Stanford paper led the Stanford Board of Trustees to launch an investigation into their President. The Board concluded Tessier-Lavigne’s research papers were flawed by manipulated data that induced Genetech to recruit him in 2003 when he was then President of Rockefeller University and later Stanford. In the end, the President of Stanford is not found guilty of any crime because the research manipulations were considered oversight failures that were retracted before any harm to the public. After his resignation, Tessier-Lavigne went on to become co-founder and chair of Xaira Therapeutics, an AI-biotech company.

Past and present generations.

Putting aside Baker’s good fortune in entering Stanford and working for the Stanford paper, he reveals the motivation of many young Americans today. The fate of Stanford’s President, Tessier-Lavigne, introduces a part of the theme of Baker’s book. Tessier-Lavigne is compelled to resign, in part, because of research and writing by this 17-year-old student in Stanford’s local paper. It is a story of the power of truth and the deleterious effects of seeing position or wealth as a measure of one’s value in society. Whether President of the United States, a newspaper journalist, or President of an Ivy-plus university, real power is ultimately in the truth.

AMERICAN AMBITION

Keefe shows Arthur Sackler raised himself in America through grit and determination, i.e., little seems handed to him on a silver plate. This is not to suggest the drug industry or the Sackler’s of the world carry no responsibility for addiction but opportunity and a way to succeed in an American life is a choice.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Empire of Pain (The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty)

Author: Patrick Radden Keefe

Narration by: Patrick Radden Keefe

Patrick Radden Keefe (Author, investigative journalist, staff writer for The New Yorker.)

Patrick Radden Keefe’s book is a detailed examination of the Sackler family, and more specifically, the dynasty that grew after the life and death of Arthur Mitchell Sackler who died in 1987. Arthur Sackler was a trained physician who specialized in biological psychiatry. Through hard work, he built a family fortune with a company specializing in medical advertising and pharmaceutical marketing. With wealth created by advertising, the Sackler patriarch acquired interests in specific drugs that added to the wealth of the Sackler empire. One of those investments is made by the sons of Arthur Sackler. It became known as OxyContin which became a huge revenue producer controlled by Arthur’s heirs. Dr. Paul Goldenheim and Dr. Robert Kaico were the scientists who invented OxyContin while working for Purdue Pharma, a company owned by Arthur’s brothers. Arthur Sackler is characterized by Keefe as secretive about his ownership interests while becoming a very rich man. The structure of his business interests and its conflicts of interest are passed on to his heirs.

Arthur M. Sackler (American psychiatrist and marketer of pharmaceuticals.)

Arthur dies nine years before OxyContin exists. Despite the difficult life Arthur Sadler had with the bankruptcy of his father, he works his way through school, becomes a licensed physician and starts a pharmaceutical advertising company. He worked as a physician, a medical researcher, and owner of a company that advertised his and other medically researched and discovered drugs. This opened the door to profiteering from drug promotions and conflicts of interest in groundbreaking and potentially harmful drugs. As a physician, it put Arthur and other research physicians in position to market drugs and influence prescriptions for drugs that may or may not be safe or effective. As an advertiser of a physician/scientists’ own drugs, they could skirt independent judgement of their effectiveness or possible side effects. The FDA is created to avoid that possibility, but Keefe illustrates how that roadblock is compromised. Keefe recounts how a leader of the FDA is compromised by his relationship with the drug industry.

The Family That Built an Empire of Pain - Strength and Hope

Arthur’s wealth and investment interests are inherited by his divorced wife, his new wife, and his brothers, i.e., Ramond, Mortimer, and Richard who led the company after Arthur’s death. The brothers sell their patent on OxyContin to Purdue Pharma. The brothers start two branches of their business, one of which retains control of OxyContin’s manufacture, marketing, sale, and profit. Patent law is a legal ownership “smoke” screen that protects company owners from liability for harm from patents a company holds. A company may own a patent independently, without recourse to its company’s owners. Purdue Pharma grows and uses its wealth to influence politicians, government officials and doctors to endorse drugs like OxyContin.

OxyContin dosages.

As is known by many Americans, OxyContin has had a catastrophic impact on America. It its launch in 1996, OxyContin is considered by some to be a gateway to addictive drugs like heroin and fentanyl. In 2026, it is estimated that 200 deaths per day were happening from fentanyl overdoses. What Keefe argues is that when the structural conflicts of interest were introduced by the Sackler family (especially with the creation of Purdue Pharma) the lines between drug efficacy and profits were breached by the medical profession.

What Keefe reveals in his research is that pharmaceutical-physician relationships cross the line of conflicts of interest.

Doctors receiving “speaker fees”, continuing-education events, consulting positions, and industry-funded clinical guidelines are being lured into prescribing drugs that may or may not be safe or effective. Funding for medical research frequently comes from companies more interested in profit then drug efficacy. Government regulators are influence by lobbyist for a drug industry that is mired in potential conflicts of interest. Keefe notes there is a revolving door between the FDA and pharma employment. Keefe notes marketing has become a part of medical education. He infers philanthropy by the drug industry may be a bribe to influence public acceptance of drug treatments that are not effective.

Coming away from Keefe’s analysis of the drug industry, one is troubled by its corruption vulnerabilities in a society that prides itself on freedom and rule-of-law.

In one sense, Arthur Sackler is a tribute to how America became one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world. One doubts that the Sackler family planned to create a drug that would addict and kill so many Americans. The Sackler family played a role but how many Americans have made mistakes in their drive for success. Keefe shows Arthur Sackler raised himself in America through grit and determination, i.e., little seems handed to him on a silver plate. This is not to suggest the drug industry or the Sackler’s of the world carry no responsibility for addiction but opportunity and a way to succeed in an American life is a choice.

MURDOCH

Capitalism, communism, and socialism are flawed in different ways. Most Americans believe Capitalism is the best of the three. “Bonfire of the Murdochs” reveals the flaws of capitalism.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Bonfire of the Murdochs (How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family)

Author: Gabriel Sherman

Narration by: Cassandra Medcalf

Gabriel Sherman (Author, American journalist, screenwriter for The Apprentice, and biographer of Roger Ailes.)

The positive face of capitalism offers economic and political freedom to pursue economic well-being through personal effort. There is also a negative face. “Bonfire of the Murdochs” seems to show that face.

Gabriel Sherman explains how Rupert Murdoch and his family are scarred by capitalism which makes them immensely rich but morally bankrupt.

Keith Rupert Murdoch (Australian American business mogul.)

The patriarch of the Murdoch family is Rupert whose family founded two media conglomerates, i.e., News Corp and Fox Corporation. News Corp combines The Wall Street Journal, The Times, and The Australian newspapers. Fox Corporation is made of Fox News, Fox Sports, and Fox TV network. Rupert is the principal creator of these conglomerates, but his children were integral parts of the management and administration of their success.

Rupert Murdoch married five times and had 6 children. He was married for 11 years to Patricia Booker. Their only child was Prudence, born in 1958. Murdoch married his second wife Anna de Peyster in 1967 (the same year of his divorce from Patricia). His second marriage results in the birth of Elisabeth, Lachlan, and James. Anna de Peyster and Rupert Murdoch were married for over 30 years. His third wife, Wendi Deng added two more children for a total of six from his first three wives. His last two marriages were to Jerry Hall and his present wife, Elena Zhukova. The story of Rupert Murdoch’s treatment of his six children is the core of the harm that may come from capitalism’s singular focus on wealth.

Rupert remains alive at 94 years of age. Lachlan Murdoch, took over Fox and News Corp in 2023 with Prudence, Elisabeth, and James taking over one billion dollars each to withdraw from Murdoch holdings without voting rights in its operations. Lachlan becomes the sole manager of the remaining media conglomerate. The author explains how Lachlan is the chosen heir apparent. Lachlan’s conservative views and willingness to distort news’ objectivity are purported reasons for Rupert’s choice of Lachlan as his heir. James and his siblings are characterized as critics of the political leanings and news distortions of Rupert’s empire. All but Lachlan leave the news combine with a billion-plus dollar buyout with no voting shares in the future of Rupert Murdoch’s holdings.

Sherman’s inference is that Lachian is the best choice to continue Rupert Murdoch’ version of capitalism.

Whether one believes Rupert Murdoch’s children are politically different from their father or not is a question one may have in listening to Sherman’s book. It appears the first four Rupert children have a desire for wealth more than capitalist probity. Murdoch and his oldest children seem primarily motivated by individual power, and the socio/political benefit of wealth. The four children, at least those before Grace and Chloe, appear to sacrifice capitalism’s ideals for wealth. Wealth is a lure offered by capitalism for good or ill as members of a capitalist society.

Capitalism must benefit more than a simple minority or small majority of citizens within a country.

One may come away from “Bonfire of the Murdochs” with a bad opinion of Rupert Murdoch and his children but to the non-judgmental, the book only shows a side of capitalism that has made America Great for Americans like Trump and societally flawed for the poor. Capitalism, communism, and socialism are flawed in different ways. Most Americans believe Capitalism is the best of the three. “Bonfire of the Murdochs” reveals the flaws of capitalism.

INDIVIDUAL POWER

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. President Trump exemplifies that truth.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

48 Laws of Power

Author: Robert Greene

Narration by: Richard Poe

Robert Greene (American author, wrote seven international bestsellers, received his degree from University of Wisconsin-Madison in classical studies.)

This is a long book that shows a breadth of understanding about the history of power. How power and influence is acquired and wielded by human beings. Power and influence ranges from idealism to pragmatism to nihilism. In some sense, the “48 Laws of Power” is a study of emperors, courtiers, generals, con artists, and others who acquired power over others in history. What Greene reflects on is the social and human art of gaining and wielding power over other human beings. Whether one is low or high in the hierarchy of humanity, the general key to having power according to Greene is “never outshine superiors” but “always court attention that gains either respect, influence, or control of others”.

MAO ZEDONG (1893-1976)ING FATHER OF PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA)

Greene brilliantly summarizes many characteristics of leaders in history to support his fundamental beliefs about power. He suggests all humans are primarily self-interested. One may disagree with that belief as a universal truth because there are many examples of social cooperation to achieve a common good or a stable system of governance. However, there is always a prime mover, a powerful person behind the scenes who drives the effort to succeed or fail.

Greene argues power is the result of interpersonal relationships. There is a great deal of truth in Greene’s analysis of power but from an institutional or organizational point of view, power is spread among departments’ leaders who report to a single leader. This is not to contradict Greene’s examples of interpersonal power but to temper belief that all power rests with one wielder of power. There is a great deal more to power than individual human manipulation. Organizations of the modern world are built around individual departments with singular powers beyond singular organizational leaders.

American Capital.

To give an example: regardless of who is President of the United States, there are Constitutional and legal systems that constrain his/her power. The bureaucracy of governance operates within rules set by law and precedent. In the case of business enterprise, shareholders, boards, and regulatory frameworks diminish the power of its executives. Further, even in the marketplace of business, capital limitation, supply chains, national platforms like Google, Amazon, and credit card companies have major influences on power exercised by any singular entity. Power in every human organization is also influenced by religions, social myths, and societal norms.

In this increasingly interconnected world, power has become impersonal, sometimes structural and emergent in ways that are non-intentional but significantly more powerful than one individual.

The weakness of the “48 Laws of Power” is that it fails to address institutionalized power that multiplies the power of individuals. A leader of a government or corporation works within a framework of historically developed departments that have their own powers and influences on public and private functions. The dynamics of power Greene explains apply within departments of government and corporations that go beyond the power of one leader.

This often leads to unintended consequences. ICE and Trump’s power are a current example of unintended consequence because of the murder of two Minneapolis American citizens who demonstrated against the President’s immigration policy. One doubts that the President of the United States wishes for the murder of American citizens who disagree with his immigration policies. However, power of the individual still matters as is demonstrated by today’s American President. Greene precisely explains how one person gains power over another despite a modern world that complicates individual power.

ICE murder of American citizens in Minneapolis who are protesting Trump immigration policy.

President Trump demonstrates his power over education, government employment, health and human services, birth control, and immigration policy. However, both good and bad government policy is magnified by Departments of Government that report to the President, i.e., bad policy coming from a President’s power is only made worse through implementation by subordinates who create their own power structures.

It is not that Greene’s analysis of power is wrong but that it applies to individual relationships without addressing distortions of power exercised by departments of business and government that have developed their own hierarchies of power.

One doubts any President of the United States who orders elimination of illegal immigration wishes to have ICE agents murder American citizens. This is not to absolve President Trump but to suggest the ICE employees on the ground bare the weight of two unjustified murders in Minneapolis.

Greene’s explanation of power is spot on, but it is about every person’s rise to power, not the reality of one leader’s power. Organizations are made up of many other managers using the same laws of power as their presumed superior. The end result is a level of unintended consequence. Or as Lord Acton noted: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. President Trump exemplifies that truth.

CAPITALISM’S HISTORY

A surveillance society is a choice that can be made with careful deliberation or by helter-skelter judgement to return manufacturing to America without clearly understanding its impact on American society. That is the underlying importance of Beckert’s history of capitalism.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Capitalism (A Global History)

Author: Sven Beckert

Narration by: Soneela Nankani & 3 more

Sven Beckert (Author, Professor of History at Harvard, graduated from Columbia with a PhD in History.)

Professor Beckert defines capitalism as an economic form of privately owned capital reinvested in an effort to produce more capital. In defining capitalism in that way, Beckert suggests capitalism reaches back to 1000 CE, long before some who argue it came into being in 18th century England. Beckert argues the Italian city-states, like Venice, Genoa, and Florence, are the origin of capitalism. That is when accumulated wealth is invested in long-distance trade networks, early banks, and trade by wealthy Italian families. Beckert’s point is that England simply expanded what had begun hundreds of years earlier with trade investment by wealthy Italian families.

Economic theories.

Becker briefly compares many economic theories like capitalism, Marxism, Keynesianism, and Polanyian theories which he calls institutional economics. All bare the flaws of human nature. His economic history is about the addition of slavery to capitalism in the late 15th through 18th centuries. Beckert notes Portugal, Spain, Britain, France, and the Netherlands strengthened their capitalist economies. They were able to secure cheap, controllable labor, expand production, and increase profits with slavery.

However, wage earner respect and treatment, whether in manufacturing, technology, or service industries, are the key to survival of world capitalist democracies.

Beckert explains the monumental changes and expansion that occurs with England’s adoption of early capitalism. As early as the 17th century, Beckert notes England revolutionizes capitalism in good and morally corrupt ways. Nation-state power combines with private capital to create a massive capitalist influencer around the world. With the dominance of British naval power, colonialism expands, slavery becomes part of international trade, and capitalist monopolies grow to dominate economies. England’s industrial revolution with mechanized production, factory labor, and capital accumulation is able to expand market influence and hugely improve their countries infrastructure and legal protections. Creating patent laws raises potential for monopolization of some market goods.

For several reasons, slavery declines during the later years of industrialization. However, Beckert notes its immorality is not the primary reason.

Free labor became more efficient for capital accumulation. The enslaved became discontented with their role as cheap labor. By the 19th century, slavery became politically and legally incompatible with capitalism. Capitalists began to understand how they could gain more wealth by indenturing rather than enslaving workers, offering sharecropping, or leasing convicts. Capitalists found they could get cheaper labor through contracts with prisons, or sharing of income than slave ownership by being more flexible with the political and physical environment in which labor worked. Slavery faded because capitalists found new ways to reduce costs of labor. At the same time, slave revolts were escalating, the U.S. Civil War is being fought, policing of slavery became too expensive, and investors felt their investments would be at risk in company’s dependent on slave labor. Morality had little to do with abolishing slavery in Beckert’s opinion.

Beckert shows how capitalism systematically expands investment of private capital. Capital is put to work rather than hoarded and consumed by a singular family, political entity, or economic system. Capitalism provides a potential for moving beyond slave-based economies, though racial discrimination remains a work in progress. Beckert notes capitalism is different from other economic systems because it invests private capital that theoretically moderates the need for nation-state’ capital investment in the health, and welfare of a nation’s citizens.

The interesting judgement made by Beckert is that capitalism’s foundation was initially based on slavery, colonialism, and state violence.

The violence of which he writes is based on several factors, i.e., historical slavery, territorial seizure, nation-backed monopolies, worker mistreatment or suppression, and global coercion with military backing. Beckert seems to admit no major historical economic system is free of violence. It seems every economic system is imperfect. Violence appears a fundamental part of human nature in all presently known economic systems.

In the mid to late twentieth century, Beckert notes how manufacturing becomes a global rather than local capitalist activity.

This reorganization creates global inequalities that America is late to understand and adjust to in their capitalist economy. The financial and investment industry of America benefited by becoming world investors, but the local economy fails to remain competitive with the production capabilities of other countries. To become competitive seems an unreasonable expectation for America because of the cost of labor. Trump’s belief appears to be that the solution is to force a return of manufacturing to America. To do that, the rich seem to ignore the fact that to be competitive manufacturing has to have its costs reduced. Where will that reduction come from? Reducing labor costs creates a downward spiral in the families dependent on income from labor. Can America capture a larger part of raw materials for manufacturing to offset higher costs of labor? That is conceivable but it will require a more focused American investment in raw materials that other nations are equally interested in capturing.

AI is a tool of human beings and will be misused by some leaders in the same way atom bombs, starvation, disease, climate, and other maladies have harmed the sentient world.

A capitalist’ economy’s violence has multiple drivers but A.I. has the potential of early detection of conflict hotspots, better predictive policing, more efficient allocation of material resources, and improved mental-health triage and intervention. A.I. is not a perfect answer to human nature’s flaws or the reestablishment of manufacturing in America. There is the downside of the surveillance society pictured by George Orwell.

Humans will learn to use and adapt to Artificial General Intelligence in the same way it has adapted to belief in a Supreme Being, the Age of Reason, the industrial revolution, and other cultural upheavals.

American Leadership

Without a competent Chief of Staff, democracies are subject to authoritarian tyranny.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Gatekeepers (How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency)

Author: Chris Whipple

Narration by: Mark Bramhall

Chris Whipple (Author, political analyst, documentary film maker, journalist.)

Democratic government is complicated and messy, but decisions are made based on an understanding of the interests of many as opposed to the dictate and judgement of one.

“The Gatekeepers” may be viewed by most as an historical account of White House Chiefs of Staff based on many interviews of former government officials. However, one is inclined to see this history as a chronical of American government effectiveness. The facts and incidents reported give reader/listeners a view of America’s government function. Whipple details a series of relatively prudent and sometimes bad decisions made by late twentieth and twenty-first century presidents. Whipple’s history suggests the decision-maker for pursuit of government policy is America’s elected President. However, the road to policy approval or rejection is paved by White House’ Chiefs of Staff.

Whipple covers Nixon’s, Ford’s, Carter’s, Reagan’s, both Bush’s, Clinton’s, Obama’s, and Trump’s first administration. It does not address Biden’s Presidency or the Chief of Staff for Trump’s second term. The many interviews Whipple bases his history on offer a credible and enlightening history of American government. It is H. R. Haldeman, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Baker, Panetta, Card, and Rahm Emanuel that are the most prominent examples of effective and consequential Chiefs of Staff in Nixon’s, Ford’s, Reagan’s, Clinton’s, first and second Bush’s, and Obama’s administrations. The definition of effective is their ability to achieve a desired result whether good or bad for America. This is where one’s personal political beliefs come into question. It is always easy to see the errors of the past retrospectively. Whipple is careful to report facts and results without much judgement about their consequences.

H.R. Halderman (1926-1993, former Chief of Staff for President Nixon.)

Haldeman was Nixon’s Chief of Staff. There is no evidence that he had anything to do with the planned or ordered Watergate break-in, but Whipple shows he participated in a Watergate cover-up. Though Haldeman’s actions after the Watergate scandal are reprehensible, the point made by Whipple is that Haldeman set the table for what an effective Chief of Staff should be for a President. Haldeman acts as a consummate gatekeeper. One can criticize Haldeman’s bad decision to try and coverup Watergate, but he defined the role of a President’s Chief of Staff. Whipple shows Haldeman manages access to the President, understands where the power of government lies, has a good understanding of staff members surrounding the President, protects the President’s time, and balances a President’s policies with the politics of his party.

Donald Rumsfeld (1932-2021, Secretary of Defense and former Chief of Staff for President Ford.)

President Ford’s Chief of Staff is Donald Rumsfeld with Dick Cheney as Deputy Chief of Staff. Rumsfeld is characterized as a mentor to Cheney. They had a close relationship according to Whipple. Ford’s political decision to give a full pardon to Nixon and clemency for Vietnam draft dodgers were hot potato issues that were abetted (if not endorsed) by Rumsfeld and Cheney. Most significantly Ford ended America’s war in Vietnam. Ford endorses tax increases to reduce inflation while supporting tax cuts to stimulate the economy. Ford increases congress’s role in foreign policy.

Dick Cheney (1921-2025, second Chief of Staff for President Ford.)

In a cabinet reorganization Cheney becomes the Chief of Staff and Rumsfeld switches to Secretary of Defense. Rumsfeld and Cheney, in their roles as Chiefs of Staff, control access to President Ford, coordinate policy actions, shape internal decision-making, and advise Ford on strategy to influence people who accomplish these acts. The two Chiefs influenced Ford to replace Kissinger as National Security Advisor, promote George Bush as CIA Director, and prepare Ford for the next election which is ultimately lost to Jimmy Carter.

Hamilton Jordan (1944-2008, Chief of Staff of President Carter.)

When elected, President Carter felt he did not need a Chief of Staff. However, he relented in 1979, when he found the job was needed. Carter hired Hamilton Jordan who had been his campaign strategist when he ran for President. Whipple notes that appointment became a mistake because of Jordan’s lack of discipline. Though the Ford administration fought the idea of promoting Reagan for President, the public felt otherwise.

James Baker (1930-, Chief of Staff for President George H.W. Bush.)

After Carter, when Reagan is elected, he chooses James Baker as his Chief of Staff. Whipple suggests Baker is the quintessential model of a great Chief of Staff which all could be measured against. Baker is characterized by Whipple as an expert at managing the White House, the press, and Capitol Hill. Baker understood the process, the politics, communication, and presidential management requirements of the job. He never confused himself with the power of the President. He became manager of what is called the Reagan Revolution. The political and social movement revolves around ideas of smaller government, deregulation, cutting taxes, and endorsement of free enterprise. Whipple infers the success of the Reagan Revolution is largely due to the skill of James Baker.

Leon Panetta (1938-, Chief of Staff for President Clinton.)

One may argue Reagan caused America’s 1990-91 recession. Unemployment had risen to 7.8%. This set the table for a Democratic President named Bill Clinton. The initial Chief of Staff for Clinton is John Podesta who served from 1998-2001 and is replaced by Leon Panetta who, in the author’s opinion, rivals James Baker as a great Chief of Staff. Whipple infers that, without Panetta, Clinton would not have been reelected after the Monica Lewinsky affair. Panetta brought discipline and structure to the Clinton White House. Panetta could say “no” to the President, at least, in private. Panetta gained a reputation for being an honest broker as a negotiator for the President.

Andrew Card on the left. Joshua Bolten on the right.

George W. Bush, the next President, is noted to have two Chief’s of Staff during his two terms as President. It appears both Andrew Card and Joshua Bolten were more soldiers than Chiefs of Staff for George W. Bush. The policy decider is certainly George W. Bush but the influence of Dick Cheney as Bush’s V.P. seem a major influence on George W.’s decisions. Bush’s two Chief’s of Staff may have been effective as screeners but not as Chiefs of Staff that could say no to a President influenced by his cabinet and personal opinions. The entry to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq suggests Card and Bolten were unduly influenced by others in the administration.

No one seems inclined to say no to President Bush in private. In retrospect, President Bush seems let down by his Chief’s of Staff and the research and judgement of his Department Heads. Both Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s invasions by the American military are retrospectively shown by most (if not all) histories as American mistakes, if not tragedies.

Rahm Emanuel (1959-, Chief of Staff for President Obama.)

The final chapters address Chief’s of Staff for Obama and Trump. Obama became President when the American economy is in an economic crisis that threatens the financial industry, the general economy, and the mortgage market for many American homeowners. He asks Rahm Emanuel to become his Chief of Staff. Emanuel is a tough Chicago politician who recognizes the pressure of the office and has some level of fear about the future of the American economy. He understood the gravity of the job he is being asked to take. However, his reputation as a tart tongued fighter for what he believed as right made him the best Chief of Staff that could be found. His role as gatekeeper gave Obama the support needed to pass the Obama Health Care plan and work through the economic crisis that nearly bankrupted America.

Reince Priebus (1972-, Chief of Staff for President Trump.)

Trump’s choice of Reince Priebus as his first Chief of Staff is short lived and lasts for less than 8 months. His short tenure is not evaluated, and history shows he is replaced three times in the remaining years of Trump’s first term. A pro-Trump person will have one opinion about those facts while an anti-Trump person will have another.

Whipple convinces reader/listeners that a competent Chief of Staff is critically important for any organization that approaches the complexity of a nation-state government. Without a competent Chief of Staff, democracies are subject to authoritarian tyranny.

CAPITALISM’S REFORM

Like abolition, women’s suffrage, labor, civil rights, LGBTQ, and MeToo movements of the distant and near past, capitalism’s reform is due.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

SAVING CAPITALISM (For the Many, Not the Few)

Author: Robert B. Reich

Narration by: Robert B. Reich

Robert Reich (Author, American professor, lawyer and political commentator that worked in the Geral Ford and Jimmy Carter administrations, and served as th secretary of labor in Bill Clinton’s administration.)

Robert Reich, as an advisor to Presidents of the United States is recognized by Time Magazine as one of the Ten Best Cabinet Members of the 21st Century and by the Wall Street Journal as one of the most influential business thinkers in 2008. In “Saving Capitalism” Reich criticizes corporate America for unethical and unfair capitalist practices that make a mockery of capitalist equality.

Economic class warfare in America is a time worn argument by many economists in the 20th and 21st century. Reich’s topical analysis has some truth, but his analysis of wealth and markets oversimplifies the complexity of American capitalism. One cannot deny the harm that capitalist greed has done to increase wealth of the rich and decrease wealth of the poor in America. The political system is rigged by the influence of wealth over political policy and economic equality.

American capitalism’s rigging begins at birth, carries through public education, and ends in low-income opportunities for the poor.

The power of wealth feeds American capitalist Democracy’s circle of life. Money of the wealthy is spent to birth and educate their children with the best medical care and schools in America. The corporations and super rich of America hire and fund lobbyists who promote corporate agendas to support government representatives’ campaigns for office. The aspiring representatives are people who owe their allegiance to corporations and the rich who helped get them elected. That circle is biased toward making the rich richer.

Equality of opportunity is rigged in ever-larger corporations that reap super profits and pay CEO’s millions of dollars per year while low wage earners are left to fend for themselves. Mega corporations should be broken up like the oil industry dismantling in 1911. Like Standard Oil, today’s conglomerates have too much power over consumer purchasing, advertising, social media, medical industries, and (most importantly) the election process of America. The rigging begins with healthy birthing of children of the rich, extending to less qualified schooling for the poor, and ending with low-wage family’s children having unequal economic opportunity.

One cannot deny that Reich’s book and this biased review are an ideological belief that distorts and oversimplifies reality, but it carries an element of truth that cannot be denied. How can one person be worth a potential trillion-dollar net worth for service as CEO of one company that makes electric cars. Corporations like Amazon, Google, Facebook, UnitedHealth Group, and Cencora control markets through their size to capture disproportionate shares of advertising, social media, retail sales, and medication industries without competition to moderate their power, and influence. Add billionaires like Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Mark Zukerberg, Larry Page, Steve Ballmer, Warren Buffett, and Michael Dell and others of great wealth–one is inclined to believe American capitalism is rigged.

As brilliant as Musk shows himself to be, his fragile ego diminishes his genius.

There is an unfairness in criticizing the wealthy for their success in America. They are not wealthy because of luck but because of their innate abilities, risk taking, and hard work but influence should not come from the power of their wealth to change government policies that focus on enriching themselves. Just as the robber barons had their influence curbed by antitrust legislation, the same should be done today. The influence of lobbyists and their support should be more publicly disclosed. The federal government should play more of a financial role in improving public education. Cries of inequality should be exposed, critiqued, and adjudicated fairly.

Survival of global capitalism seems dependent on reducing the gap between billionaire/millionaire capitalists and the wage-earning public.

Capitalism remains the best economic system in the world, but it has its weaknesses. The best prescription for that weakness is equality of opportunity in the arena of employment competition. It begins with fair and equal access to medical care and access to a good education.

Like abolition, women’s suffrage, labor, civil rights, LGBTQ, and MeToo movements of the distant and near past, capitalism’s reform is due.

MANAGEMENT

“Radical Candor” about a creative idea can discourage employee creativity. Scott’s counsel on building trust is her magic potion, but potions can kill as well as heal.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Radical Candor (Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity)

Author: Kim Scott

Narrated By: Kim Scott

Kim Scott (Author, former executive at Apple and Google, coach for tech companies like Dropbox and Twitter)

The agricultural revolution dates back to 10,000 BCE, 1760 marks the beginning of the industrial revolution, the 1950s evolves into an age of expertise and work knowledge with computerization, in the 1990s connectivity and automation begins the information age. Today, Kim Scott addresses the 2020s along with the advent of artificial intelligence. Beginning when the industrial revolution takes hold, organization management evolves into a social science. In the industrial age training changes from demonstrating how to make things to managing people’s work in making things. Jumping to the Information Age managers of people become ringmasters for employee’s creativity.

Despite many changes in purpose for organizations a common thread is managerial skill which entails political and personal skills. Managers pursue understanding, influence, ability, and sincerity of purpose to elicit and manage human creativity.

Scott outlines management skills in “Radical Candor”. Her book is a useful tool for aspiring managers. Even reaching back to the agricultural age, there is relevance in Scott’s belief in “Radical Candor”. She defines radical candor as “Caring personally while challenging (organization employees) directly.” By personally caring, Scott explains good managers must gain the trust of people who report to them. My personal experience as a former manager in different careers shows that no manager knows everything about the company or organization they manage. The one thing a good manager must know is how to develop trust with people who report to her or him. Without trust between managers and workers, organizations are likely to fail.

Trust between managers and employees is even more true today because worker’ creativity drives technological invention and utility.

Being vulnerable by understanding you know nothing about people you manage is the starting point of your role as a manager. Scott explains the first thing a new manager must do is personally meet with each direct report to hear what they do for the organization, what they like and dislike about what they do, and what obstacles get in their way that impede accomplishment. The two-fold purpose of these meetings is first to listen, not judge or criticize what is being reported. The second is to build trust.

(I believe A.I. will always be a technological tool, not a controller, of society, contrary to those who believe human existence will be erased by machines. As a technological tool of humanity, the creativity of human minds is at the frontier of management change.)

Scott explains how important it is to let employees know their manager is interested in an employee’s goals and growth in an organization.

A manager must be both physically and emotionally present when building trust with an employee. There is a need for a manager to explain one’s own vulnerability and responsibility in managing others. Scott’s point is that gaining trust of an employee requires more than knowing their birthday. A good manager will ask for feedback about what an employee is doing and what support a manager can offer to improve their performance. A manager should be curious, not furious when things are not going well. It is important that a sense of respect be given for an employee’s effort to get their job done. With development of respect, it becomes possible to use radical candor to constructively criticize or complement an employees’ performance.

Scott notes there are many reasons for an employee’s failure to perform beyond expectations.

Those reasons include incompetence but also the failure of management to have a clear understanding of an employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Through development of trust between manager and employee, a different job may be in order. With reassignment and a performance plan, a manager may be able to tap a human resource that has been wasted. The performance plan is instituted with “Radical Candor” and offers either opportunity or, if performance improvement fails, dismissal.

Every organization has distinctive operational idiosyncrasies that a manager may not precisely understand.

This has always been true. It is even more true in the tech age because project uniqueness and employee creativity is more difficult to measure and manage. Kim Scott has worked with the most iconic tech companies of modern times, e.g. Apple, Google, Twitter. There are a number of anecdotes about famous tech giants and officers of Facebook, Apple, and Google, like Sandberg, Cook, and Page. Kim has also started her own businesses, some of which failed, and others that prospered. Her experience offers credibility to her arguments.

From personal experience as a manager of others, no manager ever knows all there is to know.

As Scott notes, this is not to say that geniuses like Steve Jobs did not know more than his Apple employees, but the iPhone idea came from a group of employees before approaching Jobs with a clunky mock-up of the idea. Jobs had a reputation for being a tough audience for people with creative ideas. This is the reason Kim Scott explains trust must be created between manager and employee so that candor about needs and expectations can be usefully employed to improve probability of personal and organizational success.

One takes Kim Scott’s counsel on “Radical Candor” with some reservation because misused “Radical Candor” about a creative idea can discourage employee creativity. Scott’s counsel on building trust is her magic potion, but potions can kill as well as heal.

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