Читать книгу Semi-Organic Growth - Geis George T. - Страница 5

I have greatly benefited from the insights and support of many colleagues, friends and students in writing this book.

Debbie Foster, Olaf Westheider, and Steven O'Toole provided inspiration and outstanding technical support in the development of the concept of market modeling.

Sean Carr, Executive Director of the Batten Institute at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, suggested that I give a talk while on campus as a visiting professor. The talk, which involved Google's acquisition strategy, was uploaded to YouTube and subsequently viewed by Bill Falloon, Executive Editor of Finance and Investment at Wiley. Bill encouraged me to write a book expanding upon the talk. Thus the origin of Semi-Organic Growth.

My special thanks to Bill Falloon and Meg Freeborn, Development Editor at Wiley, for their encouragement throughout this project. I also appreciate the assistance of the entire Wiley team for their support in completing this effort.

I regard the M&A writings of Bob Bruner, Dean of the Darden School, as foundational to a number of ideas that appear in this book. I've benefited from my ongoing conversations with Bob.

I am indebted to many students and research collaborators for insight and assistance. These include James Biskey, Debadutta Bhattacharyya, Neelima Clark, Tom Crow, Zubin Davar, John Dearing, Reggie Hall, Kevin Hopkins, Ahreum Hong, Kyle Jansen, Joey Lei, K. Burns McNamee, Alisa Sommer, Emily Scadden, Renu Senjalia, Joshua Schachter, Jacqueline Sutro, and Miao Wang. Please forgive any omissions.

I am not writing this book as a Google insider. However, I have benefited from interviews with numerous present and past Google employees, conducted as reality checks. I am extremely grateful for the insights provided.

I deeply appreciate the entire UCLA Anderson environment for decades of support. Special thanks to Al Osborne, Elaine Hagan, Martin Lieberman, and George Ingersoll.

Finally, I'd like to thank my wife, Penny, who graciously postponed getting our new Springer Spaniel until the first draft of this book was completed. Now it's time for many more long walks along the Cambria ocean bluffs.