This series of cases is tied to The Sensemaking Series — that is, how humans make sense of information under conditions of uncertainty. In order to deal with large shifts like war or AI, businesspeople often have to make sense of their situation and make decisions under great uncertainty.
We document a series of cases where folks have to adapt to large regime changes in their environment. Sometimes they thrive against their competition. And sometimes they lose.
How Leonard Lauder steered the brand through a disruptive shift unlike any other.
How Robert Kuok became the richest man in Malaysia ... for over 20 years.
How Macau’s king of gambling cut his teeth as a 20-something tycoon during World War II.
The long story of how Stanley Ho became the gambling king of Macau.
The legendary transition: how Intel’s culture, its leadership, and its technology saved them from near certain death.
How Bill Anders oversaw the disassembling of a defence contractor — and outperformed.
How Eleven Madison Park — later the #1 Restaurant in the World — survived the Global Financial Crisis.
The erosion, and then collapse of Michael Steinhardt’s early advantaged position in the hedge fund world.
The rise, and then fall, of Signature Plastics, a pioneering custom keycap designer and manufacturer.
What happens when business expansion, done for entirely rational reasons, ends up tanking your company because of a once-in-a-generation disaster that nobody could have foreseen?
This is the story of how the creation of the Swatch Group, and its namesake plastic watch, led to the turnaround of the entire Swiss watch industry.
Amazon is known as one of the few dotcom darlings that survived the dotcom bust. This is how they did it.
Ford was the only American automaker who didn’t need a bailout in the Great Recession. How did they adapt to an unprecedented financial calamity?
How a so-called technological disruptor, Netflix, was nearly killed by the incumbent, Blockbuster, before it made a grievous error.
How the BlackBerry phone was killed by the iPhone ... a not-so-straightforward story of technological disruption.
The hotel industry is one of the most cyclical ones there is. How do you build a ‘blue chip’ hotel company in such a cyclical industry?
There’s a saying that goes ‘if you can’t beat them on the straights, beat them on the bends.’ Rolex was the one Swiss watch house that benefited from the Quartz Crisis, leapfrogging all of its closest competitors. This is how they did it.