#SmealWeeklyRecap featuring Chad Mueller ('14 Supply Chain & Info Systems
Thank you to my network for keeping me updated on the business world, sharing career insights, and their successes. Below are some of the articles collected from alumni and other business resources. All articles can be viewed at this link. The companies recently posted on were Google, IBM, Microsoft and Apple. As you know, our intern, Lawrence Qiu as well as the students in the dean's office, Julie Hetrick and Taylor Zerbe play a key role in organizing the information and researching companies.
Featured Alumnus: Chad Mueller (’14 Supply Chain & Information Systems), Global Supply Manger for Apple
Chad Mueller is a Global Supply Manager for Apple, managing the adhesives and solder commodity across all product lines (iPhone, MacBook, iPad, Watch, etc.) for the past year and a half. Chad’s procurement and supply chain experience comes from spending four years at BP America, initially hired through their Challenger program in Houston, TX, before moving to the Bay Area to continue his career at Apple's Headquarters in Cupertino. His current role focuses on strategically managing the supply base to maximize savings and ensure supply. Chad just got married this past New Year’s Eve and lives in the East Bay with his wife and 2 year old pup Breck. Chad’s career tip is to work hard to make your name synonymous with excellent work and unlimited bandwidth. To do this, make sure that you always enthusiastically say yes when asked to work on a new project and never say ‘you have too much on your plate’.
Topics for the week - Companies Alumni Follow!
Apple: The Financial Post reported that even Apple could be affected by the coronavirus or Covid-19. Apple Inc.’s plan to ramp up iPhone production by 10 per cent in the first half of this year may hit a roadblock as the outbreak spreads across China. Back in October 2019, Apple surpassed Microsoft as the world's most valuable company. Apple's stock had surged as numerous analysts anticipate that iPhone 11 sales would surpass initial estimates. Apple was named #1 by Forbes as the company with the World's Most Valuable Brand, with Google, Microsoft and Amazon taking 2nd, 3rd and 4th place. Wired reported that Apple's recent acquisition of Xnor.ai, a Seattle startup working on low-power machine learning software and hardware, points to a key AI battleground for Apple and other tech heavyweights. GeekWire says that right after the acquisition, Apple ended the Xnor.ai's work on 'Project Maven' which aimed at using AI software to analyze imagery captured by military surveillance drones. This project had been the subject of protests by tech workers. As for the future of the company, Business Insider predicts the next 10 years of Apple will include self-driving cares, computer glasses, and a much faster iPhone!
Microsoft: Microsoft hit back at Amazon's "war cloud" protest by asking a judge to partially dismiss parts of the lawsuit. Microsoft's Visual Studio Code, a free, simple code editor for Windows, Mac and Linux, has become the most popular open source project on GitHub. Business Insider reported that this is helping Microsoft to win over programmers in the ongoing battle to take on its cloud rivals. In other news, Microsoft has been experimenting with the 4-day workweek in Japan and saw a boosted in productivity by 40% as mentioned the Japanese Times. Business Insider reported that the company has committed $1 billion to carbon capture and removal to fight climate change. Microsoft aims to be "carbon negative" by 2030. Lastly, Fast Company said Microsoft’s GitHub plans to store code from open-source projects in Svalbard, near the Global Seed Vault, and other locations around the world in an effort to apocalypse-proof the world's code.
IBM: There is a lot going on with IBM. They recently promoted Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst to president of IBM. CEO Ginny Rometty will be stepping down in April and will be replaced by Arvind Krishna, a 29-year company veteran with a solid background in technology. The company also secured the IFI Claims Patent Services' #2 spot for active patents with the top slot going to Samsung Electronics. They announced a wealth of blockchain products targeted at many industries. IBM is also investing $25 million on a program called Code and Response, a four-year deployment initiative to put open source technologies, developed as part of coding challenges such as Call for Code, in the communities where they are needed most. Code and Response includes resources to build, fortify, test, and implement solutions at scale. The initiative is supported by hundreds of IBMers as part of the IBM Corporate Service Corps, as well as government and NGO partners to put those technologies to work saving lives. Internally, the company choose Slack over Microsoft Teams for its over 350,000 employees.
Google: Alphabet, Google's parent company, became the fourth U.S, Company to reach $1 trillion market value. Wall Street Journal reported that the firm has benefited from its acquisitions of YouTube and internet advertising company DoubleClick Inc. more than a decade ago and made more deals since to create a dominant digital ad machine. That was in January...in the beginning of February, Union Leader reported that Alphabet shares fell as Google missed on sales and YouTube revenue was disappointing. The company also had to temporarily shut down all its offices in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan due to the coronavirus. On a positive note at the end of 2019, Google is launching an accelerator for climate change startups and just made the largest ever corporate purchase of renewable energy.
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Winter/Spring 2020 Lineup - Secure your spot today!
Strategic Commitment to an Ethical Culture with Smeal's Drs. Michelle and Jamey Darnell - February 19
Venture Capital: Tales from the Trenches with accomplished international business executive, venture capitalist and entrepreneur, Salomon Sredni ('87 Accounting) - March 25
Sustainable Growth Tactics for Entrepreneurs with veteran, experienced entrepreneur, and international business development and marketing and operations executive Joe Witte ('95 Marketing) - April 8
Business Architecture: Strategy Execution’s Secret Weapon with Smeal's Dr. Brian Cameron, April 22
Smart Startups: Views from the Legal and Experienced Business World with experience in emerging, venture capital-backed technology businesses and all areas of business law, David Blackledge ('79 Management) - May 6