How to build your company to last
Forget being a unicorn. Learn to be a phoenix. Your company can last 100+ years — but you’ll need the resilience to rise and fall, and rise again. Fiat’s chair John Elkann shares the principles that helped the “horseless carriage” company founded by his great-grandfather survive the ups and downs of a century of business. One key: Resilience. Another: Deciding which company traditions to keep, and which to leave in the past.
Forget being a unicorn. Learn to be a phoenix. Your company can last 100+ years — but you’ll need the resilience to rise and fall, and rise again. Fiat’s chair John Elkann shares the principles that helped the “horseless carriage” company founded by his great-grandfather survive the ups and downs of a century of business. One key: Resilience. Another: Deciding which company traditions to keep, and which to leave in the past.
“Like metabolisms, companies end up being weaker as they grow.”
— John Elkann
John Elkann is the chairman and CEO of Exor, the investment company managed by the Agnelli family. His great-great grandfather, Giovanni Agnelli, founded Fiat in 1899, and John now chairs the automaker and its brands, including Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Maserati, and, of course, Fiat.
Reid Hoffman is the host of Masters of Scale. A Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor, he’s known for his spot-on insights on how to scale a startup. He’s a partner at Greylock and co-founder of LinkedIn, and co-author of the best-selling Blitzscaling and The Startup of You.
Paulette Mae Cole is the fourth-generation owner and creative director of ABC Carpet & Home, the legendary luxury home design retail outlet.
Robert Pasin is the third-generation CEO of Radio Flyer, the toy manufacturing company that’s been making little red wagons for over a century. After…
Tony Tjan is managing director of Cueball Capital, a venture capital firm in Boston founded in 2005 dedicated to purpose-driven companies within the media…
You can scale a business that lasts a century or more, but you have to learn to rise and fall and rise again. Forget being a unicorn. Learn to be a phoenix.