The Innovators' Ball 282
Babylon Rocker writes "Latest Cringely: The Innovators' Ball: Why Business Isn't as Fun as it Used to be.
'Sharp business is cheating and not getting caught.'"
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The Innovators' Ball
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You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. -- Superchicken
Oh, for the love of... (Score:4, Funny)
If I can beg a little impartiality from the Slashdot editors, must every story include a dig at me or my company?
Re:Oh, for the love of... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh, for the love of... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not capitalism. It's dirty business. And what Cringely calls "sharp business" isn't sharp business, it's sharp dealing. Sharp dealing, the way my grandfather used to use the term...as in, "He's a sharp dealer." It's not a nice thing to say about somebody.
Capitalism means that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door (grossly simplified, I know). It does not mean that it's open season on your competitors to do whatever you can to get them out of the market. What Cringely described in the first half of his article may not have been legal, but don't confuse it with capitalism. It was dirty business, nothing more, nothing less.
And usually I hold what Cringely says at arm's length, but his second to the last paragraph, the one about innovation is, at least to me, right on the mark. I almost can't stand the word anymore.
-h-
Re:Oh, for the love of... (Score:5, Interesting)
You nailed it.
"Capitalism" has always been about "beating" the other fellow under the Marquis of Queensbury Rules.
You "beat" him by being better than he, by serving your customers better, by getting your product to market faster, by doing what it takes within the bounds of good sportsmanship.
It's the kind of thing where at the end of the day, your competitor looks at you, KNOWS you've "beaten" him, and grudgingly tips his cap to you.
Instead, today we have people cutting each others entrails out to feed to the sharks. At the end of THIS day, you look at the one who has beaten you, and wonder if you know someone who knows someone who can put out a hit contract on the guy's firstborn son.
We are living in a "post-Christian" society, and this is the result. Ego is god.
Re:Oh, for the love of... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do you assume that morals cannot exist without religion?
You assume that without fear of eternal damnation, people will do whatever they want and knowingly act in immoral ways.
I prefer the view that if people realize that moral behaviour really is best for the good of society, they will opt to act responsibly.
People don't want to feel as though they're hurting society -- otherwise, why would people often justify crime by
Re:Oh, for the love of... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't "assume" anything. This isn't the first time in history that men have turned to worshipping the works of their own hands, and the results are always the same.
You assume that without fear of eternal damnation, people will do whatever they want and knowingly act in immoral ways.
Now it is YOU who are assuming. I said nothing about "eternal damnation." When you believe there is a higher power, a cause greater than yourself, when you turn you
Re:Oh, for the love of... (Score:2)
What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Innovators have wiggle room. They can steal ideas, for example, and pawn them off as their own. That's the intersection of innovation and sharp business.
Hmmm, steal someone else's ideas and pawn them off as original. Sounds like Microsoft to me!
Re:What? (Score:2)
If it's as simple as that, then how come the original didn't enjoy success? How did MS edge ahead?
Re:What? (Score:3, Interesting)
Let it go dude. He's going to bring up the example where Microsoft ripped off some company and was inexplicably popular though the product was inferior. You'll counter with an example of where Microsoft borrowed an idea and actually made it useful to people unlike the company who introduced it. The problem is that Microsoft has released soooooo many products over the years that niether of you will settle
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:2, Insightful)
I feel it is possible their legal teams have innovated all over the place.
Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What? (Score:3, Interesting)
If that were true, Windows 95 would have been long forgotten in 1996. Obviously there was some value there. Otherwise, we'd all be using Macs.
Re:What? (Score:2)
Microsoft doesn't have the power to lock people in that the Slashdot Community imagines. You guys brag all the time about how you have Linux and Open Office and a bunch of other stuff.
I won't deny that it could happen after Longhorn. DRM, a new version of Office, etc, could be rather powerful lock-in weapons. But that ain't happenin today.
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are problems with ditching Windows: while OOo etc. make it fairly easy to ditch Office these days it's harder to ditch Outlook if your customer insists on your having an MS Exchange server to sync business appointments etc., and although it can probably be done with a minimum of Windows machines and everything else running codeweavers plugins to Evolution it's just so much less hassle to keep running Windows. (There isn't actually much economic sense in ditching it as it's so difficult to get bare metal PCs in the first place: businesses have already paid the Microsoft tax.)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand that, at the time Clippy emerged, he was the only development that had its origins in Microsoft Research, something which they were mighty embarrassed by (and which was not really their fault).
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
Go here [microsoft.com] to find out.
Really, did you think it would be anybody else?
Re:What? (Score:2)
I don't understand what you mean by "not really their fault". Did Clippy write himself?
Re:What? (Score:2)
Re: Innovation vs. Invention (Score:4, Insightful)
When a person claims to have "invented" something, it's pretty clear cut. The statement says they came up with a new idea and put that idea into practice. I don't think it's very often that you find a claim of an invention that a large number of people feel "uncertain" about.
When Edison claimed he invented the phonograph or the light bulb, it wasn't a matter of personal opinion. It was fact. Those two devices simply weren't around before then.
Innovation is a matter of opinion. One person's "innovative new way of displaying menu options" in software is another person's "terrible GUI design that should never have been attempted".
Is Microsoft innovative? Perhaps so, and perhaps not. It all depends on which side of the proverbial fence you stand on. (If you're one of their programmers and you're watching you own ideas become reality in new software releases, you're probably on the side that says "Yep, we're innovating!") Are they inventive though? Certainly not! You don't have to look far to see how many of their products contain code purchased outright from others. Even the pinball game included with every copy of Windows since '98 was licensed from Maxis.
Really, I don't think many companies are "inventive" at all anymore - and that's one of our problems. These days, there's more interest in litigation than invention - because it has a higher probability of profit/success.
Concurrent Invention (Score:2)
On the contrary, many major inventions are hotly disputed. Usually they were invented independently by several people around the same time. For example, Alexander Bell and Elisha Gray invented the telephone concurrently. Bell won the legal battle.
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-linux (on the contrary). I just think we need to admit linux's shortcomings and do something about them, instead of defending the obvious flaws as happens so much. Otherwise, microsoft's market share won't be dented.
Re:What? (Score:2, Informative)
The first version of Linux I ever ran, and actually the first version of Linux released commercially on CD-ROM was Yggdrasil, which billed itself as 'Plug and Play Linux.'
I booted it up in late 1993 on my 486 computer, which had a Sound Blaster Pro sound card and a 1x CD-ROM drive that plugged into the Sound Blaster pro card.
It played a complex melody (an
Re:What? (Score:2)
Microsoft has never made this claim. What they did do, though, was combine a GUI with off the shelf hardware and make an OS that a wider market of people can use. Sort of like what Apple did, only you didn't need to buy AppleTM hardware.
"Microsoft's innovations are limited to trying something someone else does, and hoping it works."
Close. Microsoft made it wo
Re:What? (Score:2)
Microsoft made it work, or at least made it work 'satisfactorally'. Windows 95 was painful to use in many ways, but it was still much much better than dos. You can't credit another OS with fulfilling that on PC hardware until Linux came along.
Sure you can. OS/2 was vastly superior to Windows 95 in numerous ways. Microsoft backstabbed IBM, and then outmarketed them, but 95 was nowhere near the OS that OS/2 was.
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah you missed the point innovation invention (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of the article was that innovation was a corporate metaphor for playing politics, cheating and stealing, and invention was just invention. He said that Microsoft was an innovator, not an inventor.
Re:What? (Score:2, Informative)
The first GUI was developed in 1979 at Xerox's Palo Alto lab, unless I'm mistaken.
Steve Jobs traded something like one million US$ for a tour of the labs where he first encountered the "Alto", a prototype machine with a graphical interface. This is what led to the Apple Lisa, which was released in 1983 or 1984, if memory serves.
Re:What? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What? (Score:2)
Re:What? (Score:2, Insightful)
Depends on your use of the term 'true.' The pioneering GUI development that preceeded the Lisa was significant. The first prototype 'mouse' was developed in the middle of the 1960's, for goodness sake.
And the Lisa was a dismal failure in the market. I remember about 1990 when they sat mute in used computer shops and we could say in wonderment 'ten thousand bucks.'
The IBM 5100 was only about ten grand, and it was a hell of
Re:What? (Score:2)
Very true (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, I bet there are a lot of cases where one or two bad guys not necessarily right at the top can turn a whole company crooked (or at least semi-crooked) just because everyone else is too apathetic - or frightened - to shop them.
Of course, when the crooks really are at the top then it really sucks.
Sharp business practices. (Score:5, Interesting)
It all comes down to what you consider to be the reason the company is in
business. Is it to benefit the owners, the managers, the employees, the
customers, or the community in which the business resides? While there can
be more than one reason, one of those reasons must be larger than the
others.
Public companies are supposed to benefit their owners though we've seen a
lot of stockholders burned lately by companies where the managers seemed to
come out on top. Great companies are supposed to put customers first, but
will they do so at the expense of profits? And community, whether it means
my town, my country, or the environment, is usually last of all.
I have no answers, only questions.
All the best,
Bob
Re:Very true (Score:3, Insightful)
Ignorant. Too ignorant or oblivious to even notice they are being screwed until it is too late.
The case that Cringley describes, the founder of the Corp got ousted through boardroom manuevering. Do you think he would have seen that coming in a million years? If
Innovation vs. Invention (Score:5, Insightful)
Most inventions were based on some innovation or the other - the IC was an innovative usage of the transistor, the microwave an innovative usage of UV, etc.
As Newton opined "If I have seen further, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants" I've created/invented software that I'm proud of and others might term innovation - what's so wrong with innovation anyway?
No they weren't (Score:2)
Re:No they weren't (Score:2)
I switched majors very soon after that.
Re:Innovation vs. Invention (Score:5, Funny)
Microwaves don't use UV. They, uh, use microwaves. :)
Re:Innovation vs. Invention (Score:4, Informative)
Here's a good history of microwave ovens [gallawa.com]
Here's another article with info abt the electromagnetic spectrum [nasa.gov]
Re:Innovation vs. Invention (Score:3, Funny)
Call yourself a geek. You don't even know how a microwave works. I bet you use WinXP and use StyleXP to make it look like Linux.
Innovation != Invention (Score:2)
Now, something that's hardware, that uses software or firmware might qualify as an invention. But when we start getting to 'innovative business practices' or 'innovative billing techniques' or 'innovative ways to force your competitors out of business', there's no particular object, and hence no inventi
Re:Innovation vs. Invention (Score:2)
You have it backwards. Karma whore attempt maybe?
Microsoft was the good innovator. Windows 95, and all the hype that came with it, made the PC arena explode. Shortly after its release, the PC became a common household appliance. Microsoft is 'bad' for this? Down the road, maybe. Their monopoly is nasty stuff. However, the market rose them to that power.
Linux is a good innovator? Maybe down the road history wi
Re:Innovation vs. Invention (Score:4, Interesting)
At this point, I get cynical about any company that uses the word...it makes me wonder what they're hiding, even if they have nothing to hide.
-h-
MS "innovation" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MS "innovation" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MS "innovation" (Score:2)
--RJ
Re:MS "innovation" (Score:4, Interesting)
Steal? Bit harsh, don't you think? An idea's only as good as its implementation. If the original idea needed to be tweaked to have a bigger appeal, then the general populous benefits from that.
I agree that credit should be given where credit is due. However, it's nowhere near as black and white as this article implies. The Newton was around long before Palm Pilot, yet Palm gets the credit for making it mass market. "It is inferior to the Newton!" the zealots cried. But the Palm Pilot had some distinguishing features. It was pocket-sized, it talked to your PC and got relevant info out of it, and it was direct and to the point.
Apple gets some credit for generating the idea, Palm gets the credit for taking it and making it useful. Innovative? I think so.
Re:MS "innovation" (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, The Newton is predated as well. Rat Shack had the 'Pocket Computer' whose primary fault was that it came out before the state of technology could really support the idea. Prior to that, several Science Fiction writers actually anticipated the real devices by many years. In turn, they realized the possability only because computers in some form existed, so they owe their ideas to the long line of people responsable for that.
Each step along the way was an improvement for the potential end users,
Re:MS "innovation" (Score:3, Interesting)
There is also the BIG LIE, which is so preposterous that it leaves your opponents speachless.
innovation. sounds impressive, but:
innovation n. Act of introducing something new or novel as in customs, rites, etc.
A different color of mouse-pad is innovative. Getting slashes backwards is innovative. Standing when you should be kneeling is innovative. The latest teenage fad is innovative.
There is no sense of improvement or invention or
bing! "realism" is bullshit. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is very true, believing something does not make it true, ignoring it does not make it go away, and fighting is never futile. If only Cringerly had the guts to fight for his convictions we'd be better off. Cringerly is wrong when he proclaims:
My readers, ... are many of them still debating in their minds whether software can even be patented. Whether it can be patented or not, in the U.S., it IS patented, and expecting that some contrary decision will be shortly made and the planets rearranged in space is just folly. This is the difference between cynicism and realism.
How bizzare for Cringerly to understand how M$ works and then recomend resignation. Software is pantented because asswipe companies like M$ made enough people believe that it was good. The only way to reverse this is to continue to understand and tell other why it's bad. How can someone understand that patent and copyright abuse are the means by which inventors are screwed by "innovators" or "sharp business", and not fight such abuse? Propaganda can and is defeated by reality. Understanding that something is wrong and not speaking out or acting is not "realism" or "cynicism" it's cowardice. Shame on you, Mr. Cringerly, for understanding the problem, anouncing it, resigning yourself to suffer and recomending for others to do the same. Knowledge, conviction and an audience have the power to change.
When laws are bad and permit immoral beahvior, people suffer regardless of how happy you tell them they are. Reasonable laws leave people free to act as they will, so long as they don't harm others. Unreasonable laws block the actions of others for the benefit of a few who seek such "protection". Restrictions are something people understand and feel, even when the activity restricted is something they don't ordinarily do.
Nothing New (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Sharp business is 'cheating' while following the letter of the law. What he is describing is 'Sharp Criminal Conduct' which some business people and many politicians engage in. When the politicians engage in 'Sharp Criminal Conduct' they make it easier for those engaging in 'sharp business' to do really foul things without actually breaking any laws. It's a subtle, but important difference and worth remembering next time you vote.
decent (Score:5, Funny)
We've gone from following the rules to playing the odds.
And if we do follow the rules and don't play the odds, then we are figured to be suckers.
Speak for yourself. Some of us just keep doing the right thing as best we can, no matter what everyone else is doing. We usually come out better in the long run.
Re:decent (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:decent (Score:2)
Re:decent (Score:2)
there is a difference.
Re:decent (Score:2)
Either we come out ahead, or we wind up dead as the ultimate punishment for trying.
But, it is better to die a noble death in defense of liberty and justice than to prostitute one's morals before the tyrants of the day.
Eventualy some of us will come out ahead and perhaps they might remember our sacrifices for our common goal.
A bit too cynical... (Score:3, Insightful)
Companies like Google, Berthshire Hathaway and others come to mind as good counter examples of what Cringley calls "gone from following the rules to playing the odds".
A sligh positive note in that article would have helped. Oh well
Re:A bit too cynical... (Score:2)
Re:illegitimate reversal of burden of proof (Score:2)
News flash! (Score:2, Redundant)
Seriously though, since when is the common practice of "savvy businessmen" screwing trusting people out of money news?
Business Morality (oxymoron?) (Score:5, Interesting)
He would tell me stories, like the time he quit his high school water polo team after the coach encouraged his team to elbow the opposing team whenever the ref looked away.
My father's tech company was stolen away from him in the same way as in this artical. He and several friends created a start up, and within a few years, all were shut out of the company, and the investors walked away with the prefered stock.
Companies like Microsoft practice an odd form of amorality and defend it as good business practice. It might be sound business practice, but there is nothing good about it.
Admittedly, in any capitalist society there is a dog-eat-dog quality to business, but is there really the need to specifically crush upstart companies, play fast and loose with public standards to kill competition, and other such underhanded techniques that are only good for your company, but bad for everyone else.
In the end, I think most people who were raised with a firm and grounded set of morals appriciate that there is such a thing as good business practices. I try my best to stay abrest of those companies that follow them and only give them my business. It's hard sometimes, but in the end, it might be the only way some businesses can be made to behave.
Re:Business Morality (oxymoron?) (Score:2)
This is called liquidation preference and is part of any serious startup financing. The deal is that regardless of whether the company succeeds, when it is ultimately sold, the guys who put in the money (for preferred stock) get their money out first. Then the common shareholders (founders' sweat equity, employee stock options, warrants etc) together wi
Re:Business Morality (oxymoron?) (Score:2)
Treasure your time together.
Re:Business Morality (oxymoron?) (Score:2)
Um, I suppose the really moral stance would be to object to that, but I think your dad made the right decision: water polo is generally not played by people whos morals are that stringent.
My wife played co-ed water polo in college. I try not too piss her off in the water. She can tread water with a big smile on her face while pulling out your leg hair with h
innovation (Score:2)
n.
1. The act of introducing something new.
2. Something newly introduced.
Re:innovation (Score:5, Interesting)
Few people invent radically new devices. As the cliche goes, the cell phone was invented in 1954, and yet putting a camera on a cellphone, two existing inventions together is called 'innovation'. Yeah, a cell phone with a camera was something new, but so was the first zipper painted blue! Lots of things are 'new', but only because they are simply the result of the millions of ways of combining all the technology we have. Something *truely* new, not just a recombination of things that have already existed, or an existing technology in a different shape, size, color, etc, comes along far less often than the patent office records or brochure claims of corperations will have you believe.
Re:innovation (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, a cell phone with a camera was something new, but so was the first zipper painted blue!
Dr Seuss, is that you?!
Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people assume if you end up with the desired goal of the system (wealth), than it has served its purpose. In reality, the system was devised not so an individual can become rich, but rather so we have a set of rules in which to facilitate improving our standard of living without resorting to social friction and unfair (subjective, I realize) treatment of others.
All the market tactics, advertising ploys, and accounting/legalese rule bendings seem to weaken the role of merit in capitalism. And I know what constitutes 'merit' is subjective, but I'd rather not give merit to those creative and smart enough to figure out how to bend rules in their favour without being caught.
Sharp Business and Wealth Building (Score:2)
Welcome to the harsh world of reality. Do or Die.
--
How do you build wealth?
By making more money than you spend?
How do you do that?
By only spending what you are absolutely required to spend and not a dollar more.
How do you do better than that?
By finding ways to spend less than your you are required to spend
Re:Sharp Business and Wealth Building (Score:2)
And with that attitude, the caveat emptor attitude, the pundits wonder why people aren't investing in the market.
Banks in the Western US had a similar problem in the latter half of the 19th century. People would put their money in, then someone would come along and rob them.
So banks could not attract the capital that would be necessary to fund the economic expansion that everyone was waiting for.
So the government established the FDIC. And that made ba
Business is rough, play hard (Score:5, Insightful)
My recommendation is to raise money from people who already know or trust to some degree whenever possible, and ALWAYS, I repeat, ALWAYS, worry about control. Control is often times far more important than who has how many shares. Shares can very often end up worthless at the end of life of a business venture, if it is liquidated, or M&Aed away, or basically has any end-game other than an IPO, unless your shares are all on a level basis (this is a nice thing about flat LLC memberships and S Corporations as business entities, though that's certainly not necessary).
Just remember that you have to make sure that all your contracts and legal structure reinforce your power and control, and it's often better to give up some extra equity in exchange for this. Be careful who you trust. And never make yourself unnecessary before you have your exit strategy well on its way to execution.
Re:Business is rough, play hard (Score:3, Insightful)
not really new (Score:5, Interesting)
so you saw the same History Channel show too? (Score:2)
obligatory mockery (Score:5, Insightful)
Cringely wants no part of that sleaze. He's a geek and a PBS writer instead.
For a while, it looked like people could be geeky and ethical while still turning a profit. This was a temporary illusion caused by a populace that had a religious awe of geeks, caused mostly by FUD, and was willing to overpay even those geeks who didn't really turn the screws. The middle managers who forked over millions of dollars (which THEY had scammed from others) for their own electronic replacements were not making headlines during the late nineties, but there were more of them than there were techie nouveau riche.
So. Every geek, and indeed every human, must ask him or herself whether to try to profit by bringing misfortune to others, or whether to embrace poverty, in the unlikely hopes that that will make the world a better place. I don't have an answer to that for myself, let alone for everybody, but claiming that the sky is falling just because the tech bubble burst months ago is worthy only of ridicule. It is good for anyone, even slashdotters, to be reminded of these Big Questions; but all in all, I think Cringely and most of the rest of this crowd are in way over their heads.
Will Warner geocities.com/wtw0308
Re:obligatory mockery (Score:5, Insightful)
I would reccommend reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot [amazon.com] for some enlightenment on how the world treats those who act morally and conscientiously in regards to life and business.
Re:obligatory mockery (Score:2)
Um...
Why is harming others necessary for profit?
Re:obligatory mockery (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:obligatory mockery (Score:2)
He's a hack writer.
kdict on "innovate" (Score:2, Redundant)
Innovate \In"no*vate\, v. i.
Every man,therefore,is not fit to innovate. --Dryden.
WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]
innovate
So, Microsoft is proud of introducing changes (often created by others?), as opposed to inventing anything of their own.
Now, that makes
Fundamental flaw in collective decision making (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, it's been proven, under a few resonable assumptions, that there exists no fair voting system. This was proven by the economist Kenneth Arrow who won the Nobel prize for his work. A short discussion is here. [vill.edu]
So what ever system of democratic decision-making you might create, it has fundamental weaknesses that are exploitable by the unscrupulous.
The only way to stay out of trouble is to find other ways of raising capital.
nothing (Score:2, Funny)
mirror... [neu.edu]
There's something missing from Cringley's tale (Score:2, Interesting)
By not providing attribution, Cringley deprives us of getting both sides of the story. That's why many news organizations frown on anonymous sources except when absolutely necessary.
I realized a long time ago that no one I ever knew who was involved in a
Re:There's something missing from Cringley's tale (Score:2)
But in a sense it's not necessary, as it has a ring of truth to it, and there have been similar stories in the news about original company owners losing control of their companies.
It's a small nitpick to a rather insightful article about "sharp business" and "corporate morality". I have had these very same ruminations for quite some time, and Cringley put words to t
It isn't fun (Score:5, Insightful)
This is because we allow office politics to completely absorb every single moment of every single day in "corporate" businesses.
There is absolutely no concern for a quality product or a truthful discussion of the right and wrong ways to build something in the cubicles. It's who can fuck who over so they can keep their job while simultaneously destroying someone else's career. It's who can point out the most failures. It's who can foster the most suspicion and doubt about their colleagues' competency that succeeds in the never-ending schedule of meetings.
And nobody ever talks about it. Nobody ever squarely points out the enormous amount of time and money that is wasted, man-hour to man-hour, by people building spectacular layers of redundancy to cover every possible and several impossible failure possibilities while attempting to answer the unanswerable questions posed by middle management.
These are the same people by the way, who insist on everyone being a "team player." Of course, that only applies when these people are the quarterback, not the left tackle.
Want to know where the largest source of waste in business is today? This is it: office politics. People working against each other instead of working as part of a team which actively encourages people to grow and succeed. It's a disgrace and it shouldn't be allowed to continue.
Coup de Jarnac (Score:4, Interesting)
This is also sometimes refered to as a Coup de Jarnac. Jarnac won a dual against Francois de Vivonne in 1547. Jarnac got to pick the weapon, and instead of one, he picked several fo that Francois wouldn't know which one. Jarnac also knew that Francois was famous for a particular move when he fought that would expose his hamstring. So, Jarnac just played the dual to a draw until Francois exposed himself, and then he cut his hamstrings and Francois bled to death.
While technically within the rules, it was considered dirty, and hense Coup de Jarnac is a term that can be used to describe this.
So ends your history lesson for today.
I'd like to add SBC to that list (Score:2)
Yes, I'm quite positive. The only way to get something done is to have 4000 of your customers call the PUC (hey, it beats them bitching at you! Customers love to hate SBC and techies love to pass the buck). Then maybe they'll "look into it."
Like a large, ripe berry.
"Wait, you mean they actually...*kaboom!*"
"When did we fall so low?" (Score:2)
If you actually do something, you're nothing. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're a programmer, engineer, or even a doctor, you're just worker. You don't matter except as an "overhead" figure.
The people that do matter don't actually produce anything, the lawyers and the CEO's, they try to see how little they can pay the "overhead" while still meeting various buisiness benchmarks(production, PE ratios, etc). Then they give the lionshare of profit to
They enroll employee's in HMO's that are cheap so they can give that money as bonus to themselves for increasing the company's profits
They play fast and loose with the company savings funds and give themselves a share of that for being "innovative".
Even if it bankrupts the saving fund. The bonus still stands.
More and more the american worker is just dirt that's tilled for whatever it can produce. And it's given the same consideration as dirt. Buisiness leaders paint Unions as greedy for wanting raises that keep pace with inflation, health care benefits that can be actually used, and decent working conditions.
All while these same leaders tear the buisiness apart trying to squeeze everything they can personally take from it.(how many times do we see the CEO that led a company into Chapter 11 getting million dollar bonuses or golden parachutes as a reward for their sterling effort)
And they've made the laws and rules dealing with buisiness so convoluted that only someone who's never learned ANYTHING but buisiness can hope not to be screwed. There's nothing corporations love more than screwing over the neophyte who thinks just because they created something they should make money from it. (this story, Spiderman the movie, Forrest Gump)
Why does this happen? Because big buisiness makes all the rules, if the rules say they can't win, they have them changed. Or they just ignore them and "settle" if it goes bad, with a mandatory non-disclosure agreement of course.
MPAA, RIAA are on a war against illegal profitless file trading. Why is it illegal? Because they had the laws changed to MAKE it illegal. We sit through sanctimonius ads about "doing the right thing" and respecting the artists, the actors, and the industry workers.
While at the same time those corporations "settle without admitting wrong doing" illegal price fixing on music CD's, and they're telling the creator of Spiderman and the writor of Forrest Gump that the movies didn't make a profit so they, the creators, get NOTHING.
But they insist everyone else be ethical about respecting IP laws that THEY wrote.
Wake up suckers (Score:2, Interesting)
I worked for a debt collection company for a while. They would threaten and harass and threaten more, but they would never take a case to court unless 1) the perso
Good thing there was only one.. (Score:3, Funny)
Self Correcting (Score:2)
There are many examples occuring in the wider world right now. Terrorists don't spontaneously generate. What is sufficient motivation to trigger a suicide bombing ?
Even without the extreme case of terrorism in democra
Payment for volatility (Score:5, Insightful)
One real problem is rewarding executives for volatility, rather than profits. We need long holding periods on insider stock, maybe five years. That way, if you do a startup, you don't get to cash out for five years, by which time it's clear whether the profits are real. The holding period used to be two years; it was changed to six months in the mid-1990s. Look what happened.
Pay for volatility encourages dumb merger and acquisition activity. Most mergers turn out to be a long-term lose for the stockholders, but a short-term win for management. Management needs to be on the hook for long-term losses.
Executive pay should be set by the stockholders. Each stockholder puts on their proxy how much the CEO's total compensation should be, and the share-weighted median is used. Executive pay is up by a factor of several hundred since the 1950s, even after inflation adjustment. Third-rate CEOs of money-losing companies are making multimillion dollar salaries. Executive pay decisions should pass through the ultimate owners, who are typically people with money in pension funds.
Those two changes alone would cut out considerable dumb financial activity.
Been there, had that done to me (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in 1999, I "was" 7am News [7am.com], a web business that effectively established the viability of syndicating content on the Net.
I had to fight for my success along the way, fending off attempts by "big" old-school publishers who claimed that syndicating their headlines and links to their sites was a breach of copyright and who didn't understand the difference between republishing and hypertext linking.
After starting the venture in 1997, and investing 18 hours a day, 7 days a week for nearly three years, I'd built the business up to the point where 7am.com's server was dishing out the news over two million times a day and Nielsens/NetRatings ranked it ahead of the BBC's news website, Fox News, Wired.com and even Playboy.com
By 2000, 7am.com was delivering its news content through a nework of nearly a quarter-million third-party websites and was valued at US$20m-US40m (wasn't everything in those days though?).
Back in 1998 I was offered $1 million for the business by a US-based company but chose not to sell because they wanted to simply strip it for inclusion into their own product.
By 1999 I was still working 18/7 but had the help of two part-time writers who were also producing news and the service had racked up an impressive record for breaking news on the web. (Believe it or not, 7am.com was actually the first website in the world to carry the pictures beamed back from the surface of Mars by the Pathfinder mission).
Anyway, I was eventually promised the earth by a group of investors who assured me that they were not interested in simply asset-stripping the business, but were actually planning to grow it in a way that would ensure it continued to be innovative and maintain its lead in the field of syndicated news content and independent reporting.
My goal was not to become a "get rich quick" dot-com millionaire (I knew that would be a "fad") but to set myself up with a good shareholding in a company with long-term profitability.
Well do I look stupid now?
I still have around 30% of the shares in 7am.com but through some very clever "manipulation" by the investors, and a total lack of vision and willingness to accept good advice, that shareholding is effectively worthless.
Not only did they not invest in the continued growth of the company, they also hired another company (in which they had a shareholding) to provide consulting and other services which were never delivered (but they were paid for).
It appears very much to me as if 7am.com became a company that was used to raise a bundle of cash that could then be shifted into another company that was really their darling-child. The conflict of interest wasn't disclosed until after the contracts were signed and the money paid.
What's worse, they completely ignored my advice in respect to how the company should be changing and growing to maintain its dominance of the market it had created.
As a result, 7am.com, which was once the world's most widely syndicated web-based news sercice, is now a no-name website that no longer even features on the Web rankings.
Its news content is no longer fresh, exciting and different. Its offerings are tired and old, there's no innovation, no energy, no value left.
Because it's been run into the ground, the investors have lent the company huge sums of money by way of "convertible notes."
This means that if the do manage to sell the company as a going-concern, they can convert those loans into shares and thus effectively dilute my shares to near-nothing. If however, they sell the company's assets, then they simply use the money to repay the notes (plus interest) -- effectively leaving nothing for the shareholders but an empty shell.
Whatever happens, it's not so much the loss of money and long-term income that hurts, it's the fact that a really terrific ser
Re:Sick of Cringely (Score:5, Insightful)