YouSaid · the spoken record

Sidney Harman

lines on the record: 93
first: 2022-01-30
most recent: 2022-01-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“This is going to happen over and over again, happened in the past, happens today, will happen in the future. You could take advantage of them, which is what exactly what Sidney did. No one had any affection for it. And the people at Harmon were demoralized. Beatrice needed me. I had an eager seller and therefore a very attractive opportunity. So he buys it back for half of what he had just sold it for four years earlier. So then he goes through all these different partners. Remember he had this idea of this jazz quartet as a way of the best way to assemble a management team. You're listening to you. You're an expert in your own instrument, but you also listen to the play and you respond to the play of your other people. And you have one person to the front. He goes through person after person. So this guy, Jerry, hires him. Jerry discouraged my active participation, even when the company was struggling to survive. We agreed this stranger's not working. So he gets rid of him. I promoted Don to run the company. Don and I tried to make it work, but we were increasingly incompatible. Are we seeing a pattern here on this gravestone?”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Deal was made. Harmony became one of its many subsidiaries, and I became a wealthy man. I could then turn my attention to my new job. And now, right two paragraphs later, we're back at the triple dip. Okay, he buys the company back for $50 million. And he's making fun of these large conglomerates. He echoes Buffett here. He's like, these just giant companies run by people that don't know what the hell they're doing can destroy immense amounts of wealth easily and they do this because they just acquire for no reason. You know, if you read Warren Buffett Jehovah letters, he goes over the server and over again. In 1980 with my government service behind me, I was approached again by Beatrice Foods. The venture has a diversified conglomerate had been disastrous. Most of their acquisitions had performed poorly. Harmon had done especially bad. Beatrice was in turmoil and under enormous pressure from the banks and shareholders. No one at Beatrice understood the high fidelity business of why the hell would you buy a business you don't understand. But again, we know this from the history of business, history of entrepreneurship.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Harmon stock, even if I was going to place it in a blind trust, my ownership of a majority of the company's equity would place me in an awkward position. There would be too many issues, so he winds up having to sell his company. Essentially, what's happening here? And this was interesting. I did not hesitate. He winds up saying businesses is love. He hated politics. He was very happy. But it was interesting. He just felt it was a duty. Like I was called upon. I have to serve. I have to sell the company. He sells his company. He never mentions a price. I had to go and look this up independently. He sells his company for $100 million in 1976. So that's the equivalent of almost half a billion dollars today. So up until this point, I got to tell you who he sold it to. So before this, he had rejected a number of offers by a conglomerate called Beatrice Foods. So then I called them back to indicate that the company was available, the qualification was that I could not be a part of it. My lack of involvement represented no problem at all for Beatrice.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's another one called Becker that he buys. I think he does like 20 acquisitions in the book, which he's also interesting enough. He's against large acquisitions. I'll talk more about that later. So this is where he gets essentially what's going to be the path forward to his business. It's like, I'm going to own all these high fidelity, high quality OEM automobile manufacture companies that are supplying the car makers with high-end audio equipment. I guess it's the easiest way for me to explain that to you. So we require JBL. That's going to be one of them. Harmon International was reclaiming a leadership role in the audio business. And over the next seven years, it's annual sales grew to $135 million. And I wrote, what entire nation? Because it just goes super fast. And then here we go. He's going to sell the company again. In late 1976, then President-elect Jimmy Carter asked me to be his new deputy secretary of commerce. The note I left off myself here is funny. I said this guy.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he's like, okay, I'm taking some of the money I got from the sale, and I'm going to invest it in this other company, which was a public company. It's like a burgeoning conglomerate you could think of. It's called Jervis Corporation. And so he says, I became totally engaged at Jervis, increased my eventually, and I eventually changed the company's name to Harmon International. And this is what I mean. He just moves around rapidly. He's like, listen, we make jet engines and automobile mirrors for automobiles and then just immediately goes into, oh my God, I got my other company back. So this is the double dip, right? A few years later, we repurchased Harman Carden from Jared, so from the other guy he just had a falling out with. That repurchased began the transformation of the company and my return to the audio business in 1969. We acquired GBL. So that's another audio manufacturer, JBL is also high-end. This is where he gets into the, he calls it the automotive OEM market. And so JBL, Harmon Carden,”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was confident that he wished to sell. He was actively running for Governor of Pennsylvania at the time, and I was certain he would not wish to be seriously involved. He outbid me, and I had to sell my interest. I was unemployed. Terrible. So now he loses control of his company. He's unemployed. Doesn't know what to do.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hand at managing a new larger company. Of course, that's not how it's going to work out. The honeymoon did not last long. Milton had a way of swooping in without notice, pronouncing his strong views. You have two founders that have both built independently successful businesses. They're going to come together. Why would you think this is going to work out? On many business matters, I found his interventions troublesome and inadequately considered. I also objected to his use of the company facilities to support his political campaign. As I reflect on it now, I realize that we were both in error. So then they have this huge disagreement, which is going to result in Sydney losing his company. So this is the first. Remember, we said the triple dip. This is the first time he loses the company or sells it rather. So they're fighting over the future of cable TV. And so Milton's like, all right, let's invoke our buy-sell agreement. And Sydney's like, this is going to be great. This guy's running for office. He's not going to want to run the company. Wrong.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I paid attention to the details and that attention paid off in spades. I mentioned earlier this is a short book. This guy has no fluff. He gets right to it like a lot of entrepreneur biographies does. And so we get right into this. I was like, wait, what just happened here? You were, you were in love. Now you're getting, you're divorcing your lover. But he sells his business.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then this was very surprising to me, and it's also another illustration he's speaking about his business the way you would speak about your lover. Listen to this. It was then that Bernie Cardin decided to retire. The crazy hours and necessary discipline of growing a business were antithetical to how he wanted to live his life. I was obliged to find the funds to buy him out, and that led me to discover Wall Street in nineteen fifty six, Harmon Carden became a public company just as the first electronic stock boom was getting underway. I loved building a business. What could be better? This is the lover part. The products were wonderful. They employed technology wisely. They made beautiful music. My instinct for marketing, for selling, for emotive advertising was not only indulged but rewarded. Everything worked. I loved music, and I found it everywhere in my life. I imagined immense possibilities and helped provoke them. I encouraged our people and they rewarded.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hey man, I grew up with HK, Harmon Carton. In three years, our sales had grown into the millions. And our net worth, remember they started the company with $10,000, our net worth had escalated from $10,000 to over $600,000.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Career, J Paul, Getty once famously said The secret to success is get up early, work hard, and find oil. I would paraphrase it for myself this way. Get up early, work hard, pay attention to detail, and fight to improve the odds. A few months ago I read the autobiography of the founder of Trader Joe's. He says in there right away that the best businesses to run are Colts. He said Trader Joe's was a cult for the over-educated and underpaid. It is there ferocious dedication to his company, to the Trader Joe's brand, and the fact that they would spread it through word of mouth that helped grow in the early days of Trader Joe's. Same thing happened at Harman Cardin here. The college campuses were the breeding grounds for a generation who loved music and felt that the best way to listen to it was in the dorm room with our equipment even today I hear people tell me.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He talks about really what he's trying to do is like, I'm just trying to, the reason I work hard is not because I'm guaranteeing my success. I'm just improving my odds. He's going to compare his mindset at the beginning of his company with what he learned about reading about Abraham Lincoln. This is fantastic. Abe Lincoln, I reminded myself, ran for the state legislature and lost. He ran for the House of Representatives in the U.S. Congress and lost. He ran twice for the U.S. Senate, and he was defeated both times. He ran for vice president and lost. Do you see what he's doing here? Eventually he was elected when he ran for president. That, the trick, I decided, was to use all my resources to improve the odds, improving the odds I came to realize was the essence of most business activity and most decisions, knowing that made the occasional failure less traumatic. So he's going to say, hey, this is what J. Paul Getty said. I'm going to take J Paul Getty's quote, and I'm going to repurpose it for my own.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So never quit. I don't know if I was clear there. He's talking about the way he was thinking, like his inner monologue when he was at the very beginning of his company. He's like, listen, treat. So he's talking to himself, treat hard work in your smarts respectively, but recognize that they are neither decisive nor do they guarantee anything most of all. I told myself, don't underestimate determination and persistence and never quit.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hearing Frank on your low quality speakers now listen to Frank on my high quality speakers. Instead, we played Frank Sinatra in our quiet, comfortable room. This is at the height of Frank Sinatra's popularity. Relatively few people had heard Frank live. Most had listened to them on their 3Tube ACDC table radios. They also listened to them every day in the car. And how much better he sounded in our room? It was not uncommon for visitors to demand, where is he? That sound was so good they thought he was here. We were sure that we were onto something, and that something guided the company through its relatively explosive early years. He's going to talk about hard work over and over again in this book. We worked astonishingly long hours, but we were in love. Treat hard work and your smarts respectively, but recognize that they are neither decisive nor do they guarantee anything. Most of all, I told myself, don't underestimate determination and persistence and never quick.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Why is he doing that? Because that is the actual environment that the customer is going to use their products in. You're going to put up your home stereo system in your living room or that area. There's no pegboards at your house, no fluorescent lights, all that other stuff. Everybody else is playing like classical music extremely loud. He's like, well, that doesn't make any sense because he's like, we're going to play Frank Sinatra. And it's like, well, why'd you do that? Because every other vendor is playing classical music, but no one heard classical music on the radio. Frank Sinatra is the most popular artist, musician at this time. Everybody had heard Frank Sinatra on the radio. Why is that important? Because he's producing high fidelity radio equipment. And so in the past, you know what Frank Sinatra sounds like on not high fidelity, and now you can tell the difference of the product. What is my product actually achieving? What is the problem?”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About the advantage that startups have small groups of intelligent hardworking people have over a large existing company. Startups can focus on one thing. They've got these giant almost like conglomerates that are going up against. They're oblivious to the world changing around them, confident that size alone would preserve their dominance. They were already the dinosaurs. They proved soft, easy prey.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so they start out, they're in this tiny little factory of sorts. And this is just very common among startups. I would walk visitors around the floor in the most circuitous manner, leaving most of them confused, but with a sense that there was more than really existed. And then I would conclude the tour with the comment that there was little point in visiting the other floors because all the other floors were all alike. Of course, there were no other floors. So this is a fantastic paragraph because he's talking about, listen, high fidelity is clearly going to be in high demand. It's higher sound quality. Of course, the customer is going to want it. The audio amplifier and speaker business at this time was dominated by these gigantic companies. He names them. But I really just want to tell you his takeaway together, they were the establishment. They were run by traditional business types. They were oblivious to the world changing around them. So he's talking.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“His son and son in law, to whom he intended to pass on the company. I realized that it was time to leave, so in 1953, Harmon Cardin was formed. Bernie and I capitalized it with a total of $10,000, $5,000 from each of us, although we did not appreciate then, we were part of a handful of small companies that became pioneers in the newly developing field of high fidelity. And then just like Bloomberg said, While I have since learned a great deal in my business life, I have no doubt that those years at Bogan, so think about he was at this company for, I think like 12 years, Bloomberg was at Solomon Brothers for 15. I have no doubt that those years at Bogan were key, were key formative years. They had prepared me better than many to build and run a business.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The product that other people like the product because I like it. And so he's like, we're going to make products that we like to use. They're just kind of experimenting him and Bernie. And we love what we make. Let's go see if Mr. Bergen, if the boss will back us on this. He doesn't, so then they have to leave. In the early 1950s, Bernie Cardi and I began to have some serious fun. We borrowed a couple of the public address amplifiers and modified them to improve their performance. We paid attention to hum, distortion, frequency response, among other traits that I'm going to skip over. We love the result, as did our friends and neighbors. And he says there must be a sufficient number of people like us who would want to buy equipment that does what these things do. I told Mr. Bergen. As of now, they can't. None exists. Once again, he yielded reluctantly, and we produced a couple high fidelity amplifiers, although they were for us and our times and at times remarkably successful. His heart, meaning Mr. Bogan, was never in it. Our hearts were.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Low prices that others were offering. Yes, we can, I said. If you permit Bernie Cardin to design a product to be tooled and produced in quantity, I fought another battle and won another tentative show-me. Meaning, yeah, go for it, but you have to prove this. I reviewed and rated every booster amplifier. Don't worry about what they are. And every one of the markets suffered from having too many controls. My charge to Bernie was simple. Give me a booster with one control and we will eat their lunch. And he did. Once we started making them this new product, we never stopped. The company flourished and I was made general manager. My salary increased. And this is where he, why he places such a strong emphasis on the word daring so many times throughout the book. You have to be daring. He's making money. He's got a good job. And he leaves. So he wants to make a product. First of all, he realized, okay, I'm making products that I would like to use because I clearly understand the industry and I know what is possible. And I know.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was my view then, and it is my view now that Mr. Bogan honored determination and respected courage. He winds up going, he gets drafted into the Army for World War II, comes back and he says, I returned to the Bogan Company for another seven years as general manager and heir apparent to Mr. Bogan. And so this is the very beginning of the TV broadcasting industry. And so a new industry emerging, the technology is new, it works, but barely. So a lot of entrepreneurs are actually attracted to this field, this new technology, because they see an opportunity to build a business that solves the new, like the inadequacies of the new technology. And so Sydney sees this as well, but he develops a new product line, but he's doing this within the company that he's working for. But this is important because this is where he starts to work with his soon-to-be partner. And so he goes to bat and he starts fighting for this. He says, listen, there's no way we could sell those products. The boss argued at the ridiculous.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Found out their needs because I talked to them. To this day, over half a century later, I can say that no valuable enduring product of mine ever arose from contemplation of my office. It may have occurred there for others, but never for me. I know of no substitute for the firing line, for listening to the customer, for identifying and responding to a real need. So this is in the 1940s. This is his one boss. I'm pretty sure this is the only job he had before he starts his own company. Then he never had a boss again. Reminds me of Bill Gurley's advice, developmentors in your field. He talks about this guy many, many years later. And this is boss Mr. Bogan. Mr. Bogan was a very cautious, very tentative, rather, let me start that over. He's a very cautious, tentative, affectionate began to grow between Mr. Bogan and me, even as his son and son-in-law joined the company. I was given the office immediately joining his. So he starts working extremely hard and he realizes that Mr. Bogan is no”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A golf match. I have reminded myself if you're uneasy, if you're scared, the overwhelming likelihood is that he is too. Each of us is possessed of human frailty. His uncertainty probably arises out of different material from mine, but he's less than totally confident himself. I am not at such a disadvantage. So I'm skipping over a little bit about his early career. He's already moved into sales, which I mentioned earlier, but really his main point is I get all my ideas from talking to customers. That's his perspective. And he's like, I don't agree with, you know, Henry Ford not asking customers. I'm sure he might not, even though he admires Apple, I'm sure he probably disagree with Steve Jobs approach this. There's obviously multiple approaches, multiple solutions. His point is this is what worked for me, so I'm going to tell you about it. Over time, I became more skilled at travel and selling. I became increasingly aware of what the end buyer needed. That prompted me to press for new products when I returned. And often those products succeeded simply because they met those needs.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tonight goes a little bit into his early life, talks about right after graduating college, he was hired by an electronics firm to work in the engineering department. So that's how he starts out. He starts out as an engineer. Think then he goes into administration, then he goes into sales, which he was really good at, but he gives us some advice. When you go into have confidence when you go into, in this case, he's talking about job interview, because you might be terrified, but everybody is terrified. Really no one knows this idea is like there's just really no adults. Everybody's kind of making it up as they go along. I remember how a kid just out of university, I was terrified by the interview. Still, I had persuaded myself that for totally different reasons, the interviewer was terrified too. And that virtually everyone is. Now, his inner monologue on this is very interesting. I'm going to read this entire paragraph to you. That awareness of the other guy being terrified or not sure whatever the case is, has served me well over the years. Often in situations that would normally cause alarm or jitters, like a contract negotiation, a spew.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm the guardian of the company soul. Clearly, he loves what he's doing. All of us one way or another create the arc of our lives, and all of us do it best when we shine in use, so service to other people. That's what you think about that. The creation and growth of Harmon International has been the center of my arc.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then when I got to the end of this paragraph, I just jotted down. This guy is really interesting in succeeding pages. I'll discuss the keys to genuine leadership, anthropology as the keys to marketing, creating products and services that respond to how people really live and combining old ideas with new ideas. I'll also touch on the rewards found in writing, public speaking, storytelling, and humor. These are generally not traditional business subjects, in combination of all of this can build a vigorous, creative, confident executive, and a company that is sure of foot and capable of responding to crises, in James Baldwin's memorable phrase a company that knows its name. And then he gets into this point that we're all creating an arc of our lives, the way you think about this, that really is my interpretation is like we're all writing a book. The story of our lives is going to be read not only by us, but the people that we know and love, the people that are around us, and so his point is like the center of my life has been my business, you know, goes back to”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then he talks about the experiences that he had throughout his life, which influenced his philosophy. My own critical sensibility was home by early guidance from my mother from my own voracious reading, by teaching educationally disenfranchised kids, and by the contrasts and contradictions I observed when simultaneously running an experimental college and a traditional business, and that's what I meant about his schedule. He'd work, this is, I think, in the 1970s at this point. Starts today with a workout, then goes to work for like the first seven hours of the day, takes a paper, like a brown paper bag, lunch, drives across town to this college, just like Quaker College. He helps set up, changes in his car, eats his lunch real quick, and then spends another like seven or eight hours there. So it's like, okay, Sidney, you just told me your day from 7 to 7 in the morning to 10 at night. You're occupied. And that's where I was like, oh, this guy's definitely getting divorced.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or if I didn't have anything that was fully mentally engaging or wasn't passionate about, I know I would wither physically. Then he goes into get a lot of sleep, but don't eat a lot. So he's like, I work out every day and then I have a bunch of, like, I have three small meals. And he's like, that's why people, even though I'm in my 80s, they think I'm in my 60s and stuff like that. So that's actually really important to him. He brings it up right here. We're still in the very beginning of the book. He's like, listen, I'm getting to the office at 9 or 9.30 because I've prioritized that I'm going to work out before I go to work. But then once I get there, I'm going to stay there all the time. Now he talks about how he creates his own ideas. I believe that refusing to accept business orthodoxy uncritically can open your eyes to opportunity.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Spend a great deal of the time in the book talking about his thoughts on leadership. He says you should think of leading your company as if you're a first among equals. Another way to think about that is you lead from the front. I am proud of the fact that although the four top executives at Harmon could hardly be more different, they have melded into a virtuoso jazz quartet. I do not claim that I have melded them. I have come to see that the best role for a leader is, in fact, to serve as a first among equals, and in that capacity the leader must contribute to the meld.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thinkers they contemplate the world in which we live and feel obliged to interpret and give expression to it in a way that makes the reader understand how the world turns. Poets, those unheralded So I put a question mark. I'm assuming he means as a metaphor, but that sentence right there makes me say, no, he means that literally. So he doesn't expound. I'm not sure. But his main point here is you got to think in systems. You're a founder. You have to understand how everything works in your company together. You're building a system, not just a little narrow silo that you can just hide in.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Business school thinking. So, this section is labeled business school thinking. Business and the business schools have two long lionized specialists. The person who's learned how to do one thing, do it well, but who as a consequence has almost no idea how the whole enterprise works time and again in small companies and large, I have encountered senior executives who live lives of silent terror. It seems to them that the company has a life in motion of its own and they live in fear that they will somehow be found out. And so he is a really interesting, I don't think I've ever come across this thought idea. He's like, you should think of a poet. And I'm pretty sure, I don't think he means us literally. I'm pretty sure he means poets as a metaphor for system thinkers. He says instead, so he just told you what businesses and business schools teach. He's like, this is what I say. I say get me some poets as managers. Poets are poets are our original sisters.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of being ahead of everybody else, we're going to be left behind. So we got to make that difficult decision to say, hey, even those products successful now, we got to jump to what's happening next, and we got to go now. That's a pretty crazy idea and a pretty crazy experience to have in the 1950s. And then again, he's just got these things. Repetition is persuasive. If somebody's going to repeat something in these books, I'm going to bring it to your attention because there's a reason why you have really smart driven people telling you the same thing in different ways over and over again. They want to get this idea into your head. Technology is a means, not an end. I was equally certain that we must not subordinate intelligent management, marketing to the technology. Technology must never be permitted to tyrannize. It must be the servant. This lesson is ignored at great peril. Another thing he repeats over and over again, founders must, he said in the introduction, like you've got to be more of a generalist, right? It doesn't mean you can't, he niches down his product and his industry is very niche, but from a founder, the founder, in his opinion, founders must know how the whole enterprise works.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sydney, is he right in this book? He talks about it. He's like, listen, that same idea I just told you, I use that same idea to much success a few decades later. They're building audio equipment 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Those are analog audio equipment. Then he picked up early same thing. Wait, digital's changing everything that's gone. And that says decades later, driven by similar daring. That's what he calls this decision to make that jump. Think about how hard that is. I have a product that's working. It's fantastic. It's highly reviewed. People think it's the highest quality. But we know that the technology and industry is changing so fast that eventually, maybe not five, 10 years from now, we can milk this for a while and make money, but eventually it's going to be rendered obsolete. And so let's say we stick with that path. We're still focused on the development of an old technology. We can wring out profits, but the problem is our attention and our focus has value clearly. So by us staying with what we know and ignoring the change in...”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Abandoned a carefully developed new product line and created a totally new series of stereo amplifiers, the very first in the industry. And this is why I'm telling you all this stuff. Don't worry about that. I don't even know what any of these, like he uses mono-oral sound and all these stereophonic. I don't know any of this stuff is. But the idea behind it is the important part. So we saw the new technology early. We're the very first in the industry. This new product was ready just in time for the 1955 trade show. Why is that important? That decision triggered a huge success and gave us an initial lead over the competition that lasted years. So that is the main point of reading this complicated section to you. If you've identified a new technology, you believe that it's going to change everything. You've got to go all in on that new technology early. And if you're right, you're going to have a gigantic advantage over competition, usually for a period of years. If the history of entrepreneurship is any indicator of that. And what's really smart about...”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Had it that you could not create high fidelity without using separate components. Yet the advantages of a complete integrated all-in-one receiver seemed manifest to us. In other words, it was obvious to me, I trust my own judgment, I'm just going to go with this, it would be simpler to install and simpler to operate. Then he talks about two years later, they had to change the entire focus of the company. They could have kept on doing what they're doing, they could make money in an immediate term. But essentially what he's saying is we discovered a new technology. We knew right away that this technology was going to change things. It was going to render where we were working on obsolete. Let's go all in on the new technology early. And so that's an idea, you know, definitely supplying that is applicable today. This idea is like, no, no, I'm certain that there's a fundamental technological shift happening in my industry. I need to go all in on this new technology earlier. And so he says virtually overnight.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Didn't get it. Even as Gates, after careful consideration, determined to charter new direction for Microsoft, Buffett, after equal consideration, decided against engaging in the Internet. And this is his punchline about this entire section, which I think really summarizes the important point he's trying to make to us. Though these two friends reached very different conclusions, the process of evaluation, judgment, and action was the same. Certainly each was daring in his own way. And then he's going to tell us what his, like how he was daring at the very beginning of his career. He's 35 years old when he starts his own company. He says, my first active daring, I would say, was joining Bernard Cardin in 1953 to create Harm and Cardin. I quit a well paying well paying job to start a business in a very new field. A year later we had created the first integrated high fidelity audio receiver. Conventional wisdom, his main point here is the fact that he started, the company starts in defiance of conventional wisdom.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I define nimbleness as the willingness to challenge orthodoxy which is extremely important to Sydney, to question dogma, to reject counsel that this is the way it's always been done, and to move quickly to implement a new vision. Bill Gates is clearly nimble. He turned the Microsoft Leviathan around on a dime when he concluded that the cyber world was exploding and that the future of his company could not be written entirely in the Windows operating system. And then this is very fascinating what he does here. He talks about how two different responses to the same phenomenon can both be daring, so he just described Bill Gates' response to the internet, and now he's going to respond to Warren Buffett's response to the internet. Warren Buffett, whom I know and admire, and he talks about a lot, he really does admire, refused to follow the Lemmings onto the internet and over the cliff because it did not feel right to him.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The best judge quartets arise from the careful listening and response each musician gives to the playing of the others. It is that interaction inspired and encouraged by the quartet leader which stats Sydney in this case that leads to wonderful even inspired music, and so it should be in business. He has another idea for you. In your business you avoid recklessness, but you encourage daring. Daring, on the other hand, is the conscious decision to go forward after careful consideration of the risk, consequences, and potential rewards. A daring action may or may not work, but it is worth the try. A good leader encourages daring action and does not penalize it when it fails. And then he gets into some other traits of famous founders that he admires. So he says, and this is on Bill Gates being nimble. And so he says, I do not know Bill Gates. I've never met him. And I disagree with some of the tenets of his company, but I respect the fact that he is daring and impressively nimble.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's what Sidney's about to tell us. He says, and then there is the Mavericks way that looks not to the dogma of the past nor to existing models of action and behavior, but struggles to determine what is truly effective regardless of traditions and trends. It is a mutant of the old, old, and the new new, so he is, it's funny because right around the time that he published this book, the book I did a long time ago on Jim Clark, which is Michael Lewis's book, The New New Thing. I think it's like Founders 23 or something like that. Many years ago. So he's doing this play on word. So he's like, well, if Michael Lewis is saying the new way technology companies, and again, he thinks of his company as a technology company, but one that just happens to make hardware. And so it's like if technology companies are the new, new, and then we have the traditional way of doing business in America is the old, old, the Maverick way is a mutant of these two. And he describes that as it's a way of thinking that retains the enduring values of the old and the vigor of the new.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And through those sixty years I have done it differently, hence the subtitle to this book. Let me say it up front the principle that has guided me. There is the traditional way to conduct your business and do your job as for the most part it is taught in business schools and practice in industry. There is the deeply flawed new economy way. And so this is an important distinction to keep in mind he's writing this right after the first internet bubble. So he's saying, look, there's an old school way that's done in the northeast of America. Then you have the crazy internet stuff that's going on at this time on the west coast. He's like, I'm going to take pieces of both, but I reject both of them. I'm going to take pieces that I like from each and combine it. And then my own original and combine that with my own original thinking, and I'm going to come up with what I call the maverick weight. And so that is the entire point of the book, something you and I have discussed over and over again. You're going to spend a third of your life working. You should develop a philosophy on business and it should be uniquely your own.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ideally, it should prompt you to ask, what do I believe in? How do I use the knowledge of who I am and what I believe in when managing my business? If the book is successful, it will be because of the lessons it helps you draw for yourself. Through this effort I have learned once again that writing is not the simple transfer of fully formed intellectual inventory from brain to paper. Time and time again I have found myself surprised, occasionally puzzled, and often delighted at what has transpired. Writing is discovery. It is, as Dylan Thomas said, the blank page on which I read my mind.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Harmon Carden, our original division, is now celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. By most standards, that's a long time. I can honestly say that I do not feel that way, not about Harmon Carden and not about me. It has been an exciting and all too short journey. In this book you'll find no secret formula for success. You may, however, find it useful as you think critically about what works for you and what does not. What matters to you and what does not. My hope is that the book will help you generate your own style, your own compass. Then it'll help you find your own voice.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I am 84 years old as I write this book. I do it because I believe finally that the time is right. I had not intended this to be an autobiography, but as it developed, the book has unavoidably taken on some of the characters of a memoir. Still, I feel that my sixty years in business have yielded some valuable lessons about management and people that are worth passing on. Those lessons debunk much of business orthodoxy, much of business dogma. I recognize that my life would be far less interesting where harm international a struggling company. In fact, it is very successful, combining sophisticated digital technology and creative marketing with unconventional attitudes and practices. And surprisingly, perhaps in today's world, it does so while generating solid profits and consistent growth.”
2022-01-30 · Founders · #229 Sidney Harman (Founder of Harman Kardon) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source