Large Margins
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In 1989, following the year when Dell, Inc. went public, Dell explains how the company had a large problem with inventory management. As a result, the company failed to transition properly in the industry from one technology to the other. However, because of this critical mistake, the company learned how to correctly manage their inventory, and according to Dell, became the best in the world at it. Later on, Dell also notes the company...more
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How do investors gauge whether a company is one from a pool of thousands worth their resources? KPCB parter Beth Seidenberg shares her firm's five measures for financial fortitude. In this clip, she outlines leadership, and how this is the most important talisman of a growing enterprise's success. In addition, she discusses the importance of large, fast-growing, under-served markets, and KPCB's willingness to take risk with new...more
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In the 1990s, Yale discovered that it was faced with a deferred maintenance problem: the university hadn't properly planned for important renovations in many buildings. A large, one-time expenditure would be needed. How should Yale have covered these expenses? This lecture begins by applying the lessons learned so far to show why Yale's initial forecast budget cuts were overly pessimistic. In the second half of the class, we turn to the...more
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One way of understanding Napoleon's life is through attention to his Corsican origins. Although Napoleon himself would later disavow his earlier identification with the island in favor of French identity, many of his actions and attitudes agree with stereotypical notions of Corsican culture. Did Napoleon inaugurate the era of total war? This question, posed in a recent book, is up for debate. On one hand, the violence of the Revolution...more
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Medtronic, Boston Scientific, and Johnson & Johnson all began as single-product ventures, says Mir Imran, CEO of InCube Labs and serial entrepreneur of medical devices. And while the medical community is rife with single-product ventures, a few of them do go on to become large enterprises offering a suite of products in multiple markets. What sets the bar for each venture? The market viability for each product they produce.
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February 11, 2009 lecture by Jefferson Tester for the Woods Energy Seminar (ENERGY301). In his talk "A Pathway for Widespread Utilization of Geothermal Energy--the Roles of Multi-scale Resource and Technology Research and Systems Analysis," Tester talks about the benefits and challenges of harnessing geothermal energy, and he asserts that it is a large resource that complements solar and wind energy and is both carbon free and scalable.
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Systems consisting of pendulums and springs can freely oscillate at their natural frequencies (also called normal modes). When we expose a system to a wide spectrum of frequencies, the response will be very large at the normal mode frequencies (resonances) of that system. Examples include musical instruments (standing waves on violin strings and pressure waves in wind instruments), and torsional standing waves on a bridge driven by strong winds.
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France's colonial territories were of very high importance after the embarrassment of occupation during World War II. Algeria, in particular, was a complicated case because it involved large numbers of French settlers, the pieds-noirs. Despite international support for Algerian independence, right-wing factions in the military and among the colonizers remained committed to staying the course. After Charles de Gaulle presided over French...more
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This lecture provides an overview of the physical aspects of earth's biomes. Temperature, water, latitude, and altitude all come into play. Regions with similar levels of these climatic features tend to have similar life-forms living there. These same climatic features can also affect weather patterns, which in turn affect life by altering habitats and ecosystems. On a large enough scale, such as El Niño, these weather patterns can affect...more
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Modern Paris was indelibly shaped by the rebuilding project ordered by Napoleon III and carried out by Baron Haussmann in the 1850s and '60s. The large-scale demolition of whole neighborhoods in central Paris, coupled with a boom in industrial development outside the city, cemented a class division between center and periphery that has persisted into the twenty-first century. Curiously, this division is the obverse of the arrangement of...more
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Kim talks about how there is a large range in the projects at EA. Team sizes range from 30 people to 200. Development times take 10 months to 2-3 years. Some projects are original licensed intellectual property, like Lord of the Rings; others are hybrid intellectual property, like Golden Eye, based off of James Bond. Some games at EA are developed completely internally, others are partly outsourced to third party companies, and some...more
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Rick Wallace shares the history of KLA-Tencor to show that it is important to follow one's business model. KLA revolutionized the industry by starting to charge for service instead of just offering it up for free. In order to enforce this, the founder had to risk losing IBM as a client. However, his bet paid off, and IBM finally agreed to pay for service. This has led to a large and profitable annuity stream for KLA-Tencor.
