是什么能让国家、企业长治久安？

最近在看《大秦帝国》电视连续剧。

电视剧拍的不错，至少里面添加的美人故事和瞎掰的军事“战例”，让你觉得好像真的是那么回事（不明白为什么非得偏离历史那么远？！）。

不过，就其还算有点点靠谱的历史主线描述，看着看着，还是让人越看越迷糊：

商鞅生活的时代在公元前三百余年之前，也就是距离今天两千三百来年之前。那时候，按照电视剧里面的描述，人类所生活的，还是一个文明程度极低的野蛮时代（我相信是事实！）。可是，就是在那个“孺子不可教”的年代，商鞅还是敢于相信，并且就此采取行动：野蛮的民众在合理、公平的法律、法制系统统治之下，会生活的更为幸福，国家也会因此而变的强大。虽然最终商鞅还是被因他而致富的民众和得益的统治者们而五马分尸，但是，他让积弱的秦国变为强大并且最终统一中国，却是不争的事实。

想想在已经文明几千年之后的今天执政者的固执：“中国民众还没有文明到可以享受民主的程度”（国家拒绝实行民主制度的最重要理由之一！）的成见，也不知道中华文明几千年的演变，为什么还是如此的让人的思维停滞不前？

就此展开思考，当前中国的政治腐败和几千年靠严打，靠诛杀九族都无法杜绝的腐败延续，为什么在美国却可以轻而易举的搞定，面对如此明显的定位“错误”，却无人愿意去正视。

再者，电视剧里一再强调的，“法治让平庸的国君误国程度有限，让明君得以拥有称霸的基础”，很可能是现代人，借机对美国式民主的优越性的描述，但是，法治结构和由此形成的民主“国民性”习惯，对于国家长期进步的良性意义，恐怕也没有说错。

虽然在那里描述的法治，还只是基于非常有限的公平与合理，但是，至少它是基于带来社会巨大的进步而言的。

在那个年代，能够做到那样，已经是很奇迹了。

国家和企业的运行，有很多相似之处。

很多研究表明，美国成功的企业，其CEO对于公司的控制权力多为有限，改变的效果也多为短期。公司的长期发展，更多的是由公司的文化决定的。换言之，很多企业的领导者所能够做的，更多的还是“无为而治”，顺势而为！

而所谓的公司文化，就相当于一个国家的制度（如果将国家比喻为一个企业的话），和在这种制度下生活的人们长期习惯了之后，所形成的“国民性”。

公司老总的力量，就是对企业文化形成的影响（长期而言）。这种影响很多时候在短期无法看出，就像是慢火煮青蛙的效果。华而不实的领导者，给企业带来的灾难，很多在短期难以看出，而等到发现问题时，多数已经病入膏肓，难以救药。历史上这样的例子实在是太多。

而对于企业文化的打造和改良，不同时期的企业，在不同领导者的手下，就有着非常不同的方法，和就此获得很不同的结果了。

苹果的创始人乔布斯在世时，强调不要在乎市场已经存在的需求，看重的是基于自己领悟所获得的创新产品的打造，由此才有了今天独一无二、生机勃勃的苹果生态系统的出现。

而多数的企业领导者，却只是喜爱于满足市场的需求，结果就有了大量的靠山寨维持生存的企业家。

下面是五家非常霸道的企业领导者的做法，他们因为拥有独裁权力，才可以做到不怎么在乎股东的看法，同时也不在乎顾客的意见。这种违背“顾客就是上帝”天条的做法，居然最终也做的相当不错。

读读他们的故事，再就此胡思乱想一通，喝几口老酒，醉一回，或许你会有不少的收获。

5 CEOs who don't care what you think

5/27/14 | MarketWatch, By Jeff Reeves

Life can be hard for a big-time CEO.

They must keep shareholders happy in a choppy stock market while trying to find sustainable growth in a sluggishU.S.economy.

Of course, for $100 million or so in compensation and a golden parachute for good measure, I think I could handle it.

But beyond the warm bodies just taking up a leather chair in the C-suite, there is a breed of CEO out there who actually makes an impact. These leaders don't actually care about managing finances quarter to quarter, and don't sweat any of the current pressures on theU.S.economy.

That's partially because this kind of executive is a rare talent with a knack for building a world-class business no matter what.

But it's also because, frankly, they don't give a damn.

If you're a shareholder with one of these guys at the helm, then one of two things is going to happen: either this hard-charging CEO will lead the company (and by proxy, its investors) to big success through determination and focus ... or vanity and tunnel vision will ultimately lead to the company's undoing.

I'll let you be the judge of which way the chips will fall with the following five CEOs who, frankly, don't care what pundits like me or investors like you think about them.

Elon Musk -- Tesla

How do you know when an exec considers his shareholders a low priority? Calling the company's stock overvalued is probably a good sign.

That's exactly what Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk did in October 2013. His exact words: "The stock price that we have is more than we have any right to deserve."

And that was when Tesla was at, like, $170 or so. Traders should wonder what he thinks now that the stock is above $200.

Musk quite literally spent his last pennies at the end of 2008 building out SpaceX and Tesla, but while he's made a mammoth return on his investment, the money doesn't seem to matter.

"I will be the last one to sell shares," he was quoted as saying last year.

The risk for investors, of course, is that Elon Musk's fondness for Tesla could result in the kind of hubris or stubbornness that plagues successful entrepreneurs. Take, for example, the "Gigafactory" battery-manufacturing facility that has more than its share of doubters and detractors. Or the fact that Musk thinks the idea of using hydrogen fuel cells in cars is "so bullshit."

Whether or not Tesla succeeds, one thing is certain: Elon Musk isn't running his company to make his shareholders rich. He's doing it to roll out his entrepreneurial vision, without compromise.

Mark Zuckerberg -- Facebook

In the run-up to the 2012 IPO of Facebook (FB), wonderboy CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called out for his rather unique corporate structure.

As Slate put it at the time, "When it goes public, Facebook will be conducting an experiment in corporate dictatorship nearly without precedent for such a large and high-profile company."

Zuckerberg not only owns over a quarter of Facebook shares outright, but he also is vested with a special class of stock that gives his shares 10 times the voting rights of common stock. So Zuck controls more than half of the votes.

Beyond the structure, there's also a very conspicuous trend of Zuckerberg diluting the pants out of Facebook stock in the past several months in the name of future growth for his social media company.

In December, Facebook announced plans to float another 70 million shares to raise about $3.5 billion. Then Zuckerberg made big buyout moves that included mobile-messaging company WhatsApp and virtual-reality company Oculus, using mostly company stock. For instance, of the $2 billion bill for Oculus, only about $400 million was cash and the rest was the market value of 23.1 million shares.

When a CEO tells potential shareholders at IPO that his business "was not originally created to be a company" but to "accomplish a social mission," when that CEO has the majority of voting rights by himself and isn't afraid to throw company stock around to buy whatever he feels like, well, it's safe to say he cares about more than the day-to-day or even quarter-to-quarter trends on Wall Street.


Larry Page -- Google

Following the near-dictatorial power of Zuckerberg comes the oligarchy over atGoogle (GOOGL) with CEO Larry Page and his co-founder, Sergey Brin, running the show with majority voting rights.

As of April, Page and Brin together controlled 55.7% of voting rights thanks to the more powerful class of stock they hold, according to reports. But fearful even this grip won't be enough, the Google founders cleverly split the company's stock and established a new class C stock, one that carries no voting rights, and can be used for compensation and acquisitions.

In other words, the duo has put a floor on how low their voting rights can ever go, presuming they don't sell any substantive number of shares, of course.

What else would you expect from founders whose famous, rambling IPO letter trumpeted that "Google is not a conventional company" and that " the standard structure of public ownership may jeopardize the independence" of the fun Silicon Valley plaything they created?

Beyond both the past and present nose-thumbing at voting rights, there's also the fact that Google very much enjoys tossing money at pet projects that have little immediate value -- if they ever have any at all.

Ever heard about Project Loon, a network of balloons that fly around providing Internet access? Did you know Google bought eight robotics companies in 2013?

Granted, a $370 billion company with roughly $60 billion in cash and investments can afford to buy a few toys here and there that don't pan out, but even if shareholders objected, they can't do anything about it.

Howard Schultz -- Starbucks

Howard Schultz of Starbucks (SBUX) is a bit of an outlier on this list. For starters, he is not sitting atop a company he built from scratch; Starbucks was founded in 1971, and Schultz bought it in 1987. Other obvious differences are that Starbucks isn't a tech firm, and Schultz is twice as old as Mark Zuckerberg.

But I think Schultz deserves to be on this list, even if Starbucks does pay a dividend, one that Schultz himself helped roll out a few years back.

To me, the Starbucks dividend isn't a way to appease shareholders, but instead just one more way the CEO puts his employees first. Starbucksemployees are rewarded with stock equity, and I see the dividend as just one more perk for employees along with free coffee, tuition assistance and health insurance.

Schultz (and Starbucks) are committed to their workers -- and if shareholders want to complain about the cost of Starbucks' health care, they can shove it.

When it comes to standing up for the customers and employees of Starbucks, Schultz doesn't pull any punches -- as evidenced by his caustic response to a shareholder last year that he could go ahead and sell his shares if he doesn't like the company's support for gay marriage.

Besides, this is Howie's second go-around at the helm. And while the man didn't build Starbucks from day one, there's no disputing that the successful expansion of this iconic coffee brand happened because of him. He could have stayed out of the C-suite and rested on his laurels, but still returned to a struggling Starbucks in 2008 and righted the ship promptly and efficiently.

What does the guy have left to prove, to shareholders or anyone else?

Jeff Bezos -- Amazon

If Howard Schultz is a guy who puts employees before shareholders, then Jeff Bezos of Amazon (AMZN) is a CEO who cares more about his customers than the people holding stock.

Brad Stone of BusinessWeek recently interviewed hundreds of current and former employees for a book about Amazon and its secretive leader. One anecdote is very telling: Bezos has a public email address, jeff@amazon.com, and he personally reads customer complaints and forwards them to the appropriate parties ... with the expectation not just that the customer will be helped, but that he will be given an explanation of how the problem started in the first place.

But while he is a force behind the scenes at Amazon, Bezos shuns the spotlight and seems to care little about public perceptions. And it's not just him personally -- Amazon is run about as secretively as possible for a public company. Consider that some of the biggest things Amazon has going right now are its Kindle tablet business and its Prime subscription service, but neither are broken out on company reports, and investors have no hard numbers to go on.

It's also known that Amazon is unconcerned about short-term (and even medium-term) profits. This is evidenced by the fact that Amazon actually ran at a loss in fiscal 2012 and posted a meager $274 million net income on a staggering $74.5 billion in sales for fiscal 2013, all while the company plowed big bucks into expansion plans.

As with these other CEOs, history may ultimately prove Jeff Bezos right and Amazon may be a powerhouse for decades to come. But shareholders of Amazon better be 100% on board with the CEO's vision because he's not one to take investor opinions into account.