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An Incredible Dream, Ralph Roberts and the Story of Comcast
The engaging story of Ralph Roberts and the people who helped him build a great company.
We begin with Ralph's early years and his involvement in a variety of pursuits, ranging from selling golf clubs to advertising to his favorite - men's accessories. Then a chance encounter at the age of forty-three leads him into cable television when the industry is still young.
Woven from conversations with hundreds of Comcast employees, An Incredible Dream shows how Ralph's vision, persistence, and kindness have inspired deep loyalty.
Along the way, we meet a number of his outstanding colleagues who have helped the company become what it is today. And we come to know his son Brian, who grew up in the Comcast family and became its CEO.
From Ralph's 1963 purchase of a tiny community antenna television system in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal almost half a century later, An Incredible Dream tells the story of a beloved man and the special company he created.
We begin with Ralph's early years and his involvement in a variety of pursuits, ranging from selling golf clubs to advertising to his favorite - men's accessories. Then a chance encounter at the age of forty-three leads him into cable television when the industry is still young.
Woven from conversations with hundreds of Comcast employees, An Incredible Dream shows how Ralph's vision, persistence, and kindness have inspired deep loyalty.
Along the way, we meet a number of his outstanding colleagues who have helped the company become what it is today. And we come to know his son Brian, who grew up in the Comcast family and became its CEO.
From Ralph's 1963 purchase of a tiny community antenna television system in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal almost half a century later, An Incredible Dream tells the story of a beloved man and the special company he created.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
424 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2012
5 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
William Novak
35 books10 followersWilliam Novak (born 1948) is an author who has co-written or ghostwritten numerous celebrity memoirs for people including Lee Iacocca, Nancy Reagan, and Magic Johnson. He is also the editor, with Moshe Waldoks, of The Big Book of Jewish Humor. He has also written several "private" books, which he described in a 2015 essay for The New York Times.
He is the father of actor and writer B. J. Novak.
He is the father of actor and writer B. J. Novak.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 13, 2024
Better than Game of Thrones
December 20, 2012
Don't Judge a book by its cover certainly applies here. This cover looks like it came from the 1980's, and certainly does not represent the content the book contains. Granted I am biased being a Comcast/NBC Employee at the time I read the book but it certainly paints a much more compelling picture of Comcast and Ralph Roberts than I originally knew. As with many successful businessmen they seem to come from families of successful businessmen (Trump and Kiyosaki come to mind), and the story is no different with Ralph. Anyone with ties to Philadelphia would enjoy this book and reading about all the different parts of the city Ralph has lived and worked over the years. From Germantown, to Bala Cynwyd, to 15th and Market, and finally to the largest building in the city, the Comcast Center.
The book repeatedly hammers home many of the values Comcast has held over the years and how humble the Roberts family has remained throughout the process. I can personally attest to the how humble Ralph remains to this day. Once on my way to the employee cafeteria on the 43rd floor of the Comcast Center I was alone in an elevator, and it stopped on the 41st floor. In walked Ralph himself and he asked me if I wouldn't mind sharing the elevator with him. I felt that was rather odd of him to ask if I would share an elevator with him on the way up to a floor named after him (Ralph's Cafe). What a perfect example of how humble the founder remains to this day.
The final few chapters cover the NBCUniversal merger which is still taking shape as I write this in late 2012. We often forget that Comcast was in the cellular business, and even owned a stake early on in the company that would become NEXTEL. The company is also diversified into other businesses like their ownership stake in the Flyers and two large multi-purpose arenas in Philadelphia as well. Additionally the company owned a stake in the early days of Half.com via their Comcast Ventures portfolio. Looking back at how the company has grown to become worth $100B, it must seem like an "Incredible Dream", Ralph was able to accomplish so much during his career.
The book repeatedly hammers home many of the values Comcast has held over the years and how humble the Roberts family has remained throughout the process. I can personally attest to the how humble Ralph remains to this day. Once on my way to the employee cafeteria on the 43rd floor of the Comcast Center I was alone in an elevator, and it stopped on the 41st floor. In walked Ralph himself and he asked me if I wouldn't mind sharing the elevator with him. I felt that was rather odd of him to ask if I would share an elevator with him on the way up to a floor named after him (Ralph's Cafe). What a perfect example of how humble the founder remains to this day.
The final few chapters cover the NBCUniversal merger which is still taking shape as I write this in late 2012. We often forget that Comcast was in the cellular business, and even owned a stake early on in the company that would become NEXTEL. The company is also diversified into other businesses like their ownership stake in the Flyers and two large multi-purpose arenas in Philadelphia as well. Additionally the company owned a stake in the early days of Half.com via their Comcast Ventures portfolio. Looking back at how the company has grown to become worth $100B, it must seem like an "Incredible Dream", Ralph was able to accomplish so much during his career.
August 25, 2023
It's not a bad book, but it does fizzle out toward the end and surely presents a bit one-sided perspective since most sources for book's material originate from the company itself. The story behind Comcast retraces the history of the cable industry itself, and also shows that the first two generations of Robertses and executives associated with them are good operators and at a minimum decent people. It was pretty remarkable to learn how an original investment into a small cable co in Tupelo, MS with ~2000 subscribers grew to be a cable and media conglomerate that Comcast is today.
First, they nailed the operations by keeping them decentralized with high levels of accountability; second, they built credibility with stakeholders (unlike many of their rivals); and third they never over-extended themselves financially, structuring liabilities linked to specific assets, and being willing to walk away from deals if the math did not make sense. It was interesting to learn how Comcast was able to secure some lower rate cost of financing as it was getting going, helping it to outlast its rivals... and later in its history, execs' frugality and financial ingenuity helped them to instrument large opportunistic deals.
Some other interesting things that I learned:
- Early on, Comcast hired clean-cut college kids to go door to door to sign up customers with great success.
- They practiced a "pioneers often die with arrows in their backs" philosophy with willingness to adapt best practices if they make sense.
- "A big part of the cable business consists of keeping your hands on all the dials, especially the Four Ps -- pricing, promotion, packaging, and plant. If you adjust them all just right, you can achieve margins of 40%+.... business is simple, buy programming wholesale, and sell it retail."
- AT&T now has a decades-long history of really dumb M&A marked by poor integrations.
First, they nailed the operations by keeping them decentralized with high levels of accountability; second, they built credibility with stakeholders (unlike many of their rivals); and third they never over-extended themselves financially, structuring liabilities linked to specific assets, and being willing to walk away from deals if the math did not make sense. It was interesting to learn how Comcast was able to secure some lower rate cost of financing as it was getting going, helping it to outlast its rivals... and later in its history, execs' frugality and financial ingenuity helped them to instrument large opportunistic deals.
Some other interesting things that I learned:
- Early on, Comcast hired clean-cut college kids to go door to door to sign up customers with great success.
- They practiced a "pioneers often die with arrows in their backs" philosophy with willingness to adapt best practices if they make sense.
- "A big part of the cable business consists of keeping your hands on all the dials, especially the Four Ps -- pricing, promotion, packaging, and plant. If you adjust them all just right, you can achieve margins of 40%+.... business is simple, buy programming wholesale, and sell it retail."
- AT&T now has a decades-long history of really dumb M&A marked by poor integrations.
February 19, 2023
DNF. I mostly picked this up on a lark because 30 Rock's "Hank Hooper" is based, loosely, on Ralph Roberts, hence the alliteration. I figured this would be pretty #hailcorporate, and wasn't surprised at that, but it's probably about 150 pages too long. It meanders off into the lives of random executives and just really loses its focus by the end where it just sort of feels like, "Here's some executive, oh yeah, we bought another company, and we had to negotiate about it." It just grows into a slog and about a hundred pages to the end, I realized I didn't care and there are too many good books for me to spend more time on this one.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews