It’s not only an inspiration to countless successful businesspeople, entrepreneurs and world leaders, but it’s perhaps the most inspirational, controversial, eye-opening book you’ll ever read (except for The Bible in my view). 

It’s really the celebration of freedom, the individual and the joy of creating something valuable — of realizing the power that you as an individual carries.  On the other hand, it also demonstrates how easily that can be exploited or taken away, not by “greed” in the monetary sense, but by those who abuse their power and really have nothing to offer the world.

Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism — NYT

Can what you do be described as

“an attitude…best described as ‘utter commitment to the task at hand’ and characterized by the mobilization of all available resources to achieve a particular goal…(not pretending) that it is anything more than it is.”

As seen at the Gym Jones site, via 37signals.

So after my Highrise conversion announcement, Matt at 37signals wrote me and asked to do a “mini case-study” for the 37s product blog. As a 37s fan it was pretty cool to be involved with the company to help them evangelize and promote their products. Check it out here (even a Fuego mention!)

Thanks to Matt and the 37signals team.

Companies should be laser-focused and, if possible, focus on one thing and do it better than anybody else.

That’s why I think Mozilla’s Thunderbird spinoff is a win-win for everybody. Mozilla understood the opportunity it had, but also understood that it was holding back development. I think it’s a courageous move to make it a separate subsidiary — and a bet, albeit a strong one.

“We have been thinking about what to do with the project,” said Baker, “And decided this was the right move to give it more focus.” Mozilla wants to focus on Firefox and the browser opportunity, she said. There have been very public complaints about bloat coming back to Firefox and lack of innovation. “Thunderbird is a solid client and has an active user base, but we feel it can be more than just an email client,” she said. Thunderbird needs to thrive on its own, she pointed out. In comparison with Firefox, Thunderbird seems to be a step child and gets much fewer resources from Mozilla.

When there’s enough opportunity for two birds to fly (pun not intendend) and one is being held back simply due to a focus / resources problem, it’s pretty obvious what needs to happen.

Chevelle — I Get It
Atreyu — Becoming the Bull
Hellyeah — You Wouldn’t Know