Trailblazers

Investors met Google's earnings for the first quarter with a near universal sigh of disappointment. The next sound was the dumping of Google's shares, which fell by some 7 percent in the aftermath. The company reported an adjusted profit of $8.08 a share -- which missed analyst expectations of $8.11...

Larry Page took the wheel as Google's CEO this week, and he's already shaking things up. On Thursday, Page reportedly placed key executives in charge of individual business units, indicating he wanted to simplify product and engineering structures with one executive leading each functional group. Th...

Space may be the final frontier in many senses of the word, but it's by no means the only one facing mankind. Targeting one of the great mysteries that still exist here on Earth, entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson on Tuesday announced his plans to begin a series of deep-sea explorations through Virgin...

Two books came out last week: Idea Man, about (and by) Paul Allen; and The Steve Jobs Way, about (but not by) Steve Jobs. These books reveal differences in the approaches the two men took to achieving their goals, showcasing why Apple is so successful and why other companies just can't make the gra...

HP's recent Strategy Summit in San Francisco provided a coming-out party for the company's CEO Leo Apotheker before 350-plus IT industry analysts, and he wasted little time setting an agenda. Information, Apotheker said, represents the world's "most valuable commodity," reinforcing HP's plan's to su...

Monday was a big day for old-line tech companies: IBM discovered e-commerce and HP discovered cloud computing. HP CEO Leo Apotheker outlined the company's strategy at the HP Summit 2011 in San Francisco on Monday, emphasizing cloud computing, Internet-connected hardware, and its goal to plant webOS ...

Last week, I tried to come up with some epic things I would like to think I'd do were I given six weeks to live -- a rumor that's been floating around about Steve Jobs -- and was as insanely wealthy as he is. The purpose was to focus on something other than the end we will all eventually share. On...

One of the sad rumors to break last week was that Steve Jobs may have six weeks to live. I've had several people close to me die of cancer. One stepmother was given a few months, but she actually lived more than a year and did a number of amazing things. Another stepmother died two days after the i...

On midnight Monday, AOL announced it will buy The Huffington Post for $315 million -- $300 million in cash and $15 million in AOL stock. The price is about 10 times the Post's revenue of $31 million. The cofounder and public face of The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington, will become president and ...

I've covered or worked in companies that have been led by iconic CEOs for most of my life, including Disney, IBM, Microsoft and Apple. Each of those firms went through a painful transition after the departure of its iconic CEO. After Steve Jobs was fired years ago, Apple nearly failed -- until he ca...