Thinkers 50 Strategy: The Art and Science of Strategy Creation and Execution

CHAPTER7

Where Strategy Meets Society

By the second half of the 1990s, business was undergoing a radical transformation courtesy of the Internet. The dot-com boom was under way, and management experts were reassessing the fundamental rules of business. It was no longer necessary to be profitable, it seemed. A better strategy, for the owners at least, was to load up with investment funds, embark on a mad dash for “eyeballs,” and then cash in with an initial public offering (IPO), passing the long-term risk on to another investor. This was strategy but not as we had previously known it. It was the strategy of cyber-exploration. The closest parallel perhaps was when wealthy royal patrons in the fifteenth century would invest in nautical explorers ...