Trouble in Egypt

By now, many people have probably heard about the political unrest in Egypt as President Mubarak attempts to keep himself in power. While I have my opinions about Mubarak and what the U.S. should or should not do about him, this post is not about that. Rather, I was interested in the connection between the political instability in Egypt and its effect on businesses and markets.

Many developed countries have invested a lot in Egypt, mainly because they are technically a democracy and because of their proven oil reserves. If politics starts getting in the way, investors will start pulling out of Egypt, leaving it much more difficult to tap them for oil exports.

What's the strategic move here, then? During the State of the Union address, President Obama stated that one of his goals is to have a certain percentage of electric vehicles on the roads by a certain date, and to have a certain percentage of Americans living within access of high-speed rail. By reducing our dependence on oil, investors can pull out of countries like Egypt and push into research and development of alternative forms of energy and transportation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE70S31L20110129

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Google's Strategic Change of Leadership

The article I read is about a change-up in the leadership at Google. After a 10 year tenure, CEO Eric Schmidt is being replaced by one of the company's co-founders, Larry Page. Apparently, futurists at Google are worried that the company may be reaching its peak in the market as competitors, such as Facebook, are continuing to grow. Larry Page, co-founded Google while a grad student at Stanford, but as the company began to explode, Google's board determined that he and Sergey Brin, the other co-founder, lacked relevant management experience to lead the company. In bringing (back) on Larry Page, Google is hoping to revitalize the entrepreneurial spirit of the company to continue growth, much in the same way Apple has done with Steve Jobs.

NYTimes: Google Shake-Up Is Effort to Revive Start-Up Spark

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