A belief in the power of data

Joanna Slater of The Globe and Mail in Toronto profiles Bloomberg LP chief executive Dan Doctoroff in a story that discloses that Bloomberg Businessweek remains unprofitable.

Slater writes, “In the media world, Bloomberg is the subject of fascination and fear. Boosted by the profits from its core terminal business, it has gobbled up journalistic talent while many other news organizations cut back. Its corporate idiosyncrasies are legion: a sleek headquarters with an abundance of free snacks; an obsession with data; a rejection of outward signs of hierarchy; and a hard-charging culture in which employees who leave to work for a competitor cannot return.

Well before he arrived at Bloomberg, Mr. Doctoroff had a yen for precision and a belief in the power of data. To eliminate clutter on his desk, he never touches a piece of paper twice. ‘I either delegate something, I dump it, or I deal with it,’ he said with a laugh. He is prone to quantifying parts of his job: last year, over the course of the second quarter, he had 757 meetings – which worked out to about 12 each weekday.

“Mr. Doctoroff’s mission at Bloomberg is twofold. The first is to sell more terminals – a subscription service that costs more than $20,000 (U.S.) a year per person and offers access to an expanding universe of data, analytical tools and news. Last year was a tough one for terminal sales; Wall Street firms continued to shed staff in what Mr. Doctoroff describes as ‘the fourth year of post-financial crisis adjustment.'”

Read more here.