I admire greatly the historian, Geoffrey Blainey, who foresaw the rising power in the 80s of Asia with his brilliant and courageous book “The Tyranny of Distance”’. Finally, I wanted to know what he thought were the bravest business decisions taken in the last twenty to thirty years, both nationally and internationally? Who does he feel are the Captains Courageous of commerce now? ‘Richard Branson; he’s very brave and unbelievably successful. And it’s not like there’s a low barrier to entry – he is an example of going to a casino and putting everything on the black. His capacity to take on “big” is quite extraordinary. For a business - Apple; the iPhone was a society changer. Similarly, in terms of a lack of courage, Kodak – for not seeing the potential of digital. Encyclopaedia Britannica similarly. There are certainly a lot of people I admire; at an international level, the head of Netflix, Reed Hastings, put everything on the line, and I felt that was extraordinary courage. David Thodey, the ex-CEO of Telstra, steadily, assuredly changed the way Australians see Telstra. He is very strategic and safe handed. In terms of not showing a particular amount of courage, it would have to be Tim Cook. Since Steve Jobs’ death, the Apple watch is of course the first new product. It’s the logical next step, and one that Jobs would probably have made himself. A courageous decision would be to take Apple in a completely different direction. Extending the theme or the paradigm isn’t particularly brave. It’s understandable and successful; but it’s not courageous in the sense that they need to take the business in another direction altogether – AI for example, or driverless cars. He has only looked at the current trajectory.’ If there is anyone who looks outside the current trajectory - and perhaps outside the stratosphere - it’s Bernard. His scope of thought is astonishing, and his understanding of what makes not just his own generation, but the crossgenerational workplace and Australian society generally tick is an absolute joy to take in. Brain still fizzing. GLOSS JUNE 2015
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