Paul blogs a Fast Company article on Richard Branson’s plans to launch a US domestic airline. A good article. Personally, I have mixed feelings about RB.
But one sentence in the article makes me hope his efforts really succeed. Which is this snarky remark by Peter Sealey, the former head of marketing at Coca-Cola, who now teaches at UC Berkeley and Stanford:
“What’s Virgin’s advantage?” asks Sealey. “He’s going to be buying the same planes and hiring pilots at the same salaries. His cost structure will be identical to theirs. If I were a banker, I wouldn’t lend him the money. If he were presenting this as a business case in my class at Stanford, I would fail him.”
Is it just me who finds that kind of know-it-all, ner-ner-ner ner-ner, attitude a bit smug? Maybe Sealey’s been harshly edited, but I don’t think the cost-structure is the sole determinant of a business’s potential to succeed.
