In Silicon Valley, Collaboration is critical to success. I saw that in a number of ventures. I wonder how many NZ companies have a collaboration strategy. Some great quotes to round this point out.

When you obsess about the customer, you end up defeating your competition as a byproduct,” said K.R. Sridhar, the founder of Bloom Energy, a fuel-cell company. “When you are just obsessed about the competition, you end up killing yourself” as a byproduct — “because you are not focused on the customer.”

Sure competition here is sharp-elbowed,” said Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn. “But no one can succeed by themselves. Apple today is totally focused on how it can better work with its [applications] developer community.” It cannot thrive without them. “The only way you can achieve something magnificent is by working with other people,” said Hoffman. “There is lots of co-opetition.” LinkedIn competes with headhunters and is used by headhunters.

As a side-note, I wonder how many politicians have a list of critical issues they are willing to collaborate with the competition on.

Read more over at the NYTimes…