1/ Steve Jobs famously said innovation is "saying no to 1000 things" before you say yes.

For more than a decade, Apple has used Pablo Picasso's Bull to drive home the lesson.

Here's a breakdown 🧵
2/ In Dec. 1945, Picasso created "The Bull", a series of 11 lithographs (stone prints).

With each successive print, a bull is simplified and abstracted. Picasso's goal was to find "spirit of the beast".

At Apple, employees are taught this philosophy.
3/ Below is the 1st, 4th and last stone print.

Picasso's bull progresses from:
◻️ a realistic drawing
◻️ to a deconstructed image with his famous "abstract" style
◻️ to a series of lines outlining the bull's shape
4/ Through 11 iterations, Picasso simplified and abstracted the bull until it captured the "essence" of what he was looking for.
5/ Apple uses the evolution of its mouse as an example of Picasso's Way (e.g., the buttons were "abstracted" away).
6/ For new employees, Apple also teaches the lessons by contrasting its Apple TV remote with existing smart controllers (significantly fewer buttons).
7/ The Picasso way of saying "no" and capturing "the essence" extends to business strategy.

When Steve Jobs returned as CEO in 1997, Apple was near bankruptcy and on a streak of failed products including a gaming machine (Pippin) and a personal digital assistant (Newton).
8/ During one product meeting with his team, Jobs shouted "stop...this is crazy" and got up to draw something on the whiteboard.

It was a 2x2 matrix laying out his product line:

• Desktop / Portable
• Consumer / Pro
9/ By saying "no" to a ton of fluff and simplifying the product offerings, Apple would start its legendary resurgence.

Its market cap was <$5B upon Jobs' return...
10/ ...and reached~$350B by the time he passed in 2011.

The evolution of the iPod/iPhone followed the Picasso Way, especially with the removal of the trackpad (and introduction of touchscreen)
11/ Per Jobs: “The way we’re running the company, the product design, the advertising, it all comes down to this: Let’s make it simple. Really simple.”

Speaking of advertising, Picasso's Bull gets a direct hat tip in Apple's famous "Think Different" ad:
12/ If you enjoyed this, follow @TrungTPhan for other business insights and, also, very dumb memes:
14/ Here's a related thread of how Apple added $1.5T+ in market cap under Tim Cook
15/ Last thing: Jony Ive has a great interview explaining Jobs' "say no" philosophy

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More from @TrungTPhan

11 Jun
Salesforce Ventures is crushing late-stage investing:

◻️Monday: $75m @ IPO —> $10m+ gain on first-day pop
◻️Zoom: $100m @ IPO —> ~$300m exit (3x)
◻️Snowflake: $250m @ IPO, position is ~$750m (3x)
◻️ Auth0: $120m investment —> $408m w/ sale to Okta (3.4x)
Salesforce had a $2.2B investment markup gains in 2020 (40% of EPS).

Other late-stage investments:
• Databricks
• Twilio
• nCino
• Dropbox
• Tanium
Startups love Salesforce Ventures cause they don’t block deals and don’t take a board seat Image
Read 5 tweets
9 Jun
Pretty Wild. GameStop's CEO, CFO and CSO are all now former Amazon execs.

$GME IS A TECH COMPANY!
Interesting side note:

The original letter that Michael Burry wrote to GameStop's board in July 2019 criticized the company for letting Amazon acquire Twitch.

For Burry, that signalled an inability to properly allocate capital and that GME should do share buybacks instead.
Sorry: Elliott Wilkes is the CGO, Chief Growth Officer (not Strategy)
Read 4 tweets
8 Jun
The Wall Street Bets due diligence on Wendy’s is gold.

The catalysts are:
◻️ The release of a new summer salad
◻️ The @Wendys Twitter account, which has mastered “meta pragmatic roasting” (which is effective with younger people)
◻️ The fact it literally sells chicken tendies
Here’s a more fundamentals-driven analysis of Wendy’s

reddit.com/r/wallstreetbe…
Read 5 tweets
7 Jun
If you need to know how savvy Mayweather is as a business person, watch this.

He literally knocks Paul out but holds him up to extend the fight and increase the odds of a rematch PPV payday LOL
I’ll tell you where the real genius is. We have no idea if this *actually* was a knockout.

And we’re all talking about it.

They both about to get more bags.
follow @TrungTPhan for other amateurish video deep dives
Read 6 tweets
6 Jun
0/ A Redditor digs into the career of AMC's CEO Adam Aron @CEOAdam, who has an impressive track record of turning companies around (it's also a hysterically-written business bio).

Here's the story 🧵
1/ Quick summary of 66-year old Aron's career:
◻️ Harvard BA / MBA
◻️ Marketing @ Hyatt and United Airlines
◻️ CEO, Norwegian Cruises
◻️ CEO, Vail Resorts
◻️ CEO and part-owner, Philadelphia 76ers
◻️ CEO, Starwood Hotels
◻️ CEO, AMC
2/ Early years as an exceptional student (many references to 'silverback apes'...funniest parts are *bolded*)
Read 14 tweets
30 May
1/ Amazon's $8B+ deal for MGM strengthens Prime, its subscription bundle with 200m+ users and revenue of $20B+.

Prime is now a staple in our lives but was a total Hail Mary when it launched in Feb 2005. Incredibly, Bezos & Co. created it in a 6-week sprint.

Here's the story 🧵
2/ In the mid-2000s, Amazon was far from the behemoth we know today.

Check these market caps on September 30th, 2004:

◻️ Amazon = $17B
◻️ Best Buy = $18B
◻️ eBay = $61B
◻️Walmart = $226B
3/ The catalyst for Prime was annoyance with Amazon's existing free-shipping offer ("Super Saver Shipping").

It was too complicated:

◻️ You had to hit a min. order of $25 (which created a complicated recommendation system)
◻️ Then wait 8-10 days for the items (customers pissed)
Read 20 tweets

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