I find it interesting when the same conversation happens with two different people in the span of just a few days. In the past week, I had almost the exact same conversation twice, with two different people at two different companies, about culture and acquisitions. In both cases, they had initiated the topic of conversation. The following is a common pattern: Company Small is founded to bring a product to the market.

As every successful CEO (and VP) will tell you, recruiting great people is their top priority. Sure, they need revenue, and deliverables, and to manage funds, and a million other things. But great people are how you get these things done. In a competitive market, firms look for original ways to find and hire great people. Engineers, in particular, are in very high demand, and firms look not only for new ways to find them, but also exciting ways to appeal to them.

Can robots replace burger-flippers? How about lawyers? Tools have been around for thousands of years, making a human job faster and easier; try banging a nail in without a hammer. Machines, complex combinations of parts that are either human-operated or human-started, have existed for far less than that. With a Gutenberg press, you can print hundreds of copies of printing with just 1-2 people operating the machine. A washing machine will wash your clothes after you just press the right buttons.

There is an old joke about a rabbi who goes golfing on Yom Kippur, although I am sure there are variants about an imam in ramadan or priest during Lent. It is such a beautiful day, and the rabbi never gets a chance on the links, so he skips synagogue and heads out. On the first hole, he swings... hole in one! He cannot believe it! He moves on to the second.

Following on our review of Mary Meeker's Internet Trends report, today we will look at the "Re-Imagining" section. On slides 28-44, the report looks at business processes and how they have changed over the last several decades. Here are some salient examples: Document signing - ink-and-paper to DocuSign Physical payments - cash registers to Square Benefits - paper files and brokers to Zenefits As exciting as the enterprise space is, not one process is new.

Normally, I dislike the phrase "soundbite". It implies a shallow, bite-sized saying that misses all of the depth, nuance and complexity that exists in the real world. Nonetheless, soundbites are successful precisely because they can convey - for better or for worse - a key idea in a short, memorable and often inspiring phrase. Earlier this week, Josh Bernoff, in his bluntly named blog, gave the "Parable of Ray's Helicopter Company"

So Zappos was breached. It happens every day, certainly far more often than we hear about in the news, and, I suspect, more often than is reported to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, primarily the FBI cyber crimes unit (whose exact name escapes me at the moment). I have done a lot of work in the cyber security space, in financial and retail, internal corporate and external facing, including compliance with the card industry's official standard for cyber security, the imaginatively-named PCI-DSS.

I saw a great article earlier this week, listing large tech company CEOs who are most hated by their employees, based on their approval ratings. The article is available here. My first reaction was, "who cares?" A CEO's job, after all, is to work for the owners, not the employees. If s/he delivers value, who cares what employee approval ratings are? On reflection, though, I realized that my attitude was wrong, beyond my not wanting to work for such a CEO.

Recently, I had the experience of seeing two related events in the business of amusement parks. First, The Wall Street Journal, one the front page of its Tuesday, August 5, 2008, edition, had an interesting article on the financial troubles of Six Flags and the turnaround plan of its CEO and CFO. The short form is as follows: Six Flags is in trouble. Without going into too much depth, over the last three years, it lost $105MM, $203MM and $234MM, in 2005, 2006 and 2007, respectively.

In response to the unending requests I have received for recommended reading, I have posted a permanent page with a list of books that I recommend. Obviously, they vary depending on circumstances, but all of them have jewels of wisdom to impart. The list is short and just beginning, but is expected to grow as I have time to add books. You can always access it from the "Pages" section of the blog's sidebar.

Welcome to Atomic Energy! This is the CEO's blog, with thoughts and insights about everything that affects business, economy, society, policy and, of course, technology. Comments on any blog postings are always appreciated, and Trackbacks and Pingbacks are certainly welcome. I look forward to interacting with many of you. Avi