Jean-Philippe Courtois, former President and EVP of Microsoft — 'missions rarely die from bad intentions. They die from unprotected structures'

Courtois ran Microsoft's global sales, marketing and operations and now chairs SKEMA Business School. He queued at the Masters of Scale Summit to have one book signed, then wrote up what forty years inside the world's largest companies had shown him: that the drift the book describes rarely needs a villain, and that teams trade the long term for the next quarter by anticipating what they believe the market wants, with no investor having asked. He walks through the Sol Price story, follows it into Costco's succession practice, and names the structures founders can choose instead — B Corps, public benefit corporations, a foundation as shareholder, the French entreprise à mission. His closing instruction is to read the book before your next funding round.

“If I had to sum it up in one line: missions rarely die from bad intentions. They die from unprotected structures.” — Jean-Philippe Courtois on LinkedIn