American Presidents on energy dependency

In 1974 with 36.1% of oil from foreign sources, President Richard Nixon said, “At the end of this decade, in the year 1980, the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need.”

In 1975 with 36.1% of oil from foreign sources, President Gerald Ford said, “We must reduce oil imports by one million barrels per day by the end of this year and by two million barrels per day by the end of 1977.”

In 1979 with 40.5% of oil from foreign sources, President Jimmy Carter said, “Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 – never.”

In 1981 with 43.6% of oil from foreign sources, President Ronald Reagan said, “While conservation is worthy in itself, the best answer is to try to make us independent of outside sources to the greatest extent possible for our energy.”

In 1992 with 47.2% of oil from foreign sources, President George Bush said, “When our administration developed our national energy strategy, three principles guided our policy: reducing our dependence on foreign oil…”

In 1995 with 49.8% of oil from foreign sources, President Bill Clinton said, “The nation’s growing reliance on imports of oil…threatens the nation’s security…[we] will continue efforts to…enhance domestic energy production.”

In 2006 with 65.5% of oil from foreign sources, President George W. Bush said, “Breakthroughs…will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.”

In 2009 with 66.2% of oil from foreign sources, President Barack Obama said, “It will be the policy of my administration to reverse our dependence on foreign oil while building a new energy economy that will create millions of jobs.”

Andy Grove: The Paranoid

Andy Grove in his book 'Only the paranoid survive',  talks about a point in the life of a company where it will face a combination of internal and external unanticipated forces, that will conspire to make the existing business strategy unviable. He called it an 'inflection point'.

In the case of Intel, such a point came when its memory chips business came under competition from Japanese and Korean players. And micro-processor business was not a major percentage of Intel's business. But Andy Grove put all his energies behind the micro-processors business and Intel became what it is today.

In a recent article in The Economist, he says that the computer industry has always practiced a healthy attitude towards creative destruction, something that is not shared by other industries. Computer firms come and go all the time. He was probably taking a shot at the US government support to ailing banks, the automotive industry and the airline industry. He has asked for the health and energy industries to be run more like the computer industry for them to be more efficient. 

His with is still intact, despite battling Parkinson's disease, and his desire to provoke is strong as ever. But his achievements ensure that his provocations are worth paying attention to. Not many people in this world can garner such respect and attention. And it is the desire of every person to become like that; to be heard and respected.

And your ability to quote and be read later. And coin terms that stay on for a long time, become part of the dictionary. Like 'inflection point'. And 'knowledge turns'. 'Knowledge turn' is the time it takes for an experiment to proceed from hypothesis to results, and then to a new hypothesis - around 18 months for chip-making. This probably is what is the essence of Moore's law.   

Bridge on the River Kwai - Courage and Adamance

I was watching bridge on the River Kwai a couple of days back. Some of the quotes from the movie are memorable and could be part of leadership lessons.

I have always admired this movie for the leadership example it sets. Colonel Nicholson is a perfect example of how chain of command and adherance to the rule works. And he motivates people, displays pride. 

Nicholson says 'One day the war will be over. And I hope that the people who use this bridge in the years to come will remember how it was built and who built it. Not a gang of slaves, but soldiers, British soldiers, even in captivity.'

And 'One day, when, God willing, we all return to our homes, you will feel proud of what you have achieved here in the face of adversity. What you have done will be an example to our countrymen. You have survived with honour in this wilderness. You have turned defeat into victory. I congratulate you.'

Saito is no less when he says 'You are defeated, but you have no shame. You are stubborn, but you have no pride. You endure, but you have no courage.'

But I had not seen a facet of this movie which I observed today. My wife had a view that one could not be so adamant in the face of adversity. It got me thinking, and I realised that there may be some truth in that too. It was only later that I realised that this thought had been expressed in the movie by Shears. He tells Warden 'You make me sick with your heroics. This is just a game, this war. You and that Colonel Nicholson, you're two of a kind. Crazy with courage. For what? How to die like a gentleman. How to die by the rules when the only important thing is how to live like a human being. I'm not going to leave you here to die, Warden, because I don't care about your bridge and I don't care about your rules. If we go on, we go on together.' 

That for me summarised the other facet that I so long had not seen.