Last week, I had the pleasure of attending LinuxCon/ContainerCon Europe 2016 in Berlin. Besides visiting a fascinating historical capital - there is great irony, and victory, in seeing "Ben-Gurion-Strasse" - or "Ben Gurion Street" - named after the founding Prime Minister of Israel in the erstwhile capital of the Third Reich. And while I had many a hesitation about visiting, the amount of awareness, monuments and memorials to the activities of the regime in the 1930s and 1940s was impressive.

I have always loved the contrast between companies that are quick and light, focused on doing the right thing, and are nimble in execution and change on the one hand, and those that must plan everything down to the minutest detail before beginning, execute on their plans precisely... and are thrown off balance by change. In my Wall Street days, I worked for two such companies. Both could be defined by "

In business, there are two benefits that accumulate to large or diversified companies: Economies of Scale Economies of Scope Economies of Scale are the benefits of from doing more of the same. If you make 10MM laptops a year, your cost per computer will be cheaper than if you make 100,000 laptops per year. These benefits come from a number of sources: Purchasing Power: Since you are buying components for 100x as many LCD screens, you can negotiate better prices.