BusinessWeek reports in a Cover Story that Intel is undergoing a complete post-Andy Grove makeover: Value-added, marketers and decentralization are the new flip-flop watchwords—along with a more or less dramatic rebranding initiative.
The Intel article inspired me to look up the 5-year stock prices for the last two decades’ Defining Four: Intel. GE. Wal*Mart. Microsoft. As many others have reported before, the news is that there has effectively been no share price increase for these “market-makers” in the last five years. Is there such a thing as “too big”? Must agility and innovativeness always be victims of scale? One could make that argument rather persuasively.
Re limits to giantism, here’s another little tidbit that just showed up in my end-of-year “convert to slide” pile: “The slumping giant needs to put more pep in its funds. … But size remains a handicap.”—Fortune on Fidelity Magellan/11.28.05 (“There’s a practical limitation to running a fund of that size.”—Chris Traulsen, analyst, Morningstar)
Is this a “Tom Rant” topic?
Yup.
(So be it.)