

A network graph of Corporate America - kirubakaran
http://blog.kiwitobes.com/?p=57

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dangoldin
This is really cool. I'm a big fan of data visualization.

It's interesting how Microsoft is far away from the other tech companies.

Does anyone know what was used to create the plot given the data?

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kirubakaran
Primarily PIL (Python Imaging Library). This is the guy who wrote 'Programming
Collective Intelligence'. How he creates such graphs is well documented in
that book. If you haven't read it already, I'd whole heartedly recommend it.

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dangoldin
Awesome thanks. I'm really interested in this stuff so as soon as I have some
time I'll definitely give it a go.

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byrneseyeview
Fascinating! I wonder if this has predictive value, too -- if, for example, a
board member who was on the board of a poorly-performing company predicts poor
performance in the future.

Unfortunately, boards are pretty toothless. Lately, it looks like a single
hedge fund with 5% of the stock and no board seats can cause more change
within the firm than board insiders can -- on the other hand, the changes that
happen internally may just be more subtle (e.g. if the audit committee
gradually relaxes standards, it doesn't show up in the headlines until there's
a disaster, and then it's hard to trace it to who is actually responsible).

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mixmax
In the shadow of the recent takeover attempt of Yahoo it is interesting to see
that Yahoo and Google are connected on board level.

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mattmaroon
Am I somehow not seeing GE, or is it just omitted? I would have to think it
would be a giant blog in the center with lines to almost everywhere.

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byrneseyeview
"I generated a graph from the 400 largest companies by market capitalization.
What’s shown here is the largest strongly connected component, which has 212
nodes."

Perhaps technology companies have more interlocked boards because many of them
were funded by VCs. 100 years ago, GE would have been connected to all the
other Morgan-backed companies.

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mattmaroon
You obviously don't read Fortune. People who worked under Jack Welch now head
lots of the 500.

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byrneseyeview
I don't read _Fortune_ because it seems to be written for middle-school
students. I do know that lots of former GE managers are now running their own
companies. However, it seems very likely that since most large tech companies
were founded in the last 30 years or so, and many of them were funded by a
relatively small number of VCs, that those VCs might form a very well-
connected network, _even if_ other companies also 'spun off' lots of good
managers. I would be surprised if the number of Fortune 500 companies run by
GE alumni exceeded the number of Fortune 500 companies funded at some point by
Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark, etc.

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mattmaroon
You and I must be seeing two different things when we look at that graph. I
see a pretty standard list of Fortune 500 companies, like Proctor & Gamble or
Exxon. Some tech in there to be sure too, but no reason why GE would be
excluded. And I'm sure they'd have more nodes than almost any non-tech
company, even if your assertion is true.

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davidw
It would be interesting to attempt to run some regressions and see how
connectedness affects the performance of a company.

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bdr
I must be blind. What does the direction of the edges signify?

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neilc
The edges aren't really directed, but those with an arrowhead at one end
indicate CEO-hood.

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bdr
So it's not a directed graph. Why does the author emphasize "strongly
connected component"?

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neilc
Perhaps he means "connected component"?

