Blog Archives

Creative Destruction

2/25/2021

by Kelly Kunst, Yes Founder and CEO

For a variety of reasons, I never miss Chairman Jerome Powell’s remarks. I find his thoughts insightful and often more broadly based regarding economics in general. In his January address, I heard him talk about the creative destruction cycle of capitalism.

Michael Cox of the SMU Cox School of Business commented after the press conference with equally interesting thoughts: Capitalism inherently has a cycle of innovation that disrupts or “creatively destroys” the status quo.

It’s a bit like how the Great Game of Business (GGOB) referenced that businesses grow by encountering challenges and obstacles and grow through the process. It can be painful, but it is far better than the alternatives.

Failing to grow, or lacking the courage in leadership to flex to a new model exposes our businesses to a multitude of threats. In short, creative destruction can position our businesses for the future if we can navigate change.

How do we navigate change effectively? It’s often not just science, being successful as an entrepreneur is often a combination of skill, gut, and a little bit of luck.

Your Executive Symphony (YES) was founded to give like-minded entrepreneurs a place to connect, discuss and grow together.

Haven’t found your tribe?

Maybe YES is for you.

Join us on March 4th. You’ll be glad you did.

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An Infinite Mindset

2/18/2021

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Interstate Batteries is a company who exemplifies the type infinite mindset Simon Sinek talks about in The Infinite Game. The five tenets of an infinite mindset are:

Advancing a just cause
Building trusting teams
Studying your worthy rivals
Preparing for existential flexibility
Demonstrating the courage to lead

Walt shares a recent Interstate Batteries project that highlights how they embrace many of these tenets all at once.

We invite you to hear more about how Interstate Batteries and our other featured companies live out these tenets in the way they conduct their business at our Spring CEO Symposium on March 4.

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Fixing the Biggest Problems in Healthcare

2/9/2021

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by Michael Gorton, YES Contributor and Speaker

Healthcare is broken. First and foremost, we do not have a "healthcare" system. It is designed to support your needs when you get sick, not keep you well. It's time to fix that.

Telemedicine and digital health have reached a watershed moment. The industry is in full acceleration and entrenched in the historic shift from emergence to growth. Consolidation is happening all around us. Tens of thousands of lives are now being saved by the very industry that Boards of Medical Examiners were relentlessly trying to shut down just a year ago.

We still have an overly expensive architecture that only treats the sick. It is therefore, not a healthcare system, but a “SickCare gimcrack.” Lowering cost AND keeping people healthy well past reaching a hundred years old, is now within the scope of technology and delivery.

Recently, a team of telemedicine and digital health pioneers and I have been working on a solution that has begun paving the road to replace our broken, costly SickCare gimcrack with a true affordable healthcare jet engine.

We can define consolidation and its impact. Today there are thousands of telehealth companies in various stages of development. In a few years, most of the early stage companies, now excited by their own growth, access to capital, and high valuations, will be gone. DEAD. The vast majority will be simply crushed out of existence. The fight for dominance has begun.

I have lived through this twice. Once in solar and the other time in the internet. In the 1990s, I built an Internet company. Those were exciting times. Boom times. Investors were encircling us and throwing money at our deals. Sound familiar? Many of my colleagues rejected great offers because they believed they had the next “billion-dollar deal.” In almost all cases, they were wrong, and they ended up with nothing.

The lessons of the late 90s apply today. History teaches us the cycles of a new industry. In 2002, Harvard Business Review published a study on the topic. We have seen example after example of how emergence-to-growth plays out in a new industry. Just look at manufacturing, automobiles, airlines, telecom, internet and solar power. The list could go on and on, and the pathway is always the same. Emergence spawns Growth, which leads to Consolidation. There is a reason smart people study history…

Read Michael's full article here.

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Why I Became a Philanthropist

2/2/2021

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by George Makaye, YES Speaker and Contributor

When I emigrated from Kenya in 1998, all I wanted to do was make a ton of money - it was my mission. Here I was in America, the land of opportunity. This was my chance to succeed in life and I wasn’t looking back.

I worked hard and within two years I was a senior IT consultant. I met and married my beautiful wife, Alicia and was having my share of the American dream. Little did I know that my entire world-view was about to shift.

In 2004, my missions pastor approached me to join him on a reconnaissance mission to Kenya. This was my first trip back, flying on a fully paid for mission trip by my Church!

Flying over, all I could think about was catching up with friends and family. But I got it all wrong.

The trip to Kenya became a turning point for my life that introduced me to my true mission. During our 2-week trip, we travelled to places I had lived when I was young. I saw the extreme poverty that I had been exposed to during my childhood with a totally different perspective. It’s funny how life works like that.

Flying back, I reflected on how blessed I have been to emigrate to the US and do well. I realized I had a moral obligation to give back and make a difference with the remaining time I have on this earth. My mission had changed.

Alicia and I decided to quit our jobs and start our own business. We needed to be masters of our time, have the financial freedom to take mission trips as necessary, and support causes that empower those less fortunate.

We have built computer centers, support water well-projects, organize street children camps, sponsor children's homes, support local food distribution networks and organize community cleanups. It fills me with joy to know that we have made the lives of others better.

My favorite project has been the computer labs we built in Kenya, Texas, and Nigeria. As an IT business owner, this was very special to me. Seeing the kids´ reactions to using the computers our clients and our company donated reminded me of me when I first touched a computer during my 2nd year in college. I will never forget the delight. This feeling, this soul-burning desire to see those faces again is why I decided to become a philanthropist.

Read George's full article here.

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Creative Destruction

An Infinite Mindset

Fixing the Biggest Problems in Healthcare

Why I Became a Philanthropist

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