In the middle of a fascinating exchange with U. of Penn. students in Phila., Sam Zell offers this on Obama (HT Chicago Daily Observer, quotes pulled together by Joseph N. DiStefano):
“I’m from Chicago. Barack Obama came to my house for dinner. He’s a brilliant man. But he’s an ideologue. When you’re an ideologue you don’t see (business reality). There’s no question he doesn’t see it.”
Innovation: “Build a better mousetrap and the world will come to you? That’s a crock… There are many examples of (simple) products that have done much better than truly better products. It’s all about being easy to execute…Business education: “Econ 101, Supply and Demand… Nothing else really matters.”
Liberal arts: His fellow University of Michigan graduate Arthur Miller‘s play, Death of a Salesman, did a “disservice” to American business: “He demonized the salesman as a womanizer, a drunk, as somebody staying in these dingy motel rooms and attempting to pitch his wares.. Truth of the matter is, nothing gets bought, everything gets sold, and an entrepreneur has to be a salesman… advocating ideas.”
Who needs a degree: “There’s a lot of people in college today that shouldn’t be there.” At one of his firms, Anixter International, “we make complex fasteners, we can manufacture them right outside of Chicago and be competitive with China. We’re running two shifts. If we could, we would run three shifts. Except we can’t find enough people in the Chicago area who know how to read plans, who can work in a manufacturing scenario… So we’re going to set up a program at a local junior college to solve that.“Here we are, 9% employment, or maybe 16%,” depending on how you count, “and I’m sitting here with 300 jobs we could fill tomorrow” if there were trained candidates. While recent college grads go unemployed.
Read it.
Blithe Spirit 