business of innovation

There’s great series on CNBC called the Business of Innovation, hosted by the Maria Bartiromo. In the episode, Innovate of Die, Mel Kamarzin (CEO of Sirius Radio), gives some insight into how he’s been such an innovating forces for so long.

One was simply a fear of failure. I like that, a lot. Both Maria and the panel pressed him on this. But he stuck to his guns. Regardless of the amount of success everyone else thinks he’s achieved, he never thinks to himself, “I’ve arrived”. That’s a simple, yet extremely powerful idea. At CBS he had over 125,000 employees, and now he only has about 1,000. He made it clear that we’d be hard-pressed to find someone who knew him at both times, that would say he’d changed.

Another factor, which I’ve personally seen in older people, is needing less and less sleep. He quipped, “There’s very few advantages to being old; but one of the advantages is while everyone else is sleeping, I’m awake, ‘innovating’.” First off, being 65 just makes you older, not old. However, this does ring true. Regardless of age, the most successful people I’ve met or seen speak, sleep very little. Now having this trait alone will not lead to success. No, quite the opposite: It’ll simply drain you. This should come as a by product of your drive. It should be the result of your innate thirst for success.

Overall, it’s a pretty good series. Full episodes are available at the each episodes main page. You can start here.