114 ShowMetheMoney
Coca-Cola’s late CEO, Roberto Goizueta, who is discussed further
in the final chapter of this book).
Disney’s segments are mainly creative content (films, animation,
books), broadcasting through the American Broadcasting Corpora-
tion (ABC) an dESPN, an dtheme parks an dresorts. A unique thing
about Disney is that going to Disneylan dan dDisney Worl d(with
children or grandchildren especially) is an incomparable experience.
An dDisney constantly reinvigorates its business by expan ding into
television, building blockbuster products that can be sold in multiple
forms (film, record, tape, theme park, apparel, and souvenirs), and
so on, an dby exploiting the Internet to broa den both its content an d
its distribution channels.
By no means an exhaustive list of patterns, these are the kinds
of important trends that alter and reshape circles of competence and
that must be looke dafter to expan dyour circle. To sharpen your
idea of what you should know about companies in order for them
to qualify as members of your circle of competence, let’s take a
closer look at some candidates.
A FULL CIRCLE
Take one company from each of the categories mentione din the
beginning: the classic General Electric (GE), the vintage Microsoft,
an dthe rookie Amazon.com. These are all important companies an d
are widely discussed in the financial press, but they differ in age,
pro ducts, an dfinancial an dbusiness characteristics.
GE operates through numerous divisions in a wide range of in-
dustries. The most important divisions are appliances such as refrig-
erators, lighting such as lamps an dbulbs, the National Broa dcasting
Corporation (NBC), aircraft engines, capital services (itself a widely
diversified group of about thirty businesses engaged in various con-
sumer and commercial financing activities worldwide), plastics used
in a wide range of applications from cars to CD-ROMs, and indus-
trial, medical, power, and transportation systems (including products
an dbusiness solutions such as factory automation, surgical diag-
nostics, gas turbines, an dlocomotives, respectively).
Understanding all of GE is a tall order that calls for some ap-
preciation of the basics of finance, broadcasting, consumer, and in-
dustrial businesses. But if you read its annual report for the last few
years an dpay special attention to the excellent letters written by