This week I took a MasterClass from the wise and cutting edge marketer Seth Godin. (You can check out Seth's blog here.) Seth is a fellow Yahoo! and I have been a fan of his blog and books for years. He is largely know as the inventor of permission marketing.
Basically, ahead of the game of all digital marketers, by years. And almost all digital marketers today use tactics created by Seth.
While he inspired and challenged the attendees of his MasterClass with marketing thoughts and leadership ideas, it was a small story he told of Yahoo! that really caught my attention.
He told the story of being in an elevator with Yahoo! co-founder, Jerry Yang. They were talking about Yahoo!'s acquisitions. (Yahoo! had a habit of acquiring companies instead of building from within.)
Seth said to Jerry, "Why are you buying all these companies for billions when you can just give me three people and we can do it for free in house." Jerry's response was, "But then I'd have to do it for everyone."
We all know how this story ends. Yahoo! gets acquired themselves and Google is the future of the internet.
Money doesn't buy you success, creativity, loyalty or longevity.
Stay curious. Stay competitive.