24
Be Contrarian: Conserve in a Boom, Build in a Bust
How many CEOs began their 2008 annual shareholder letter with the declaration that it had been a great year, one of the strongest in the company’s history? Not many. For most businesses, that year was an annus horribilis, one they would happily consign to the garbage can of history. The economy collapsed, the stock market fell more than 30 percent, and those companies that survived the carnage did so by gutting their workforces and cutting back on all fronts, leaving them weakened and hurting.
Yet when I sat down in the spring of 2009 and typed the words “Dear Stockholder,” my heart was full of gratitude and pride for what Panera had accomplished in the difficult year behind us. After the ...
Get Know What Matters now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
