Interview Summary R. R. Frederick with Lou Kraar, FORTUNE _May 13, 1977_ Q. To me the most interesting thing Mike Allen pointed out yesterday is that in 1974-5 there were 12 venture opportunities management selected for accelerated funding. One of my most difficult problems in interviewing is to get away from generalities into specifics. What were the 12 venture opportunities? A. I can't give you specifics... I was in the consumer business at that time. More relevant to the concept is that the system itself not only gives visibility to certain ventures, but also encourages managers to think in an entreprenurial way. Q. Could you give me some example? A. Venture in lamp. Interest in assuring supply of tungsten at the market price. Exploration and then perhaps into mining. Obviously different from the lamp business. But skilled in the conversion. Virtually have gone backwards. No one in the world can make filaments without tungsten. Small teams set up within the department. We have proceeded to set up a mine. Readying it for first extraction in 1980. To make a long story short, everything indicates we might have a real winner on a small scale. Q. Can you tell me cost? A. A substantial amount of money. Can't be specific. We will have between $20 million and $30 million when the ore starts coming out. We don't know for sure how long the mine will play. Perhaps to 1990. The interesting thing is that there is opportunity for innovation in this new GE. We contacted Utah and set up an internal joint venture. Utah people will take over on-site operation at the tungsten mine. Here's a good example already of using the combined skills of Utah and Lamp people. Would we have done this thing without the joint venture program? Probably yes. The important thing is to encourage management into entrepreneurship. (Carboloy opportunities mentioned.) Q. The instilling of entrepreneurial spirit, then, is more important than any particular example? A. I've found in 28 years with GE that when the Corporate Executive Office sends out a sign that this is a corporate need or desire, stand back. Operating managers will respond to it. Profitless growth we've experienced in past tends to inhibit this. So Mr. Jones decided he had to let people know there is