As always, these posts are for me first and foremost to understand my own thinking. To get my thinking straight. They weren’t intended for broader reach. Inspired by Montaigne’s essays and pushed by other friends, I’m starting to share them. They represent my own views and my current state of mind.

CNN named T-Mobile’s Mike Sievert CEO of the Year. I don’t know the man, nor do I followup with what T-Mobile is doing. T-Mobile’s CEO may be truly one of the best. But best in what? And for how long?

CNN basically focused on 1 year period – 2022. They may as well award him The Worst CEO of the Year award in 2023. No one knows when all T-Mobile strategy “investing in our customers” is flushed down the drain and replaced by “revenue at all costs.”

My problem is not with T-Mobile or CNN, but with the kind of focus by media on “the current”, “the immediate”, “the now.”

No one pays attention on the long term. On building things that matters for society for the long term. I should remind -but not kid- myself: Great things take time. Great things, take time.

I don’t like many things about Amazon. But do I think that Jeff Bezos would have won that award the first 5 years after him starting Amazon? Not a chance.

The media mocked him back in the day. They called Amazon: “silly”, “Another middleman, and the stock market is beginning to catch on that fact.”

Back in the 1990s Bezos wouldn’t have been “hot enough” for CNN. They need eyeballs. And eyeballs follow what’s hot – right now and CNN and the media is the best orchestrators of What’s Hot – right now. It should be happening now, not in 5 or 10 years. That’s the standard for CNN’s (and most of the media.)

I would love to see the “CEO of the Decade” Award. That’s what I’m interested in. But there is none.

Ideas for Future Thinking and Writing

The same way the media raises someone to fame, they put that person back to drain. Same for startups. Sometimes they elate a startup, afterward they put it down. I should look at how the media was getting crazy about Theranos and many other startups when they were “hot” and compare that with their views now. It’s always the trends, the hypes, and the woos that get the attention. Something like 37Signals don’t because they are quiet and they walk slowly.