most
my name is Antoine Louie I run a company
called GSX
now don’t feel embarrassed if you
haven’t heard of us we operate into a
very niche space we develop complex
technical software which is used by
large organizations to make sure that
their email is working fine in my work
in my daily work I meet people in large
organizations large banks use our
products we have partners which are
mobile operators big system integrators
we got technology partners like
Microsoft and when I meet directors or
executive at these large companies
there’s always a question that pops up
switch is basically you know how big is
your company so it’s very simple there’s
about 50 people working in GSX and we
only do 6 million of revenue when I when
I give these numbers there’s something
that nearly always happens there’s a 1/2
of the second of silence with the person
in front of me is thinking you know
pondering on what this means and I know
what they think and I know what a few of
you are thinking you know there are you
are thinking and they are thinking these
are not big numbers there are more
people working for me
I’m responsible in my company for a much
larger revenue in essence what they are
thinking is that they would have no
problem doing what I do and probably
it’s true and that true probably also of
you as well
what happens and what I want to discuss
with you is the discussion that takes
place after this sort of half of second
of silence and like to be able by doing
these to tell you what is the real magic
beyond size of running of small company
so the first thing that I normally have
to do is that I have to dispel a few
myths about the role of the CEO in
smaller company normally in their mind
the CEO is the person which is going to
be taking the very big important
decisions and you know we’ve all have in
business history books example of such
decisions Intel used to be only doing
memory chips and
suddenly they decided this was not going
to be a good business and they made a
big switch to go into semiconductors
that’s a very big decisions we but much
closer to us steve job decided to put
apple into the the the music business as
a whole and that’s another big decisions
and and Andy Grove in Intel Steve’s
other Apple they are associated with
these important decision and credited
with the success that came out of them
if you if you read books about how this
whole took place you realize that
actually they were not alone the
executives that I speak to they were
actually associated with this type of
big decisions otherwise by the way it
would never take it will never work the
best the best notion that that currency
which is the well-documented is that
jobs didn’t want it iTunes to work on
Windows platform
actually it was done in spite of him he
maybe took the credit after until it was
a great idea but these decisions were
not taken by the almighty CEO they were
taken by the people who are you know the
executives working with him in my in my
small company five years ago we had to
make a very big decisions we had to take
all the world that we are doing into the
IBM world and decide if we wanted to go
to the Microsoft world to do the same
thing we are zero brand awareness in
this world the fact of coming to the IBM
world was actually seen as a liability
and we were not sure that we’re going to
be able to master all the technical
challenges of moving from one world to
the other so this was a big decision to
take well let me tell you I didn’t take
the decision myself alone I actually
made sure that everyone in every
department could be associated with a
decision could think of the values of
the issues and the challenges and and
and we all discuss this together so know
that the miss of the Almighty God liked
Co making decision by himself well I’m
sorry but that doesn’t happen another
thing which I have to describe to to the
person that I’m talking to is that I
know it’s a surprise
for them but if they become CEO of a
small company they are going to lose
social status my wife jokes and say that
she had a much easier time explaining to
a friends and family what her husband
was doing when I was an IPM she’s not in
my business and she didn’t need to
explain more than that
now she’s got to explain that I work
into a company called gsx and and she’s
got to explain what this is and it’s a
much harder for her to do that
but there’s another story that I want to
tell you we have in our Gannett
organization someone that join us ten
years ago and and he’s a great guy he
runs all sales and marketing when he
joined us ten years ago he was actually
an intern that came from the IBM server
division and what he told me after in
Mom’s joining is that he was surprised
because when he was living a phone call
unlike what was in the past people
didn’t always answer are they in
attendance or that fast so you had the
same guy you know that suddenly was
realizing that by being associated with
a big company and all the value of the
big company he had some sort of status
by going into a smaller one he had lost
these studies and even now that he is
running a sales organization and doing
really well well he knows that she’s got
to fight a little harder than when he
was an intern at IBM so you know you if
you’re in a small company you are not
God like making decisions and you
probably lose a bit of social status so
where is the magic where is the interest
to to tell you that I have to tell you
story that took place about 25 years ago
I actually resigned from IBM to go and
do some studies in the US and my second
line manager the boss of my boss asked
to see me so I remember we went to a
nice cafe outside of the office and he
took the time to explain to me what had
been his career path what had been the
career path of the country manager that
everyone was looking with over and then
min raishin and respect and he explained
that he moved from a situation where he
had some specific tasks and then because
he did
and he was known he explained that he
moved to another organization with some
people to menage and then he moved to
another one where he had a bigger
territory and at each of the steps his
tasks his success was associated with
bigger revenue to produce and basically
by living IBM all the the goodwill which
I had developed and accumulated by being
known during four years in the
organization that was going to vanish
now that you leave IBM you may go to a
great place to do some studies you are
losing value so I enjoyed the fact that
he took the time to spend you know to
discuss with me but I wasn’t completely
convinced actually was an engineer by
training and I was was always with a bit
upset that I could not have so much
impact on the crowd which I was I was
selling and I tried to explain this to
him by comparing the role of the country
manager of IBM where at the time
thousand people working for him so
someone had real impact and an
incapabilities to the guy running the
cafe and what I described are the
differences in decisions that both of
these guys had got to do if you are if
you got thousand people to manage the
issue is going to be well which one do
you hire which one do you promote do you
assign them to this group of product or
to this type of customers do you send
them the East in the south and so on
these are not simple decisions I got
huge respect for people who do listen
and who do this as well as this guy was
doing but compare this to the decision
that the the cafe owner has got to do
well he’s got to worry about inventory
he’s got to worry about pricing he’s got
to worry about what to put in front of
the of the of the window to get people
to come in he’s got to worry about the
menu he’s got to worry about one of the
most important thing they have to do is
hire people and make sure that they turn
up every day he’s got to make sure that
the books gets closed that he can report
on all type of regulations so so you
realise
whenever I’ve described these things the
the guy has got decisions to take which
are
not so complex as the one that I’ve
described for the country manager which
which was very wide there are a lot of
decisions that the guy has got to do who
the guy who runs the cafe that the
country manager has done got to do and
and ultimately what I felt is that I
appreciated my the boss of my boss
telling me that the depths of this I was
going to increase some more depths of
responsibilities by staying in IBM but I
will felt that I what I wanted was not
to increase my debt necessarily I wanted
to increase the width of
responsibilities which I had and if I
had if I’d stayed into IBM I would
probably have been gaining these but
there are many question that I would
never ask myself when I move into
another organization which was much
smaller I suddenly started realizing how
much I had been operating in an
organization’s where a lot of things
were prepared for me I was in charge of
developing partnership for the first
time in Europe and when I arrived I
asked what were the pricing structure
whether we had control that we’re ready
and guys looked at me and say well we
don’t have any when I was an IBM I had
unbelievably smart people who had
prepared this for me and all what I had
to do was to execute so one other thing
that we’ve done in my small organization
is that we’ve had to worry about
developing new product deciding where to
go
deciding how to price them redesigning
the website the marketing worrying about
legal issues about the books worrying
about deciding to go and not to go in
certain country or not so as you can see
from my gesture I’ve increased
tremendously the amount and the width of
responsibilities which I had and and
this is what is the real magic of
running a small company you don’t have
the depths that’s the country manager of
a thousand people used to have now make
no mistake I’m very jealous of the guy
I’d love to get a thousand people
pushing my products once we’ve disagreed
we’ve developed and we’ve made the
effort of of putting them to market and
make them
work and I don’t want my company to
stare this size but when I’ve had to
make a choice a decision choice of the
career what I’ve realized that I like
the the the wide responsibilities more
than I like the depths and you know you
given the the fact that this is a tie
toka that University you got to think
that you are going to have to think
yourself whether you are a depth person
our our our wits person I don’t think
you’ll get any grades by being a Wits
person I don’t think that the guys
who’ve organized this TED talk will get
better grades on the University for
evidence such a great work but
ultimately what they are saying is that
they are saying that they are
comfortable doing something different
discovering a lot of things that they
are not discovered and they are saying
that they are also only bit about Depp’s
person when I went to the US I discussed
with the head of admission at the
University where I was studying and she
told me something that’s you know given
your age you should think about it she
said that basically she received lots of
application they only take something
like 10% of the people who apply so
she’s got to find ways of making sure
that she selects the right person so
maybe half of them may not have the
correct rage that she expects but
ultimately you know it’s very difficult
for her to assess what are the typical
grade in Geneva Germany Japan China
India wherever so she tries to get the
the people that have got certain
standards and then what does she do
because she needs to find a way of
getting and selecting the right people
she what she does is that she looks
weather or Connie debts have got
personality she looks for what career
seven beyond their studies to show that
ultimately they are not necessarily
narrow in looking at something and
becoming an expert but then the cat
expanding and I don’t know exactly if
she would say these like this but she’s
looking necessary for depth she’s
looking for people for which so this is
the nice thing about reading organize a
small organization
it’s thinking in terms of enlarging your
your responsibilities so as you are
doing your studies and you have
to make a number of decisions think well
whether you are more of a depths person
or if you’re marwis person and the next
time you’ll have a coffee you know I
don’t know if it will make the coffee
tastes better but it will make probably
you coffee
drinking a more interesting experience
think of all the responses the guys who
serve in you thank you [Applause]
my name is Antoine Louie I run a company
called GSX
now don’t feel embarrassed if you
haven’t heard of us we operate into a
very niche space we develop complex
technical software which is used by
large organizations to make sure that
their email is working fine in my work
in my daily work I meet people in large
organizations large banks use our
products we have partners which are
mobile operators big system integrators
we got technology partners like
Microsoft and when I meet directors or
executive at these large companies
there’s always a question that pops up
switch is basically you know how big is
your company so it’s very simple there’s
about 50 people working in GSX and we
only do 6 million of revenue when I when
I give these numbers there’s something
that nearly always happens there’s a 1/2
of the second of silence with the person
in front of me is thinking you know
pondering on what this means and I know
what they think and I know what a few of
you are thinking you know there are you
are thinking and they are thinking these
are not big numbers there are more
people working for me
I’m responsible in my company for a much
larger revenue in essence what they are
thinking is that they would have no
problem doing what I do and probably
it’s true and that true probably also of
you as well
what happens and what I want to discuss
with you is the discussion that takes
place after this sort of half of second
of silence and like to be able by doing
these to tell you what is the real magic
beyond size of running of small company
so the first thing that I normally have
to do is that I have to dispel a few
myths about the role of the CEO in
smaller company normally in their mind
the CEO is the person which is going to
be taking the very big important
decisions and you know we’ve all have in
business history books example of such
decisions Intel used to be only doing
memory chips and
suddenly they decided this was not going
to be a good business and they made a
big switch to go into semiconductors
that’s a very big decisions we but much
closer to us steve job decided to put
apple into the the the music business as
a whole and that’s another big decisions
and and Andy Grove in Intel Steve’s
other Apple they are associated with
these important decision and credited
with the success that came out of them
if you if you read books about how this
whole took place you realize that
actually they were not alone the
executives that I speak to they were
actually associated with this type of
big decisions otherwise by the way it
would never take it will never work the
best the best notion that that currency
which is the well-documented is that
jobs didn’t want it iTunes to work on
Windows platform
actually it was done in spite of him he
maybe took the credit after until it was
a great idea but these decisions were
not taken by the almighty CEO they were
taken by the people who are you know the
executives working with him in my in my
small company five years ago we had to
make a very big decisions we had to take
all the world that we are doing into the
IBM world and decide if we wanted to go
to the Microsoft world to do the same
thing we are zero brand awareness in
this world the fact of coming to the IBM
world was actually seen as a liability
and we were not sure that we’re going to
be able to master all the technical
challenges of moving from one world to
the other so this was a big decision to
take well let me tell you I didn’t take
the decision myself alone I actually
made sure that everyone in every
department could be associated with a
decision could think of the values of
the issues and the challenges and and
and we all discuss this together so know
that the miss of the Almighty God liked
Co making decision by himself well I’m
sorry but that doesn’t happen another
thing which I have to describe to to the
person that I’m talking to is that I
know it’s a surprise
for them but if they become CEO of a
small company they are going to lose
social status my wife jokes and say that
she had a much easier time explaining to
a friends and family what her husband
was doing when I was an IPM she’s not in
my business and she didn’t need to
explain more than that
now she’s got to explain that I work
into a company called gsx and and she’s
got to explain what this is and it’s a
much harder for her to do that
but there’s another story that I want to
tell you we have in our Gannett
organization someone that join us ten
years ago and and he’s a great guy he
runs all sales and marketing when he
joined us ten years ago he was actually
an intern that came from the IBM server
division and what he told me after in
Mom’s joining is that he was surprised
because when he was living a phone call
unlike what was in the past people
didn’t always answer are they in
attendance or that fast so you had the
same guy you know that suddenly was
realizing that by being associated with
a big company and all the value of the
big company he had some sort of status
by going into a smaller one he had lost
these studies and even now that he is
running a sales organization and doing
really well well he knows that she’s got
to fight a little harder than when he
was an intern at IBM so you know you if
you’re in a small company you are not
God like making decisions and you
probably lose a bit of social status so
where is the magic where is the interest
to to tell you that I have to tell you
story that took place about 25 years ago
I actually resigned from IBM to go and
do some studies in the US and my second
line manager the boss of my boss asked
to see me so I remember we went to a
nice cafe outside of the office and he
took the time to explain to me what had
been his career path what had been the
career path of the country manager that
everyone was looking with over and then
min raishin and respect and he explained
that he moved from a situation where he
had some specific tasks and then because
he did
and he was known he explained that he
moved to another organization with some
people to menage and then he moved to
another one where he had a bigger
territory and at each of the steps his
tasks his success was associated with
bigger revenue to produce and basically
by living IBM all the the goodwill which
I had developed and accumulated by being
known during four years in the
organization that was going to vanish
now that you leave IBM you may go to a
great place to do some studies you are
losing value so I enjoyed the fact that
he took the time to spend you know to
discuss with me but I wasn’t completely
convinced actually was an engineer by
training and I was was always with a bit
upset that I could not have so much
impact on the crowd which I was I was
selling and I tried to explain this to
him by comparing the role of the country
manager of IBM where at the time
thousand people working for him so
someone had real impact and an
incapabilities to the guy running the
cafe and what I described are the
differences in decisions that both of
these guys had got to do if you are if
you got thousand people to manage the
issue is going to be well which one do
you hire which one do you promote do you
assign them to this group of product or
to this type of customers do you send
them the East in the south and so on
these are not simple decisions I got
huge respect for people who do listen
and who do this as well as this guy was
doing but compare this to the decision
that the the cafe owner has got to do
well he’s got to worry about inventory
he’s got to worry about pricing he’s got
to worry about what to put in front of
the of the of the window to get people
to come in he’s got to worry about the
menu he’s got to worry about one of the
most important thing they have to do is
hire people and make sure that they turn
up every day he’s got to make sure that
the books gets closed that he can report
on all type of regulations so so you
realise
whenever I’ve described these things the
the guy has got decisions to take which
are
not so complex as the one that I’ve
described for the country manager which
which was very wide there are a lot of
decisions that the guy has got to do who
the guy who runs the cafe that the
country manager has done got to do and
and ultimately what I felt is that I
appreciated my the boss of my boss
telling me that the depths of this I was
going to increase some more depths of
responsibilities by staying in IBM but I
will felt that I what I wanted was not
to increase my debt necessarily I wanted
to increase the width of
responsibilities which I had and if I
had if I’d stayed into IBM I would
probably have been gaining these but
there are many question that I would
never ask myself when I move into
another organization which was much
smaller I suddenly started realizing how
much I had been operating in an
organization’s where a lot of things
were prepared for me I was in charge of
developing partnership for the first
time in Europe and when I arrived I
asked what were the pricing structure
whether we had control that we’re ready
and guys looked at me and say well we
don’t have any when I was an IBM I had
unbelievably smart people who had
prepared this for me and all what I had
to do was to execute so one other thing
that we’ve done in my small organization
is that we’ve had to worry about
developing new product deciding where to
go
deciding how to price them redesigning
the website the marketing worrying about
legal issues about the books worrying
about deciding to go and not to go in
certain country or not so as you can see
from my gesture I’ve increased
tremendously the amount and the width of
responsibilities which I had and and
this is what is the real magic of
running a small company you don’t have
the depths that’s the country manager of
a thousand people used to have now make
no mistake I’m very jealous of the guy
I’d love to get a thousand people
pushing my products once we’ve disagreed
we’ve developed and we’ve made the
effort of of putting them to market and
make them
work and I don’t want my company to
stare this size but when I’ve had to
make a choice a decision choice of the
career what I’ve realized that I like
the the the wide responsibilities more
than I like the depths and you know you
given the the fact that this is a tie
toka that University you got to think
that you are going to have to think
yourself whether you are a depth person
our our our wits person I don’t think
you’ll get any grades by being a Wits
person I don’t think that the guys
who’ve organized this TED talk will get
better grades on the University for
evidence such a great work but
ultimately what they are saying is that
they are saying that they are
comfortable doing something different
discovering a lot of things that they
are not discovered and they are saying
that they are also only bit about Depp’s
person when I went to the US I discussed
with the head of admission at the
University where I was studying and she
told me something that’s you know given
your age you should think about it she
said that basically she received lots of
application they only take something
like 10% of the people who apply so
she’s got to find ways of making sure
that she selects the right person so
maybe half of them may not have the
correct rage that she expects but
ultimately you know it’s very difficult
for her to assess what are the typical
grade in Geneva Germany Japan China
India wherever so she tries to get the
the people that have got certain
standards and then what does she do
because she needs to find a way of
getting and selecting the right people
she what she does is that she looks
weather or Connie debts have got
personality she looks for what career
seven beyond their studies to show that
ultimately they are not necessarily
narrow in looking at something and
becoming an expert but then the cat
expanding and I don’t know exactly if
she would say these like this but she’s
looking necessary for depth she’s
looking for people for which so this is
the nice thing about reading organize a
small organization
it’s thinking in terms of enlarging your
your responsibilities so as you are
doing your studies and you have
to make a number of decisions think well
whether you are more of a depths person
or if you’re marwis person and the next
time you’ll have a coffee you know I
don’t know if it will make the coffee
tastes better but it will make probably
you coffee
drinking a more interesting experience
think of all the responses the guys who
serve in you thank you [Applause]
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