The Infinite Staircase: Emergence and Ethics

Whether in markets, organizations, or the universe itself, today’s guest is a master at navigating complex systems where existing models have stopped working, and new ones must emerge.

Geoffrey Moore is a consultant in the high-tech sector and a prolific author, with titles including Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado: Strategies for Developing, Leveraging, and Surviving Hypergrowth Markets, and, most recently, The Infinite Staircase: What the Universe Tells Us About Life, Ethics, and Mortality. 

Geoffrey and Greg discuss his transition from Renaissance English scholar to high-tech strategist, why narrative is critical in business, the challenges of disrupting industries, and what “The Infinite Staircase” reveals about life’s meaning and human purpose. 

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

The importance of sales and the failure of business schools

09:32: It's absolutely a travesty that business schools don't teach sales. It's, it's crazy. And there are a bunch of people that have made that argument before. But the reason why academics didn't like sales is it felt too much like Glengarry Glen Ross: sleazy, you know, closers, "coffee is for closers," and all the kind of stuff the academics hate. But the point about it is that, particularly in contemporary B2B sales, that's not what a salesperson does anymore. You have to help the customer find the use cases and the ROI that validates why they're gonna buy this thing, which means you have to be intellectually curious about their business and not just yammer about your own business. And so it is, it's actually a really interesting profession if you approach it, you know, in a kind of more in-service-to-the-customer approach, as opposed to, "I'm going to make my commissions and go to the club," although that's also a big motive among salespeople.

Venture capital is literary criticism

06:10: Venture is a form of literary criticism prior to investment. And then, as you invest, you start to figure out, now how can I verify? How can I validate? And eventually, the analytics and the numbers become very important. But not at the beginning. At the beginning, it is really about the story.

Venture Capital vs. Corporate metrics

38:11: Venture capitalists do not fund performance. They fund power, but everything in a venture model is about becoming more powerful, not becoming more performant. When we exit, then they'll become performant, but not now, and that idea is still very hard to land in a large corporation.

The correct sequence for success

33:51: The correct sequence has to be customers first, employees second, investors third. Any other sequence doesn't work, not for sustainable success.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• Regis McKenna
• Alfred D. Chandler Jr.
• Edmund Spenser
• Great chain of being
• Clayton Christensen
• Satya Nadella
• Northrop Frye
• Philip Sidney

Guest Profile:

• Professional Website
• Professional Profile on LinkedIn
• Profile on X

Guest Work:

• The Infinite Staircase: What the Universe Tells Us About Life, Ethics, and Mortality
• Crossing the Chasm
• Inside the Tornado: Strategies for Developing, Leveraging, and Surviving Hypergrowth Markets
• Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution
• Living on the Fault Line, Revised Edition: Managing for Shareholder Value in Any Economy
• The Gorilla Game: An Investor's Guide to Picking Winners in High Technology
• Zone to Win: Organizing to Compete in an Age of Disruption

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