7 Powers With Hamilton Helmer - Acquired  ## Metadata - Author: **Acquired** - Full Title: 7 Powers With Hamilton Helmer - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/0d4dc36f-3b5b-407b-b566-066b260b13c2 ## Highlights - The Importance of Timing in Career Choices Key takeaways: (* Mackenzie moved to California in the early 1990s to work in the technology industry., * Timing was important in Mackenzie's success., * Mackenzie was an active equity investor and was aware of the changing technology industry., * Timing was also important in Mackenzie's move to the Bay Area in 1994, which was an ideal time to start Apple and Microsoft.) Transcript: Speaker 2 Mackenzie goes back further. And then b c g came in, a sort of strategy focus. And then, and then banes spun out a b c g. And then bill looks at us watch and says, oh, our hours up. I've got to go. And i realize, oh my god, i haven't said anything about myself, you idiot, hamilton. And so r we're literally walking towards dory, shaking my hand, i said, oh, mister bayne, i'm sure i can do the work here. I'm really interested in is fine, but everybody here is worried about me not having an mba. But that's just not a problem. I'm sure i can do it. And he said, oh, i don't have an mba eithera ha, ha, ha, haa athakeray. And that's how i got the job. Speaker 6 So that was in boston. What brought you out to california and starting to swim in these silican valley waters? Speaker 2 In 90 or i came out here, and i was attracted by the economic vitality, but as also a family decision. My wife just absolutely adored california from her prior experience. And then i got more and more in fault and more teke companies, as you saw from my stuff. Adobe was a client, and rakham was a big client, and so on. Speaker 3 It really is amazing how much timing plays into these things, when people talk a lot about jobs and gates being n within those sort of same few years. And it really teed them up for the exact moment to start apple and microsoft and make them be power houses. You moving to the bay area in 94, that is an equivalently perfect time to dive head first into that community. Speaker 1 Yes, yets the time. I was an actively involved equity investor too, so an a lot of intel and microsoft and del and cisco were all big tary accounts. And so that made me think a lot about it. ([Time 0:09:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/27b7de0b-600c-42f8-bb8f-0ebb91b97848)) - The Seven Powers of Strategic Thinking Key takeaways: (* Strategy is a way of looking at the world that can help people on the ground make better decisions., * The problem with providing a mental model of strategy is that it has to be simple but not simplistic., * This high bar is what took author 20 years to achieve.) Transcript: Speaker 1 A way of looking at strategy so that the people on the ground who are really making these decisions have a way of thinking about it that will, it's never perfect, but guide them in the right direction. But the problem in doing that for me was that providing a mental model like that, as i say in the book, it has to be simple, but not simplisitic. S simple so that you can retain it. Not simplistic so that it's relatively complete, you don't miss a lot. Speaker 2 That's a really high bar in strategy. And that's what took me so long. I mean, i wrote the book. It took me 20 years of wriding it at hableton. Speaker 3 I'll tell you, ing read a bunch of business books, and having an even larger pile of business books i've bought, but haven't read. There're so many different mental models. Thank you for taking the 20 years to do it, because the fact that thereis a one page reference card that sort of assembles this whole thing a grit, it actually does make it so you can reference the seven powers and sort of make decisions in real time. It's certainly much more accessible than trying to weave your own fabric of lots of different theories. Speaker 4 What prompted you to decide to write the book? Youd been doing this for so long, you couldnave. Jaste, kept this to yourself. Speaker 2 My ideas were my babies. And the greatest compliment for me is other people using them and finding them useful. ([Time 0:14:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/062c0ad7-9fe5-4470-8fbb-13e4b957a9d7)) - The Power of Slack Key takeaways: • Strategy value are mathematically their juels. • There is a lot of switching cost power in technology companies. Transcript: Speaker 1 Or not. Speaker 2 The last one we're going to talk about after this is going to be my favorite. But switching costs, I thought this was super interesting because people think about switching costs as I think tend to be like old school industries or whatnot. But I realized there's a huge amount of switching cost power in a lot of technology companies to take Slack, for instance, Slack has network effects, but also switching costs. We run on Slack. If we were to switch, that would be a huge cost to our organization. How did you start thinking about that and have other people in text since you published this realize like, oh, this might be a source of power I'm not thinking about? I don't know. Speaker 3 I think people had thought about it. There are a lot of subtleties around switching costs that you have to think through. Speaker 1 I mean, one is that in general, it creates a win-lose situation with your customer. And so there's sort of a management problem in that. And another is that there's a competitive dynamic, which is if you have something that's attractive and a high switching cost, the competition will try like crazy to create something Speaker 3 That mitigates the switching cost. Speaker 1 So you'll see a lesser app have a translator device, but often the imperfection of those. So if you look at EDA and electronic design and automation tools, there are libraries that are ([Time 0:30:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c7f86a1d-6562-48c9-917f-c2275ae2d573)) - The Economic Implications of Technology Translation Key takeaways: (* There are a lot of subtleties to consider when switching to a new technology, such as the management and competitive dynamics it can create., * And the costs associated with it, such as the cost of training employees to use the new technology.) Transcript: Speaker 4 How did you start thinking about thet and have other people in tect, since you'v published this, realized, like ove, this might be a source power i'm not thinking about. Speaker 5 I don't know. I think people had thought about it. There're a lot of subtleties around switching costs that you have to think through. Speaker 2 I mean, one is that, in general, it creates a windlows situation with your customer. Speaker 1 And so there's sort of a management problem in that. And another is that there's a competitive dynamic, which is, if you have something that's attractive and switching cost, the competition will try like crazy to create something that mitigates the switching cost. So you'll see a lesser ap have a translator device. But often the imperfection of those. Soo, look at e d an, electronic design automation tools. There libraries that are associated with those, but if you move from one tool company to another, the translation never works very well. Speaker 4 Or every c r m system is like, oh, you export your data out a sales for is riy rit, exactly. Speaker 3 Or exporting a power point to google slides, a problem that i think youl ofus probly deal with on a weekly basis, the translation is never perfect. And thus, if it's a very important presentation, or whatever the thing is, you're not willing to switch, right? Speaker 1 But then another subtlety is ta, remember, can only monitise that if there's a repeated economic interaction. ([Time 0:31:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/107042c1-ba4d-4d9f-8adc-366ba24deeab))