The Charlie Rose show, an interview show produced by the New York metropolitan area public television station WNET, has been distributed nationally by PBS for a while. Yesterday, the CEO of Sony, Howard Stringer, sat down with Charlie Rose and discussed in great detail some of the past, present and future challenges Sony face to succeed. This is really one of the best interviews I’ve ever watched with Howard Stringer and this is one of the truest, most recent insightful words regarding the company. Favorite quotes include how Stringer is “away from New York 2/3rds of a year,” “takes sleeping pills,” and “doesn’t observe any time zone.”
When leaving the Sony Japan offices, Stringer says “there’s never been the sense of ‘is he gone yet’.” And, “you have to get mad that the iPod beat us, whenever Samsung’s market share goes up.”
One of my favorite quotes that really reflects the direction of the company was, “All big companies settle into vertical silos. The people in the analog age had no reason necessarily to speak to each other. If we’re going to go into the world Steve Jobs has developed, we’re going to communicate horizontally. Every device will talk to every other device; you have to communicate to every other product.”
