There was a study a while back that showed that most NASCAR drivers and crews had lead poisoning due to the leaded fuel- they didn't move to unleaded fuel until 2008!

So in a way, we've already seen NASCAR with drivers under the influence.

> I have found that what makes a good school here in a California school district is the PRINCIPAL

I'll second that sentiment.

My son's primary school had a bullying problem bad enough that it made the papers. The principal retired and a new principal brought in. Within a two years, it was a different school, and within three, she was getting the pick of teachers across Toronto any time there was a vacancy because teachers were desperate to work with a principal that was active, knew every student's name and personality, and most importantly of all, supported the teachers when parents were being difficult.

It took an amazing amount of work on her part, but she *made* the school. (The excellent teachers made the classrooms.) Watching her stand-down parents who wanted to make excuses for their child's bullying was eye-opening.

I was stunned when the grade 6 graduation speech by the students praised her specifically and at length for making them feel safe. When I went through primary school, the only students who even knew the principal's name were the troublemakers...

You are vastly more optimistic than I am. First, when a firm enters a totally new market, their odds of success are somewhat higher than a newcomer (better capitalization, better name recognition), but not *much* better. Lots of firms *could* have been Apple, but only 1 in a million succeeded. For a firm like Kodak, blessed with insane insight, I'd give it a 1 in 1,000 chance. Throw a multi-billion dollar company away on that chance? Not good management.

Now, more likely, they might have ended up like the camera division of the top two camera manufacturers together. In other words, still a shadow (in terms of profit) of what they were before (albeit still alive).

Once again, rational managers of successful companies keep milking for as long as possible. The number of firms that can successfully re-invent themselves is miniscule. (Well, less than 0.5% rounding down :-)). We all look at the successes, because they're around us. But let's remember the few hundred thousand firms that *don't* make it.

Agreed, but that *still* would have resulted in a much smaller company than Kodak at its prime, which is my point.

I don't know how many CEOs would have the guts to walk into the boardroom and say "it doesn't look like it now, but in five years, we're screwed. So we're going to spend all of our R+D to get people to stop paying us money (i.e. buying film, etc.). If we're successful (in a market segment we know nothing about), we'll be 1/10 our current size. If we're unsuccessful, we'll be dead in 2-3 years. And yes, to be successful, we'll need total buy-in from all levels of the company."

I do, however, know how many CEOs would still have their job after giving that pitch.

> Well, to be fair, Kodak screwed themselves as well... they pretty much invented digital photography, but utterly failed to capitalize on it.

Well, yes and no. If Kodak had forged ahead in the digital revolution, they might be around now, but 1/10th the size, and more importantly, they might have started their destruction many years earlier.

Most disruptive technologies are things that massively shrink the number of dollars coming into the market. People don't buy much more X, they just pay 1/10 the price. When that's the decision you're facing, it often doesn't make sense to lead the charge to disintegrate your market. Far batter to eke out a few more years as a major player and then go down in flames than survive as a shell of the former company.

How many CEOs are congratulated in taking a billion dollar company and bravely leading it into becoming a $100 million dollar company? If they hold on for five years before the little fish get sufficient funding and mind-share and then retire, they can easily be thought of as the decent CEOs who retired before "that idiot who lost the company" took the reigns.

Are you allowed to post in this thread? Isn't it some kind of conflict of interest? ;)