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TiECon 2007 - How does Google Sleep at Night?

by BBelew57 on May 18th, 2007

I just finished listening to Nobuyuki Idei, former CEO of $70 billion Sony Corp and the most recognized brand name in the world….seven years running.

He spoke at TieCon 2007.

He shared some of the lessons he learned while being at the helm of Sony. 

I counted three…

1. The business cultures of America and Japan are different. The lesson was learned when Sony bought Columbia Pictures. Sony knew computers but did not know movies or the mindset that came with it. Did Sony Pictures learn its lessons? Spiderman 3.

2. Soft alliances work best…complementary services, Sony and NTT DoCoMo, Sony and Samsung, Sony and Ericsson…the last is now the 4th largest mobile phone maker in the world.

3. "If I owned Google, I couldn't sleep at night." The context is that he believes it is not possible to properly value the company based on its traffic alone. The crowd of a couple thousand applauded.

Is Google overvalued? Is too much paid for advertisements on search engines like Google? Is it a bubble of sorts? What happens when people stop buying into a promise on a return on advertisement that doesn't come? 

It is not often that a Japanese speaker can make a large crowd laugh. Mr. Idei did. 

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POSTED IN: TieCon 2007 - Japan