The most famous example is Intel. During 1985, Intel was in crisis, and its memory business was greatly impacted by Japanese manufacturers. Andy grove, the head of Intel, wanted to quit the memory business and enter the microprocessor market. But it's hard to give up stocks. After all, more than 8,000 employees are doing their original jobs.
Andy Grove asked his partners what they would do if another CEO did it. The partner replied, of course, to enter the microprocessor market.
That moment may be the most intelligent moment in business history. Andy Grove said, "Then why don't we do it ourselves?"
Parker pen in the United States is a world-famous brand, which reached its peak in the 1940s. Later, the popular ballpoint pen appeared. Because of its simplicity, portability and low price, it greatly impacted the sales market of Parker pens and faced a serious crisis of bankruptcy. Although I try to find ways to reduce the sales cost and price, I still can't compete with ballpoint pens. In this case, Parker's European director Markoli believes that this is based on his own shortcomings and the strengths of the other side, and there is no way out for such competition.
Later, he bought Parker Company and adopted the practice of "doing it backwards": instead of continuing to reduce the sales cost and price, he invested a lot of money again, purchased new production equipment, improved the quality of raw materials, improved the production process, and produced a new Parker pen, which was not only fluent in writing, but also more wear-resistant and practical, especially with a more refined appearance and a particularly elegant and luxurious temperament; The output is also strictly controlled, and the sales price does not fall but rises.
In order to further establish this new image of Parker pen, she not only vigorously promoted it through various media, but also strived for Queen Elizabeth to use Parker pen as a royal pen, which greatly improved the value of Parker pen. Now we all know that Parker pens are expensive, but the sales are getting better and better.
In addition to Intel and Parker, Bezos, the founder of Amazon, the richest man in the world, is also a master of reverse thinking, and his "reverse working method" is talked about.
"I am often asked a question myself:' What will happen in the next 10?' But few people ask me,' What will remain the same in the next 10 year?' I think the second question is more important than the first one, because you need to base your strategy on unchangeable things. "The strategy based on the same thing is Bezos' reverse work method.
He believes that in the retail industry,
The birth of thermometer is the reverse thinking method.
Italian physicist Galileo once designed a thermometer at the request of a doctor, but failed many times. Once when he was giving an experiment class to a student, he noticed that the temperature change of water caused the volume change of water, which made him suddenly realize that, in turn, the temperature change of water could be seen from the volume change of water. Following this idea, he finally designed the thermometer at that time.
Electricity has been applied to all aspects of modern life, but the invention of electricity is also a classic case of applying reverse thinking.
1820, David, Faraday's teacher and then president of the Royal Academy of Sciences, discovered that when current passed through wires wound around iron blocks, iron blocks became magnets. This discovery aroused the interest of young Faraday, who was still a laboratory assistant at that time. After repeating the teacher's experiment many times, he boldly put forward a new idea: since electricity can produce magnetism, can magnetism in turn produce electricity? It is this kind of reverse thinking that knocked on the door of the second industrial revolution, and human society can develop by leaps and bounds.
Reverse thinking also plays an important role in solving food problems.
The food problem has always been an important issue of human concern. Most people think that the only way to solve the food crisis is to produce more food. But in this era where we live, the effective utilization rate of food is not high. Take the United States today as an example, about 40% of the grain planted every year will never reach the table because of the loss in storage, packaging and logistics, poor sales, missed shelf life and other reasons.
James Rogers, the founder of California company Apeel, is a doctoral student majoring in materials science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, specializing in polymer physics. In 20 12, he thought that he could put a film on the fruit to prevent rot and reduce food waste, just like plating a film on the metal surface, thus solving the food problem.
Later, James Rogers developed a series of products called Edipeel, which extracted special lipids from waste fruit materials, such as banana skin and grape skin, and sprayed these mixed lipids on the surfaces of vegetables and fruits to form an invisible protective film, which can isolate the communication between fruits and vegetables and the outside world, thus locking in moisture, slowing down the oxidation process of fruits and vegetables, and ensuring that they can maintain the best shape and taste for a long time. James Rogers not only uses waste, but also ensures green safety and truly "keeps fresh with food".
Most people aim to pursue a happy life. However, Charles Munger's speech at the graduation ceremony of Harvard University did the opposite, giving Harvard students a solemn lesson, "How to lead a miserable life?"
First of all, he recalled that Johnson Carson once mentioned the prescription to ensure a painful life:
In addition, Charles Munger also prescribed five other prescriptions for a painful life:
First, be willful and don't do what you are doing piously.
As long as we form this habit, we can quickly offset the combined effect of all our advantages, no matter how big that effect is. When we get into this habit, we will always play the role of the rabbit in the fable, except that we are no longer just an excellent turtle running faster than us, but a group of mediocre turtles, even some mediocre turtles with crutches.
Second, try to gain knowledge from your own experience and try not to learn from other people's successful or unsuccessful experiences, whether ancient or modern.
This will certainly ensure that we live a miserable life and achieve second-rate achievements.
As long as you look at what is happening around you, you can understand the consequences of refusing to learn from others. All the common disasters of mankind are not creative-death caused by drunk driving, disability caused by reckless driving, incurable sexually transmitted diseases, brainwashed smart college students who join destructive cults, business failure caused by repeating the obvious mistakes of their predecessors, and various forms of collective madness.
Third, when we encounter the first, second or third serious failure in the battlefield of life, please be depressed and never recover.
Because even the luckiest and smartest people will encounter many failures, and staying depressed and demoralized will definitely make us fall into the quagmire of pain forever.
Fourth, please ignore the story of the countryman told to us when I was a child.
Once a countryman said, "If I knew where I would die, I would never go there." People who love the miserable life should avoid applying this peasant method at all costs. If we want to fail, we must belittle this peasant method, which is extremely stupid and useless.
Fifth, reduce objectivity as much as possible.
This will help us to reduce the concessions we need to make and reduce the burden we have to bear in order to obtain secular interests. Therefore, if we think that being true to ourselves means never changing all our thoughts when we were young, then we will not only steadily embark on the road of extreme ignorance, but also all the pain caused by unpleasant experiences in our career will follow.