How Unusual CEOs Drive Value

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Business, Hbr, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Strategy, Business/management, Management, Communication, Harvard, Entrepreneurship, Business/marketing, Leadership, Marketing, Finance, Economics, Teams

4.3 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2014

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

William Thorndike, investor and author of "The Outsiders," looks at some less-known but more effective executives.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everyone it's Kurt we need your help with our annual survey this is your last chance to help us get to know you so we can make idea cast even better for you
0:09.8	it's easy just go to HBR.org
0:13.0	podcast survey.
0:15.0	Again, that's HBR.org.
0:17.0	And thanks for listening. Welcome to the HBR Ideacast. I'm Sarah Green from Harvard Business Review.
0:37.5	Today I'm talking with William Thorndyke, the author of the book The Outsiders,
0:42.2	eight unconventional CEOs and their the author of the book The Outsiders, Eight Unconventional
0:43.7	CEOs and their radically rational blueprint for success.
0:47.3	Well, thanks so much for talking with us today.
0:49.4	Thank you, Cheryl.
0:50.4	So it's interesting to me that the book starts with a CEO you've actually most
0:55.0	people have probably never heard of a guy named Henry Singleton why did you
0:58.7	start with him who is he and why is he so important? Yeah well Henry Singleton was sort of the genesis for this whole project.
1:06.0	So I work in the private equity industry and every other year we host a conference for our CEOs and about 10 years ago I raised my
1:14.7	hand and said I would do one of the talks at that conference and I decided to focus on
1:19.5	Henry Singleton who had heard a little bit about Henry Singleton had a very unusual background for a CEO.
1:26.7	He was a MIT trained mathematician and engineer.
1:30.6	He got a PhD in electrical engineering from MIT while he was there he
1:35.4	programmed the first computer on the MIT campus and he proceeded to have a very
1:41.7	successful career in science. He developed an
1:46.0	inertial guidance system for LITN industries that's still in use in
1:49.6	commercial and military aircraft. He did a whole range of things and then later in his
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Harvard Business Review, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Harvard Business Review and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.