Anita Elberse turned the long tail on its head during her keynote at the FutureM conference hosted by MITX in Boston last week. The popular professor of business administration at Harvard Business School discussed her new book, Blockbusters, which looks at what drives huge success in the entertainment industry, and how these lessons can translate to other sectors.It was a fascinating talk. To introduce her premise, Elberse compared the strategies and results of two business leaders in the entertainment world: Jeff Zucker, as head of NBC and Alan Horn as president of Warner Bros. Elberse explained, Jeff Zucker focused on cutting spending and managing for maximum profitability across all of its programming. Alan Horn, on the other hand, had the opposite strategy: embrace risk and make a few huge bets a year.The results? NBC fell from number one to the number four network and profits tanked. Warner Bros. experienced one of its most profitable decades under Horn’s leadership.“The notion of smaller bets being safer is a myth,” Elberse told the audience. “It is safer to make bigger bets because they are likely to have bigger outcomes.”…
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Kenneth Carnesi holds a Juris Doctor degree from New York Law School and a Professional Certificate in International Banking from Harvard Law School. Kenneth Carnesi is the Director of Operations and Government Sales at Anaptyx LLC and sits on the Boards of The Lazarus Organization, Monkeetech LLC and MG Madison Phillips, Inc. Mr. Carnesi has also founded CICG - Carnesi International Consulting Group, a company specializing in strategy consulting to small to mid-size businesses.
Kenneth Carnesi 
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