An Unfocused America

Earlier this week a drop in home sales led stocks to fall to their lowest level in seven weeks, a sign the economy remains in trouble. How can we turn that around?

John Chen is the CEO of Dublin, California based Sybase; a world leader in information technology and wireless computing. When Chen took Sybase over 12 years ago, the company was in deep trouble. Today Sybase is vibrant and just sold to German based SAP for $5.8 billion. But if we are to find future success, as individuals or as a country, Chen says it might be time to change our focus.

“I’m troubled by the U.S. economy right now. I think, you know we obviously have big deficits and we’re spending beyond our means. There is a lot of entitlement thinking out there, we’re not focusing on making money, we’re focusing on redistribution of money. And eventually history will tell us we’re going to go into isolation mode.”

Chen did not spend beyond his means, was very cost conscious and created a large cash reserve that helped Sybase survive tough times. Chen says we should all apply those practices in business, government and our personal lives. It sure worked for him.