long-term thinking

Every few years, someone discovers a marketing channel that works unusually well. They write about it. Other people copy it. The channel gets crowded. The platform that hosts the channel notices the activity and starts charging for access. The channel’s effectiveness declines. Everyone moves on to the next channel. This cycle has been running since... See more

When we sing in the shower, we hardly expect applause. In fact, that would be awfully weird.

But online, when just about anyone might be clicking, watching or sharing, it’s disappointing to put your work into the world and hear nothing.

Nothing but a black hole that absorbs your best work and reflects nothing back.

And if that happens again and again,... See more

The fact is, star brands take time to grow. Take some of the small makeup companies we have acquired recently, like Bliss and Urban Decay. When we bought them, they were little start-ups run by their founders—very simple businesses, but with a lot of originality in the products. So now we know we must nurture them until they have some history. But

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“Driving the train doesn’t set its course. The real job is laying the track.”

There is a common issue of over-optimizing the metrics in business, which can damage the whole system. Doing the wrong thing efficiently is actually worse than doing the right thing badly. – Rory Sutherland