Fred Gratzon is

an entrepreneur who hates hard work. In fact, I refuse to do it. Yet two of my businesses grew like Jack's beanstalk. Each made Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest growing companies in America. One of those businesses appeared three times and was even ranked #2.

His blog is excellent. Check out Continue Reading ››

In the previous post CEO Jim Goodnight explained why he won't take SAS Institute public. He believes that:

There is no trust anymore in public companies. I think it's an excellent time to be private.

And this article in the CEO Refresher by Steve Kayser backs him up. IPO's are a bad … Continue Reading ››

It started with free M&M's. Now there's a country club, on-site Montessori daycare, on-site doctors and nurses, 35-hour work week, live piano music during lunch, 50.000 square foot fitness center, swimming pools, no dress-code, masseur, on-site car detailing. And more. If you need assistance in adopting a child or finding a college … Continue Reading ››

Kathy Sierra nails it yet again with a laugh-out-loud funny list of differences between the startup and the corporate mindset. I added a few examples of my own in the comments:

	Startup	Corporate
When we screw up	Admit it, apologize, fix it, compensate customers, move on.	Hide it. When that fails, blame the customers.
Meetings	Fun, … Continue Reading ›› Happy At Work, Speaking Thank you, Istanbul February 27, 2006 Alexander Leave a comment A great big thank you to: The conference team from MCT and Eventus who were an amazingly nice bunch of people The other speakers for many great conversations And especially to those who attended my presentation on happiness at work in Istanbul See - they look happy already! Happy At Work Back from Istanbul – and the future of HR February 24, 2006 Alexander 3 Comments I'm now back in Copenhagen after a nice, sunny flight home from Istanbul. Most of the way, I could look down on a snow-covered Europe which looked amazingly beautiful from 10 km up. The conference was a great experience which touched on the many themes that are (or are becoming) central to HR, such as: Innovation Talent development ROI Organizational … Continue Reading ›› Happy At Work, Speaking Happy at work slides February 23, 2006 Alexander Leave a comment Click here to download the slides from my presentation at the MCT HR conference in Istanbul on february 23 2006 (8 Mb .ppt-file). A big thank you to everyone who participated! If you have any comments or questions, please write a comment here and I will try to answer. Happy At Work, Speaking Istanbul HR conference February 22, 2006 Alexander Leave a comment I'm writing this from the VIP room at the MCT HR conference in Istanbul (it's good to be a speaker). The conference was kicked off by some good presentations: Lars Kolind launched his crusade against bureaucracy Elisabet Sahtouris used her background in evolutionary biology to show us that businesses are living organisms Ricardo Semler spoke via satellite from … Continue Reading ›› Happy At Work, Speaking Podcasts from the WorldBlu Forum February 1, 2006 Alexander Leave a comment A short while ago I spoke at one of the best conferences I've ever been to: The WorldBlu Forum on Organizational Democracy. Previous coverage here, here, here and here. The organizers have put up podcasts with many of the speakers including Dan Pink, David Weinberger and ... me (7 min., … Continue Reading ›› Best of site, Happy At Work, Leadership eXtreme Projects January 31, 2006 Alexander 13 Comments eXtreme Programming is a process used to structure software development projects. It is radically different from more traditional methods, in that it defers more of the detailed planning till later in the project. Most traditional methods try to answer all the big questions up front. This makes it less susceptible to changes that occur … Continue Reading ››