Guy Kawasaki on Innovation

In a posting to AlwaysOn, Guy Kawasaki from Garage Technology Ventures talk about innovation, and startups. In part 3 Guy advise the reader about being willing to “kill your cash cow” :

The second thing you need to do to get to that next curve is be willing, able, and indeed eager to kill your cash cow. This is one of the most difficult things we had to do at Apple in trying to figure how to deal with both Apple II and the Macintosh. Apple II was making all the money; it was a cash cow with beautiful, large, milk-gorged udders. And we were milking that cow. Yet we knew that if Macintosh were to succeed, it would kill Apple II. And eventually it did kill Apple II.

This is really true, and maybe a reason why established companies seem to have difficulties to innovate. The cash cows are too powerful, and often, engineers tend to identify themselves with a product and are very reluctant to jump on the next curve. There is a lot of convincing to be done, and buy in from every level of the hierarchy.