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Vision without Execution is Hallucination!

The quote "Vision without Execution is Hallucination" has been attributed to Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Both of these men were great visionary and made profound difference in human-kind by executing on those visions. Why is this quote so important in today's world? As earnings season is wrapping up, we see incidence of "execution" or "hallucinations" in almost every earnings report. The companies which have great vision and great execution (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Intel, Nvidia, Netflix and many others) did extremely well and got rewarded with stock price gains. Apple being best of them would become first trillion $ market cap company in few weeks. Steve Jobs was great visionary but what made today's Apple is Tim Cook's almost flawless and laser-sharp execution! Tim Cook had added more than $500 Billion into Apple's market cap in less than 6 years. That's double of what Steve Jobs added during nearly two decades at Apple. Same story with Satya Nadella. Great vision and execution around cloud and software-as-servicve! I particularly admire Netflix CEO Reed Hastings' vision and execution. Moving to streaming world by killing its own cash-cow of shipping DVD was a gutsy vision and almost bankrupted Netflix. Another similar gutsy vision of creating original content (even at expense of spoiling relationships with big media companies like Disney) and executing on both of these visions with persistence has turned Netflix into an unstoppable force in entertainment. This is forcing companies like Disney to rethink its vision and execution for the new world of entertainment. Who would have thought?
Now let's look at other side -  companies which have great vision but are faltering in their execution.

  • Tesla: I admire Elon Musk and his visions in so many fields. Elon is Steve Jobs of 21st century and like Apple for Steve Jobs, Tesla is for Elon Musk. Unfortunately recent reports on struggles on Model 3 production is creating doubts regarding execution capabilities (I am not happy that delivery of my model 3 is pushed out by few months). Execution on production ramp-up an delivery of model 3 to nearly half-million customers who have paid advance of $1000 would decide fate of Tesla. So Elon, it's time to execute on your great vision! (as a side note, Steve Jobs and Apple had similar phase when Steve's execution on his pet project "Lisa" computer faltered)
  • Snap: Evan Spiegel found a great niche of "vanishing messages" and has evolved Snap's vision to be a camera company helping people the way they live and communicate. However since Snap went public, it has failed in its execution every quarter. Kids love the app because of its stories and creative tools (my knowledge of snap app is limited as you would have guessed). But lack of focus (trying to change from social network to camera company) and poor execution (inventory write-down of $40M on Spectacles) is creating a narrative that Snap would go same way as Twitter and GoPro (and would never be able to match Facebook's vision and execution)
  • General Electric: And finally company which was formed by merging Thomas Edison's companies is faltering in its execution for almost 10 years. Today's GE lacks both vision and execution for 21st century. Its stock is at multi-year low and could be removed from DOW index first time (GE is the only company which had stayed in DOW since index was created). Everyone is awaiting for new CEO John Flannery to define a new GE for 21st century creating new vision and execute on it. I am confident that company which had survived two world-wars, great depression, great recession and many ups-and-down would be able to survive and thrive!
Energy markets are back on upswing as I predicted back in July. Given aggressive stance of Saudi Arabia and synchronized global GDP growth oil price would cross $60. Energy stocks would finally turn around in 2018 after nearly 3 years of under-performance.
It's one year anniversary since biggest surprise in political history of USA. More on that next week!

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