Understanding strategy and power

I have always regarded Robert A. Caro’s book The Power Broker as the best masterclass in strategy and power, but I am starting to regard the Acquired podcast as a close second.

Caro’s book came out in 1974. It provides an exhaustive account and analysis of the life of Robert Moses – New York’s Park’s Commissioner for much of the 20th century.  This seems like such an unlikely story, that the Parks Commissioner could be the most powerful person in the city, more powerful than Mayors, Governors and legislators and directly responsible for the shape of New York and its myriad problems.  But Caro provides a meticulous description of how, in the 20’s, Moses wrote the legislation establishing the position, including its independent sources of toll revenue, understood the power available, and inserted himself into the role. The book is 1,300 pages long, but I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know how power works.

I have recently become obsessed with the Acquired podcast, created by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal.  Initially I was drawn in by the story telling. Each episode they take an iconic company – Nike, Walmart, Hermes, etc – and tell the story of the company in depth. They read every available book on the company’s history and synthesis into an engaging story covering the highs, lows and key moments in that history. For a typical company this may be 3 hours of airtime, so they get to go deep.

But the last quarter of the show is analysis – they take the story they have just told and look at the why behind they successes and failures. Over time I have realised the value in this part of the show – especially as they have built up hundreds of these case studies in 10 years of podcasting. By sheer repetition they have forced me to understand the analysis frameworks they use – in particular Hamilton Helmer’s 7-Powers

The most recent episodes I’ve been listening to have covered Microsoft. I thought I knew he Microsoft story pretty well, having lived it throughout my professional career, but I had so many insights into the strategic significance of various steps and missteps over that period.  I found their account of the ‘Balmer years’ particularly interesting. This 15 year period from 2000 is often seen as lost years from Microsoft, with lots of failed products (Bing, Zune, Hotmail, IE, Nokia/Lumia, etc, etc). Ben And David argue persuasively that the current success of Microsoft - $3 Trillion cap, constantly vying with Nvidia and Apple for top spot – is directly traceable to the decisions made during this time. They see each of those market failures as learning experiences that have paid off handsomely by contributing to Azure and Microsoft’s current power positioning.

Highly recommended – on a podcast source near you!