How To Succeed in Business

It is the conventional wisdom that all it takes to succeed in America is a good education and hard work. 
 

This mythology serves several factions that promote it endlessly. Colleges love it because it imbues their product with value without actually requiring them to be accountable for delivering anything valuable in exchange for four years of tuition. Businesses promote it because it assures an endless supply of bright young people who will work hard and put in thousands of unpaid hours of effort in the belief that they will be richly rewarded with “success” later in their career. Politicians promote it because it covers of the ugly reality that capitalism in American has degenerated into a purely exploitative system that succeeds by paying workers far less than the value of the goods and services they product.

So what does it really take to succeed in business in America? The answer is revealed by examining a few illustrative real-life examples.

Apple, Inc.

First, let’s talk about John Sculley, Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak and Apple Corporation. Wozniak was the worker in the original Apple Corporation. He invented the first few computers pretty much single handedly. Wozniak was the perfect model for a successful worker. But he did not rise to the top of Apple, Inc. as a result of his undeniable competence and hard work.

Jobs had the vision to see the large potential market for Wozniak’s invention. Wozniak either did not see the potential, or did not have the drive to pursue it. Jobs had drive. And he had the ruthless ambition to screw anyone who got in his way. Jobs took Wozniak’s invention and created a business to produce and promote it. Wozniak did receive a minority share of the new company, but Jobs retained the controlling interest.

Enter John Sculley. Sculley had a good education, and had had some marketing success at Pepsi. But Sculley had no knowledge of information technology or electronics and no vision for the future of the company. Sculley had business executive skills. He worked on the Board members with charm, bullshit, and personal attacks on Jobs (which was easy because Jobs was abrasive and abusive). Sculley somehow convinced the Board that Sculley, not Jobs, had the vision and wisdom to guide Apple, Inc. to a greater future. This was of course a complete lie. But for the moment it worked. Sculley rose to the top of Apple, Inc. by using his business skills – Bullshitting, back-stabbing, brown-nosing, bragging.

Under John Sculley's leadership Apple, Inc. lost the lead and withered. Shareholders finally had enough, and Sculley was eventually ousted, and more mature Jobs returned. Sculley left Apple and never succeeded at anything for the rest of his career. The story at Apple was not unusual in its day. Several other promising technology startups were taken over by untalented individuals who’s only skill was the application of the business executive skills. Ashton-Tate was an unfortunate victim of the well dressed corporate artists.

General Douglas MacArthur

General Douglas MacArthur was a legendary five star Army General. He graduated from West Point Military Academy and had a military career that spanned World War I and II, and part of the Korean war. He rose to become General of the Army and commanded over a hundred thousand troops. He presided over the reconstruction of Japan after World War II with the authority and respect of Nobility. The Emperor of Japan was in fact subordinate to MacArthur. 

MacArthur was bright but he was not the brightest man in his class. His rise and success were the result of a careful and relentless campaign of advocacy waged by himself and his mother.

Douglas was raised by his mother to be the King and he had the carefully nurtured ego to fulfill the role. She was at his side throughout his career from boyhood, through West Point, and beyond. She wrote countless letters to Senators, Congressmen, Presidents, and senior military officials, explaining at every opportunity how Douglas was the perfect candidate for promotion and why selecting one of the the other candidates would be a dreadful mistake. Douglas himself was no slouch at public relations and self promotion. He saw himself as an actor on the huge theater of the world, and groomed himself in every way to fulfill the role he sought. He identified what the leader should look like to the troops, civilians, and politicians, and he fashioned himself to fit the image that the role required. In post World War II Japan, he had himself transported about Tokyo in a shiny black Cadillac limousine loaded with chrome and adorned with 5-Star General and American flags, escorted in a motorcade led by siren-sounding jeeps staffed with MP’s wearing chrome plated helmets and dressy combat uniforms. His passing was like a parade, and all civilians would stop and stare in awe as the motorcade passed by, many of then them bowing. He was the King of Japan.

Although his theatrics were sometimes rather obvious, he was all in all extremely successful. He and his mother never held the naive notion that a man could expect to rise to become a five star General and a commander of half of the armed forces in America merely by doing a good job and quietly waiting to be recognized and promoted. MacArthur's mom knew that the world does not work that way.

Which brings us back to the point of this rather rambling discussion: What does it really take to succeed?

Machiavelli had it right. If Americans could stand the truth about their economic system, and if business schools were truly interested in conferring the skills required for success upon their students, the curriculum would consist of intense study in the six “B”s of business success:

1. Bullying
2. Bullshitting
3. Bluffing
4. Bragging
5. Brown-Nosing
6. Back-Stabbing

These are the means of ascent, young man. If you thought you would be promoted and rewarded for doing good work, you are hopelessly naive. Corporate America is not a meritocracy at all. It is a competitive ruthless environment where the strong survive and nice guys are prey. Get real.

It is an unfortunate fact of life in America today that a person who does good quality work and lots of it is most likely to be exploited and used rather than promoted and rewarded. A person who has exceptional creative talent and produces extremely valuable work product will be extremely exploited. In other words, the more valuable your work output, the more the corporate system is going to screw you. Just ask one of the unemployed American former information technology employees of the Disney corporation, who laid them off en masse and replaced them with immigrant workers - not because Disney was in trouble, but because of pure greed. Disney actually posted record profits and the CEO collected a record bonus shortly after he screwed the American IT workers.

Basically, if you are willing and able to do anything extremely well, you should work for yourself in an entrepreneurial arrangement. The farther you get from an employee-owned company, the worse the exploitation will be, and the more that success is a product of the skillful application of the six “B”s.

So there you have it young man. Stop beating your head against a wall. Corporations prosper by getting people to work and produce the goods and services that generate corporate revenue, and then paying the workers as little as possible. If you are a natural bully, physically large, smart, ruthless, and have a taste for constant stress, perhaps you are suited to a career as a corporate executive. But if you enjoy doing a good job, if you take pride in your work, and if you are indeed capable of producing valuable work, you should stay away from corporations.