How to Leave an Amazing Legacy (for Dummies)

The world lost a multibillionaire entrepreneur recently--a great leader whom most Americans have probably never heard of. Given that he was the person behind some very successful media brands, that says a lot.

Pat McGovern, 76, began his business career in the 1960s, as the founder and chairman of International Data Group. He was the man responsible for magazines such as Computerworld,  Macworld, PCWorld, and many other brands in the U.S. and abroad, including the "For Dummies" series of instructional and self-help books.

If you read McGovern's obituaries and his employees' remembrances, you'll find a portrait of a leader who achieved big goals, and who left a legacy of people who genuinely liked and respected him. Here are some of the secrets they've shared about how he learned to lead and achieve.

Think big, and be the first person on the ground.

McGovern wrote an article for Inc. in 2007, in which he talked about the importance of expanding your horizons to be successful. He was one of the first American CEOs to establish a joint publishing venture in China, for example, and his company was a pioneer in venture capital in Vietnam and India. With the establishment of a website operating from Antarctica, IDG became the first company in the world to have a presence on all seven continents.

"When a company ventures abroad, its point person should be its CEO, traveling frequently and acting boldly and enthusiastically," McGovern wrote. "IDG launches businesses in three to five new countries each year, and for virtually all of them I'm first on the ground, meeting with potential customers, government ministers, and management candidates."

Then, step aside and trust your people.

McGovern was thinking globally long before most of his peers. His companies launched titles in Japan and the Soviet Union in the 1970s, and he reportedly spent four months of the year traveling overseas to drum up new business. Yet he was a hands-off leader, allowing the people he put in charge of overseas divisions to make decisions.

"His primary control is financial," Inc. reported in 1988. "His headquarters works as an investment bank, putting money into each unit's worthwhile ventures, denying or withdrawing it from ones that are not worthwhile, while McGovern cruises from office to office like a cheery potentate on a magic carpet, bringing enthusiasm and bonuses wherever he goes."

Go out of your way to make people feel appreciated.

Inc.'s Leigh Buchanan started out at IDG as a copy editor in the late 1980s, and she described her surprise when McGovern stopped by her cubicle to hand her a year-end bonus check.

Pat thanked me for my contributions. He asked how things were going and looked vaguely disappointed when all I could muster was an unilluminating "Fine." Then he complimented me on a column I had ghostwritten for some technology honcho. The column was my most substantive accomplishment to date and the thing I was proudest of. But my name didn't appear on it anywhere, so how did he know? After three or four minutes, he handed me my bonus and proceeded to the next cubicle.

When she interviewed him years later, Buchanan said she learned that McGovern made one-on-one visits like that to every single one of the company's 1,500 employees at the time, and that the process took almost four weeks.

"He does this because he wants employees to know that he sees them--really sees them--as individuals," she wrote, "and that he considers what they do all day to be meaningful."

Be a personality, but be humble.

McGovern was worth an estimated $5.1 billion, but he cultivated a modest image. He lived in a $430,000 house in Hollis, New Hampshire, which he bought in 1989. He flew coach and drove used cars, reported The Wall Street Journal. He would show up at employees' 10th anniversaries to take them out for dinner.

"I don't think he did these things because he was naturally outgoing," wrote Harry McCracken, who covers technology at Time, but who spent 16 years working for McGovern at IDG. "If anything, he seemed to be on the reserved side--but...he believed that one of his responsibilities as IDG chairman was to make other staff members feel good about their work. Even when I was a low-level editor, I got occasional complimentary notes from him--always written on the same ultra-cheery letterhead, with GOOD NEWS! and a rainbow at the top. He must have bought it by the truckload."

When you've earned a lot, give it away.

In 2000, McGovern and his wife founded an institute for the study of the brain at his alma mater, MIT, with a $350 million gift. It was one of the largest donations ever to a university in the U.S. To put it in context, the donation dwarfs the entire endowments of more than 640 American colleges.

Incidentally, McGovern reportedly made it a point to track down and meet his future wife, Lore Harp McGovern, a successful tech entrepreneur in her own right, after he saw her picture on the cover of Inc. magazine in March 1981.

6 Things You Need to Know Today

1. Good News for News

A new study from the Media Insight Project bodes well for the spate of recently launched news startups: Americans across all demographic groups overwhelmingly report having an appetite for serious news coverage. Six in ten of the people in the study also said that new sources and technologies have made it easier to keep up with the news than it was five years ago. -- Associated Press

2. Trust Us

A compelling new study finds that the smarter you are, the more likely you are to trust others. According to researchers at Oxford University, "being a good judge of character is a distinct part of human intelligence which evolved through natural selection." This kind of trust is good for your health and greater happiness--not to mention key to building a strong startup team. -- Esquire

3. March Madness

With the tournament set to get underway this week, should you let your employees stream March Madness at their desks? That depends on you, your company, and your employees--but less than half of IT departments stand in the way of letting employees stream non-work related content today. -- Inc.com

4. Obamacare Update

Obamacare enrollment hit the 5 million-person mark Monday. The total number includes many sole proprietors, whose health insurance before was so costly, it almost shut down their businesses.--U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

5. Stormy Weather

If you're looking for excuses for your poor first-quarter performance, just blame the weather--that, after all, is what almost 40 percent of the S&P 500 has done so far this year. Urban Outfitters, Gap, McDonald's, and General Motors are among the excuse-makers, citing meteorological commonplaces as a factor in their results and projections. Someone tell them you can't play the game of business in a weather-proof dome. -- Wall Street Journal

6. Dropbox's Next Move

Dropbox has reportedly acquired Zulip, a stealthy workplace communication platform (think Yammer). While this is stellar news for the Cambridge-based Zulip team, the news also hints at a possible future feature aimed at businsses already using Dropbox's tools. In related news, Dropbox has announced it's opening a New York City office and hiring a team of 25 there. -- TechCrunch

To Build a Cult Following, Look No Further Than Pi Day

If you're a mathematician, physicist, or engineer, you've probably already heard of Pi Day.

If you haven't, you'd be surprised by how many people have. Pi Day--a celebration of the number pi, or roughly 3.14159--seems like something only for geeks, but it's also a great example of how an unlikely idea can wheedle its way into the status quo.

Think about it: The founders of Pi Day have taken something only a few people ever think about, and even fewer care about, and turned it into a phenomenon that's celebrated by thousands. Pi Day has also garnered its own resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives (and let's face it, those people can't agree on anything) and has been featured in news outlets from USA Today to NPR.

Granted, Pi Day was started sort of by accident. Larry Shaw, a scientist at the San Francisco Exploratorium, just put out pie for some of the staff on March 14, 1988. The next year, some museum visitors noticed and asked what was going on. Pi Day got bigger--and weirder--from there.

If you're starting with just the germ of an idea and need to convince huge swaths of people to adopt it, there's a lot you can learn from Pi Day.

Start with something real. (But it can be absolutely anything.)

Pi Day celebrates a number. Given that the big holidays are either religious or historical in nature, this is a pretty serious handicap. Pi is special: It occurs repeatedly throughout geometry, but also, says Ron Hipschman, a scientist at the Exploratorium, "anytime you have cycles, frequencies, or anything that’s rotating. It’s in tons of different places." Pi has been calculated to 10 trillion digits, and counting. But still. In the end, it's 3.14, or thereabouts.

Capitalize on serendipity.

Pi Day has a few things going for it. For one, it happens to be Albert Einstein's birthday. That's a nice coincidence, although it hasn't really paid off, other than giving a boost to Pi Day celebrations in Princeton, New Jersey, Einstein's longtime home.

More important: Pi sounds like pie. That's awesome. Plus, pie is circular, and pi is all about circles. Americans may not like math much, but pie? Absolutely.

The Exploratorium serves free pie on Pi Day--1,500 slices last year--but they're not the only ones. The American Pie Council has gotten into the act, publishing a Pi Day pamphlet with both math problems and recipes. Some bakeries and pizza shops are offering pies for $3.14, or pies that can be eaten in three-and-a-bit bites.

Make it family-friendly.

Obviously, there are rules, both legal and ethical, that restrict marketing to children. That's how it should be. But if there's something about your idea that can appeal to the entire family, not just to adults, go for it. If your idea has any redeeming value whatsoever, and kids are excited about it, the parents will be excited just to see their kids excited.

It's easy to dismiss the Exploratorium's Pi Day celebration as silly. A Pi Procession begins on 3/14 at 1:59. Everyone carries a single digit of pi, parades to music written to pi, and ends up at the museum's Pi Shrine, which they circle… you guessed it… 3.14 times. Then they sing happy birthday to Albert Einstein. There is pi-lish (a form of constrained writing designed to help with the memorization of pi) and piku (Haiku written in honor of pi).

Keep laughing. No one at the Exploratorium minds, I guarantee you. Last year, they demonstrated the concept of pi with a big diagram of a pizza and let kids throw their own pi(e) crusts. Most parents had probably never seen their kids have this much fun with math, ever.

And people get way, way into it. Are you looking for evangelists for your company? The super-users? Pi Day's done it. "People show up in their favorite pi T-shirts," says Lori Lambertson, who works in the Exploratorium's teacher institute. "One woman made a skirt with pi symbols all over it. There's a couple that comes almost every year who had a baby named Pi five years ago. They'd bring baby Pi."

Who knows what they'll do next year, when the date will read 3/14/15--the first five digits of pi.

Also: Admission to the Exploratorium is free on Pi Day. 

Embrace the competition.

All this fuss about pi has, not surprisingly, brought attention to those who think that a different number--tau--should get more of the spotlight. Tau is two times pi, but really, it's more accurate to say pi is half-tau, says Michael Hartl, a former physics instructor with Caltech, creator of the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, author of The Tau Manifesto, and co-founder of a self-publishing platform called Softcover. "Pi was chosen originally, but it's an error from a mathematical perspective," Hartl says. "It's just that it's easier to measure the diameter than the radius, but a circle is defined by its radius." Hartl says he celebrates Pi Day "ironically, as Half-Tau Day." 

Hipschman is non-plussed, saying the Exploratorium used to celebrate 2Pi Day (June 28) and even 3Pi Day (September 42, or, in other words, October 12). "We invite Michael to come to Pi Day if he wishes," says Hipschman. "We'll even celebrate 2Pi with him. How's that?"

And don't forget the pie.

No discussion of Pi Day would be complete without a pie recipe. Barry Schuler, a much more knowledgeable cook than I, and managing director at venture fund DFJ Growth, recommends this version of tarte tatin. Tarte Tatin may not technically be pie, but if you divide its circumference by its diameter you'll still get about 3.14. That's good enough for me.

Thank you, Barry, and happy eating.

Warren Buffett's Annual Letter: 5 Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

Critics gotta criticize, and when you're as successful in your undertakings as Warren Buffett, they're going to look for anything they can find. This year, having combed through Buffett's annual letter to his Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Fortune noted that S&P 500 returns beat Buffett's over the last five years--but not the past six.

Who gives a flying frijole? Buffett has proven himself one of the greatest investors of all time and someone who understands business like few people can. He gets the basics, the flourishes, and the twists. On an off year in 2013, Berkshire Hathaway pulled in 23 percent growth in pretax profits. It's even more remarkable because Buffett typically holds companies for extended periods of time and is the head of a conglomerate, which, given the history of disasters that have often plagued such entities, makes it additionally impressive.

So, forget about reading the Berkshire Hathaway results for gotchas. Let's take a look at some sound business advice that comes from watching what someone does, not just listening to what he says.

1. Know your company's intrinsic value.

People focus far too often on the external measures of a company's value. They look at stock price or the valuation derived from looking at the prices venture capitalists pay for a given percentage of a company. Forget all that, because those are ephemeral measures. Here's how Buffett thinks of it:

Intrinsic value is an all-important concept that offers the only logical approach to evaluating the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses. Intrinsic value can be defined simply: It is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life.

The calculation can be complicated and can change with interest rates or cash-flow projections. But Buffett's definition offers reasonable guidance. Calculating the intrinsic value is an excellent exercise. When you have a sense of the company's real worth, you have a context in which to consider investments, deals, and strategic decisions. Just be careful of the inherent danger of believing your own hype: Look at all the tech companies that twist accounting metrics into pretzels to pretend that they're profitable when they aren't.

2. Build business templates.

Ask most business people about templates and they'll mention word-processing documents and spreadsheets. Buffett talks about a partnership template. He has built a new methodical approach to large acquisitions. The specific details are immaterial for an entrepreneur, who isn't buying a company like NV Energy or a big chunk of H.J. Heinz. What is important is the idea of developing repeatable processes. Major deals are always unique, and then they all have common characteristics. Know how to achieve what you need, and you have far more energy available to consider the quirks.

3. Know the difference between types of growth.

Many companies are anxious to grow at a breakneck pace. Even large companies will buy other large companies for their revenue. But in a way that's just trading one block of money for another. It can be a wash. Buffett says he doesn't want Berkshire Hathaway to simply grow, but to grow per-share results. Even though your business is probably private, that's a good way to think about it. Are you just bulking up, or are you becoming proportionately more successful?

4. Invest in management.

An important reason for Buffett's success is that Berkshire Hathaway only invests in companies if they have strong management. Otherwise, you only subsidize a badly working business. Get the best management you can in your company from people who really know how to run marketing, sales, supply chain, customer service, manufacturing, finance, and any other silos. While providing strategy, let the people who know how to do the work actually do it. Buffett admits that two people working for him handle $7 billion portfolios with returns far outperforming his. Better to have them work for you than compete with you.

5. Use your money effectively.

Buffett wrote about the money that Berkshire Hathaway doesn't own but that it can use to its benefit. The idea of float is well known in certain types of businesses, particularly low-margin ones like groceries and distributors. There's the difference between when you get paid and when you pay. Some grocery chains make a significant percentage of their profit on the float made available by being a cash business that has terms from its vendors. Effective use of money can also mean passing on your bonuses or compensation and using the cash to strengthen the weaker parts of your operation. Invest in people and capital smartly. As Buffett wrote, "it's better to have a partial interest in the Hope diamond than to own all of a rhinestone."

That's five points in barely the first three pages of his letter. You can learn a lot from reading a little of the practices and thought processes of successful people.

How the Oscar-Nominated Movies Can Make You a Better Boss

So, I have a confession to make. I am an entrepreneur and a mother, and my time is precious. I have very little free time-- but what free time I do have in the first two months of the year is spent watching every Oscar nominated film. I've seen every one this year, and it occurred to me that weaved throughout each of these films are some serious pearls of wisdom for entrepreneurs. As you sit down this weekend to watch the Oscars, see if you can pick up on any of these leadership themes from the Best Picture nominees:

American Hustle: Fake it til you make it.

Irving Rosenfeld and his partner Syndey Prosser are forced to work with the FBI when they are busted for running a total sham of a business. They get into a situation that is way outside their comfort zone, and are forced to work on the biggest, and scariest, con of their lives. By pushing themselves beyond their perceived limits, they discover an awful lot about themselves, and what they are truly capable of. Leaders can and should get comfortable being uncomfortable--and pushing forward even when it feels impossible.

Captain Phillips: Nice guys finish first.
When Captain Richard Phillips was commanding a cargo ship 145 miles off of the Somali coast, he was captured by pirates. Unlike the pirates, the Captain and his crew were unarmed and had only their negotiating skills to carry them through. Through his ability to connect with the lead pirate, Muse, Captain Phillips was able to protect his men and survive an incredibly challenging situation. He knew exactly how to handle this armed, unstable pirate--and it wasn't by playing hardball. He was simply kind, and thoughtful, while remaining strong and solid in his approach. He was nice, but not weak--a key lesson for all of us.

Dallas Buyers Club: Be solution-oriented.
When Ron Woodruff, a rodeo cowboy was diagnosed with HIV and given 30 days to live, he tried to begin the typical treatments of AZT, and found that the system and the drug was completely broken. He decides to cross the border into Mexico where he learns about alternative solutions to treat HIV, and begins smuggling them into the U.S. and starts the "Dallas Buyers Club," a membership club where HIV patients can get these alternative medications. His willingness to tackle this problem with an (albeit illegal) solution, lengthened the lives of thousands of HIV patients and changed the course of HIV treatment. Although he had a lot of mixed feelings about the gay community, many of whom were his customers, Ron worked to push past his own ignorance to solve a problem and had a successful, game-changing business as a result. As a leader, are you solving problems with your product or on your team? You should be.

Gravity: Remember the power of mentors.
When Dr. Ryan Stone, an engineer on her first shuttle trip to space, ends up having a freak accident on a routine spacewalk, she and astronaut Matt Kowalsky are left spiraling in space, tethered to each other. Matt spends the next hour telling her various lessons about life and space, and their connection is as deep as they come. When Matt and Ryan get separated, Ryan is forced to channel Matt's confidence and knowledge to help get her home. She brings back his words and takes from them what she needs to in order to survive. Many of us as leaders have met people who have said things that we took with us on our journeys. Remember and look for people whose words and actions can inspire you to great success.

Her: Human connection is important.
Theodore Twombley lives in LA in the not-too distant future. He becomes fascinated by a new advanced operating system--basically Siri on steroids. "Samantha," his OS, is so advanced that she feels like a real person. Their connection is deep, and as Samantha gets more and more advanced, it gets complicated. Watching Her was like a giant reminder that we are headed towards a time where technology can and will advance faster than we'd ever expect. Through all of this, it's more important than ever for leaders not to become isolated. We constantly use technology to make our time-pressed lives more efficient, but we must, to be good leaders, make time for people--our most important asset.

Nebraska: If you don't make time for family, you'll regret it.
Nebraska is the story of David and his drunken, elderly, disoriented father Woody. When Woody receives a letter stating that he won a million dollars in a mail-order sweepstakes, he is convinced it's not a hoax. His son David agrees to drive him from Billings, Montana, to Lincoln, Nebraska. David essentially stops his life to go on this goose chase for his father, and along the way, repairs old, damaged relationships with his entire family. As leaders, we can't always stop everything we are doing to spend a week on a road trip with our most difficult and challenging family members, but it's important to ensure that our family relationships are a priority.

Philomena: Don't accept no for an answer.
Based on the book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith, this film tells the story of Philomena, a woman who was forced to give her child up for adoption by the nunnery that took her in when she was a pregnant teenager. Philomena had tried to discover the whereabouts of her son, who she signed away to an abbey in Ireland, but based on the church doctrine, she was not entitled to any information about him. It was only after a journalist contacted her and encouraged her to push past the church's refusal to cooperate that Philomena learned the truth about what happened to her son. Because she learned to not accept the first "no" that she got, she was able to achieve her goal and find peace. Leaders need incredible resilience, and they must push forward even when faced with challenges.

The Wolf of Wall Street: There are no shortcuts to success.
New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort built a giant empire off of selling penny stocks. A life filled with greed and corruption, Jordan was the ultimate "get rich quick" hustler--living a life of affluence filled with drugs and corruption. Jordan's story reminds us all as leaders that there truly are no shortcuts to success. True leaders don't cheat their way to the top, and the ones that do, have short-lived success.

12 Years a Slave: Even when the odds are stacked against you, always believe in yourself. 
This true story follows the incredible tale of Solomon Northop, a free man who lived in the North in the 1800s. Abducted and sold into slavery, Solomon spent 12 years living as a slave in deplorable, unimaginable conditions. It seemed that Solomon would never return to his life as a free man--and yet, he never gave up hope and never stopped believing that he was free. Though none of us could imagine a life like Solomon's, we as leaders can face insurmountable odds. Haven't we all felt like it was totally hopeless at one point or another? We must remind ourselves that being a leader involves lots of ups and downs, and that it is only our ability to believe in ourselves and our strength to lead through difficult times that will carry us through.

When you're watching the Oscars this weekend, remember that there are leadership lessons to be learned from each and every film.

Which lesson resonates most with you? Who do you think will win the Best Picture prize this weekend?