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Do Nothing And Win
Friday February 23 3:47 PM PST
Keri Brenner From Myprimetime.com
Decision-making and delegating are what make a successful entrepreneur, says Mitchell Kertzman.
The CEO of Liberate Technologies (LBRT) has shown no shortage of either as he has grown the San Carlos, Calif., company into a serious contender to Bill Gates' Microsoft in the field of interactive TV software.
But they don't teach you how to make decisions or delegate in school, he says. Like Gates and Larry Ellison of Oracle, Kertzman, 50, is a college dropout. His learning has come on the job. He says that being able to "recognize what you don't know, and then have the ability, the skills and discipline to know how to get [that] knowledge ... I don't think you can learn these things in college."
As the top dog at Liberate, Kertzman has had to make tough decisions. It's hard to do, but he says he's "not afraid to make a decision with the facts that I have at the time ...
A great part of leadership is being willing to stick to a hard decision or vision of something, and hold to that. So, that's something I've done."
But "you have to be willing to be wrong," he says. "I've always said that that is one of the traits of a good CEO - I know I've always been able to do this."
Kertzman says that a another key to his success is a knack for enlisting people better than he is. "I hired somebody to pay the bills who's a lot better at accounting than I am. Hired programmers who were smarter and better than I am." And this has made him "better and better at doing less and less" he says, bringing him closer to his ultimate goal - "perfection at doing almost nothing."
It is this combination of decision-making and delegation that has led the company to get AT&T to test Liberate's software. It's not clear if Liberate will take AT&T business away from Microsoft, but Kertzman says he believes his company will outdo its rival and grab the No. 1 share in the market.
Kertzman has a colorful past. He was an alt-rock disc jockey and a folksinger in Boston in the `60s. As a reminder of his DJ days, he keeps an old radio microphone on his desk.
"I loved radio; I still love radio," he says. "I think radios are just a fabulous medium." He says he has "incorporated the performer in me into my day job. I give a lot of speeches, I give a lot of interviews. So, as a result, I don't have this life-not-lived feeling about what I do."
But he didn't stay idle long. That same year he was hired as CEO of Liberate, a company that formed a year earlier from the merger of Oracle spin-off Network Computer and Netscape's Navio. The company went public in 1999.
This September, Liberate beat out Microsoft in a competition to provide the software for an AT&T interactive TV pilot program. Liberate's pre-emptive strike was a testimonial to the company's strong focus, specialization and hustle.
Kertzman is convinced Liberate will grab the No. 1 spot in the field, but he's not complacent. "The streets of the software industry are littered with the dead bodies" of CEOs who underestimated Microsoft's ability to figure out their markets, he says.
Prime Mover:
- Name: Mitchell Kertzman
- Age: 50
- Title: CEO, Liberate Technologies
- Product: Interactive TV software
- Headquarters: San Carlos, Calif.
- Founded: 1997
- IPO: 1999
- Revenues: $28 million
- Married, two kids
Tune into PBS' Prime Movers airs every Thursday on the Nightly Business Report. Check your local listing for times.
For additional mid-career resources, visit Myprimetime
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