Shhhh… This Employee Benefit is Secret

Source: University Ventures, November 2016

Volume VI, #23

I’ve never understood why some people insist on keeping their ideas secret. I always assume if I have an idea, dozens of others have had the same one. It’s not ideas that determine success, it’s execution. Which is why, from the beginning, I’ve always been happy to freely share my many amazing ideas. Given my first job as a waiter, early ideas revolved around food service. I had a detailed plan for a high-end breakfast cereal bar and faxed a proposal to Kellogg’s to establish the Times Square flagship location of “Cereal Killer.” Then there was “World Pizza,” where you’d order your pizza in the shape of your geographic territory of choice, with local (and topographically correct) toppings. The challenge, I recall, was finding pizzaiolos who were also trained geographers – foreshadowing today’s shortage of hybrid workers with both baseline and technical skills. Then there was a period I couldn’t stop talking about my plan for creating a “Deadliest Catch”-inspired workplace reality TV show: “Deadliest Starbucks.”

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