The authors of the bestselling Competing on Internet Time (a Business Week top 10 book) analyze the strategies, principles, and skills of three of the most successful and influential figures in business—Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs—offering lessons for all managers and entrepreneurs on leadership, strategy and execution.
In less than a decade, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Andy Grove founded three companies that would define the world of technology and transform our lives. At their peaks, Microsoft, Apple, and Intel were collectively worth some $1.5 trillion. Strategy Rules examines these three individuals collectively for the first time—their successes and failures, commonalities and differences—revealing the business strategies and practices they pioneered while building their firms.
David B. Yoffie and Michael A. Cusumano have studied these three leaders and their companies for more than thirty years, while teaching business strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship at Harvard and MIT. In this enlightening guide, they show how Gates, Grove, and Jobs approached strategy and execution in remarkably similar ways—yet markedly differently from their erstwhile competitors—keeping their focus on five strategic rules.
Strategy Rules brings together the best practices in strategic management and high-tech entrepreneurship from three path-breaking entrepreneurs who emerged as CEOs of huge global companies. Their approaches to formulating strategy and building organizations offer unique insights for start-up executives as well as the heads of modern multinationals.
David B. Yoffie is the Max and Doris Starr Professor of International Business Administration at Harvard Business School. One of Intel’s longest-serving board members from 1989 to 2018, he has served on numerous high tech boards. Yoffie has written more than 200 case studies, which sold more than 4 million copies. He is the author or co-author of ten books, and has written extensively for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts.
Michael A. Cusumano is the SMR Distinguished Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has been a dean and vice president at Tokyo University of Science and has published over 130 articles and 13 books, including Competing on Internet Time and Strategy Rules (both with David Yoffie), Platform Leadership (with Annabelle Gawer), as well as Microsoft Secrets (with Richard Selby), The Business of Software, and Staying Power. He lives in Groton and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“Warts and all, here is the inside story on how three unlikely leaders changed the world forever and created a trillion dollars of market cap. Two brilliant business professors with unique access provide lessons for any business and its leaders.” — Scott Cook, Founder & Chairman, Intuit
“No one but these co-authors could have distilled the histories of these great CEOs and their world-changing firms into a handful of lucid and logical guidelines for all strategic thinking. Everyone in business --whether in big companies or small -- should read, mark, and digest this book.” — Reed Hundt, CEO, Coalition for Green Capital; former chairman, FCC
“Brilliantly and accurately explains how these legendary high-tech CEOs shaped the world we live in. A must read for today’s aspiring leaders”. — John Sculley, former Apple CEO
“This is not just about strategy for technology companies but about how bold, passionate and deeply knowledgeable leaders work. It is required reading for those who aspire to push the boundaries of business. ” — John Browne, former CEO BP and former board member of Intel