Good morning to all new and old readers! Here is your Wednesday edition of Faster Than Normal, exploring one short story about a person, a company, a high-performance tool, a trend I’m watching closely, and curated media to help you build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself.
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Today’s edition:
> Stories: Julie Sweet & Philips
> High-performance: How entrepreneurs think
> Insights: Common denominator of success
> Tactical: Curating your information diet
> 1 Question: Blissful hour
Cheers,
Alex
P.S. Send me feedback on how we can improve. I respond to every email.
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Stories of Excellence
Person: Julie Sweet
Julie Sweet is the CEO of Accenture, a global professional services company. She joined in 2010 as general counsel and became CEO in 2019. Under her leadership, Accenture has grown significantly. Revenue increased from $43 billion in 2019 to $61.6 billion in 2022. Sweet has focused on digital transformation and sustainability. She's pushed for diversity in tech. "The most successful companies will be those that embrace technology to reinvent how they work," she says. Sweet serves on the World Economic Forum Board of Trustees. She's been named one of Fortune's Most Powerful Women in Business multiple times.
Key Lessons from Julie Sweet:
On innovation: "Innovation happens when you create an environment where people feel safe to take risks and fail."
On learning: "The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have."
On diversity: "Diversity is a business imperative. It's not just the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do
Company: Philips
Philips was founded in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Gerard, a mechanical engineer with experience at AEG, started manufacturing carbon-filament lamps. His younger brother Anton joined in 1895, bringing commercial expertise. The company expanded rapidly, becoming a major European light bulb producer by 1900. Philips diversified into other electronics, including radios in the 1920s and televisions in the 1930s. They established Philips Research in 1914, driving innovation. During World War II, the company moved operations to the US. Post-war, Philips continued to innovate, introducing the compact cassette in 1963 and co-developing the CD with Sony in 1982. Today, Philips focuses on health technology, with 2025 sales of ~€20 billion.
Key Lessons from Philips:
On brand simplification. Dare to shed your past to secure your future. Philips sold off its lighting division - the very product it was founded on - to focus on health tech. CEO Frans van Houten explained, "Sometimes you must leave home to grow up."
On open innovation. Share your playground, but keep your best toys. Philips' High Tech Campus in Eindhoven hosts numerous tech companies. This open innovation model keeps Philips at the cutting edge while controlling key IP. An executive noted, "We're not afraid of ideas leaving; we're excited about new ones coming in."
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How Entrepreneurs Think
Insights
Albert Gray, the common denominator of success:
"Recently I was talking with a young man who long ago discovered the common denominator of success without identifying his discovery. He had a definite purpose in life and it was definitely a sentimental or emotional purpose.
He wanted his children to go through college without having to work their way through as he had done. And he wanted his wife, and mother of his children, to enjoy the luxuries and comforts and even necessities, which had been denied his own mother. And he was willing to form the habit of doing things he didn‘t like to do in order to accomplish this purpose.
Not to discourage him, but rather to have him encourage me, I said to him, “Aren’t you going a little too far with this thing? There’s no logical reason why your children shouldn’t be willing and able to work their way through college just as their father did. Of course they’ll miss many of the things that you missed in your college life and they’ll probably have heartaches and disappointments. But if they’re any good, they’ll come through in the end just as you did. And there’s no logical reason why you should slave in order that your wife can enjoy comforts and luxuries that your mother never had.”
He looked at me with a rather pitying look and said, “But Mr. Gray, there’s no inspiration in logic. There’s no courage in logic. There’s not even happiness in logic. There’s only satisfaction. The only place logic has in my life is in the realization that the more I am willing to do for my family, the more I shall be able to do for myself.”
Tactical reads
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> When curating your information diet
How I Choose What To Read — David Perrell (Read it here)
> When improving your information literacy
How to Find Good Information — Gurwinder (Read it here)
1 question
What has been the best hour of my week? How can I make it easier to have more hours like that?
That’s all for today, folks. As always, please give me your feedback. Which section is your favourite? What do you want to see more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.
Have a wonderful rest of week, all.
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