Many businesspeople love to complain about government, about how high costs are, how government is slow and inefficient, how government impairs the free market. You know the refrain. I feel a bit different. I’ve had my frustrations with government as we all have. But government has its place. There need to be laws and rules […]
Author Archive | david lightfoot
Book Review: Predictably Irrational
This is not a new book, having been published in 2008. Sometimes I like to go back and read a book that has been around for a while, partially because I just want to, and partially I want to see whether the author’s premise has withstood the test of time. That’s why I usually wait […]
Book Review: The Power of Regret
Daniel Pink is one of America’s most successful writers, rivaling Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis. I haven’t read all his books, but I have read Free Agent Nation, Drive, To Sell is Human and When. Every one of those I’ve read has been excellent and he continues his string of hits with his latest offering, […]
Happy New Year? The Bell’s Palsy Story
I entered 2022 with great hope that this year would be an improvement over the past two Covid-riddled years. Business was exceptionally good for me in late 2021, despite the Covid challenges, and I still haven’t caught Covid, although this damn Omicron seems like it is going to find us all eventually. But sometimes life […]
Book Review: The Radical Potter
This new book by Tristram Hunt, is a biography of Josiah Wedgwood, the Founder of the famous Wedgwood Pottery works, the maker of fine china for over 250 years. The book was published in fall of 2021. Even before the current Wedgwood company was founded, the Wedgwood family had been potters for over 200 years. […]
The Third Buyer
I have observed, in buying and selling businesses, an odd phenomenon. It is what I call, “The Third Buyer.” This refers to The Third Buyer becoming the successful buyer of a property or business. Here is how this goes down. The owner of a business decides they are ready to sell. It is an almost […]
Where Did Seven Million People Go?
Seven million is the number that has been put on the labor shortage currently in America. Every business I know is having difficulty finding skilled labor. Why? And why is this true for every industry and in every geography? Why are there so many unemployed while there are so many job openings? This is an […]
Book Review: Leonardo da Vinci
Once at a mixer, the host asked us to pick the one person we would like to meet from history. It was an interesting way to break the ice. I would pick Leonardo da Vinci, who I’ve long considered the ultimate Renaissance Man. But I really didn’t know much about Leonardo until I read this […]
Book Review: Peril
This is the latest book by Bob Woodward, who first entered the American consciousness with All the President’s Men, the story of the Watergate scandal, in 1974. Peril is his 20th book, four with co-authors, including Robert Costa on this book. Both authors are journalists with the Washington Post. I preordered this book prior to […]
What Are We Hiring the Office to Do?
What are we hiring the office to do? That’s a question asked by the CEO of a large investor in commercial office spaces. That’s also a question that CEOs of businesses large and small are asking right about now. Proponents of going back to pre-pandemic conditions are arguing that we are hiring the office to […]