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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
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Losing The Signal summary
Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff
The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
18 mins
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Table of Contents
Losing The Signal
Summary of 8 key ideas
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Key idea 1 of 8
Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis got to know each other in Canada.
In the 1970s, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs created the Apple I, which essentially laid the foundation for personal computing. In the 1990s, another tech-savvy duo invented another landmark device: the BlackBerry.
One half of the duo – Jim Balsillie – started out as an ambitious student and employee. He grew up in Canada, and was inspired by books such as The Canadian Establishment, by Peter Newman, which was about the Canadian business elite, and the classic The Art of War, by Sun Tzu.
Balsillie’s first job was at Sutherland-Schultz, a small firm in Canada, where he was in charge of selling products and services, as well as negotiating business deals with partners. While at Sutherland-Schultz, he was introduced to Mike Lazaridis – the CEO of Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM). RIM was a Sutherland-Schultz supplier and one of the first companies to work on wireless data technology devices.
After meeting Lazaridis and learning about his ambitions for RIM, Balsillie became interested in working with him.
Mike Lazaridis had a keen, lifelong interest in technology. He was born in Istanbul and, in 1966, when he was five years old, his family moved to Canada, where he was raised. His passion for engineering was already obvious in high school. He would often ask his teachers if he could experiment with the equipment at the school; he and his friends were fascinated by science and elected to get after-school tutoring in applied physics so that they could build on this passion.
Later, during his time at the University of Waterloo, Lazaridis and his friends created a device called Budgie, which could be wirelessly connected to a TV and display information. Lazaridis saw a great business opportunity in Budgie, and it was for this reason that he founded RIM in 1984.
After Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie began working together, it became clear that they were an ideal pair: their different character traits resulted in a perfect symbiosis, with Lazaridis’s technological know-how complementing Balsillie’s aptitude for business management.
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What is Losing The Signal about?
Losing the Signal (2015) tells the story of Research in Motion, the company that created the BlackBerry. Beginning with RIM’s time as a minor contender in wireless communication in the mid-1990s, it takes us through its triumph as the most influential player in the wireless communication devices market in the mid-2000s, and reveals why RIM sank as rapidly as it rose.
Best quote from Losing The Signal
The key was stealthily leveraging and launching, then asking for forgiveness.
—Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff
Who should read Losing The Signal?
- Entrepreneurs
- Business leaders
- Anyone interested in technology
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