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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Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine. -- Andy Warhol
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: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.
not really new (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing New-Arms race. (Score:1, Interesting)
Our society lost this battle a long time ago, because we've stopped teaching right and wrong. And started teaching "what's in it for me?", and "what can I get away with?".
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, 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 skill.
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 car accident was at fault. Like here, I only got one side of the story.
Have I made my point?
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: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-
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.
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, 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 on what your view of MS is. At that point, it'll boil down to your own experiences with their various products and biases.
Long story short, niether of you will arrive at an agreement. Microsoft simply has a track record of doing numerous good and bad things. People who hate Microsoft remember Windows 95, people who don't hate Microsoft (note: they don't necessarily have to like them) will remember Windows 2000.
Re:What? (Score:4, Interesting)
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 person had reasonable credit, 2) they had an income, and (this is the big one) 3) the debt had to be over $3000! There was a little flexibility there, but basically if you owe $2000 and don't pay it, all you have to do is wait seven years.
Obviously that example is pretty specific, but "barely legal" tactics are everywhere. I would guess that it's even worse in big companies... But cheating is a way of life. You may not be cheating, but you are probably being cheated by someone somewhere!
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: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:Concurrent Invention (Score:2, Interesting)
Marconi did not invent radio transmission either. There were several other who used it long before he did, including Nikola Tesla (amazing guy, got screwed over by lots of people. Go read "The Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century-Robert Lomas, Headline" ISBN#0-7472-7588-2 ). Marconi simply had the best press conference.
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
Tech & business - and software vs. hardware (Score:2, Interesting)
Depending on your business, the answer may or may not involve crushing your rivals. A company like Johnson & Johnson, with most of its revenue coming from drug patents(in addition to the other diverse health care needs like shampoo and whatnot), is going to stay ahead by getting new patents through R&D. A company like Wal-Mart, on the other hand, cannot win on the quality of its retail operations alone, since there will always be specialized businesses that can beat the "superstore" concept for price, quality, or service in any one area. So it runs the competition out of town by losing money on a store for some time, and then enjoys the advantages of monopoly by overpricing and using the money to continue its expansion.
So why is tech a business where the most successful companies have to work like Wal-Mart?
In tech, unlike with pharmecuticals, the comparative lack of patenting makes it extremely difficult to maintain the moat. In effect, anything new quickly turns into a "commodity item," especially with software ideas. And products are hard to sell to consumers through the qualities of efficency, stability or security. This encourages almost all software for the end-user to be fairly bloated and unwieldy, because the alterative is to let the competition have more features and look better. And in turn, everyone has to re-invent the wheel for their own product; very wasteful and costly. This encourages evil strategies.
This is also why open-source has had great success - the amount of specialized training and materials needed for a software project to succeed is quite small; one talented programmer and his computer will often do. In addition, successive projects build on the old ones, so even if people on
In turn, it may happen that the business of software will actually shrink, replacing the old closed-source model with an open-source one. Development funding and jobs would then come from service-oriented enterprises and public entities, instead of companies solely focused on having the dominant product in their field.
In other tech industries it's slightly less clear, since they tend to deal with projects requiring a fairly large materials and infrastructure investment. They do not face the problem of easily being challenged by an small upstart. Thus their business strategy is likely to be less dirty and more benefical in a social sense. Their major problem is not one of retaining a dominant product that can be revised - it is of bringing out a new dominant product with each new business cycle. Since their competition usually can't be seen until it clobbers them at retail, dirty tactics are much harder to enact. For example, 3d cards - each generation has brought a slightly different competitive mix, with winners of one cycle suddenly disappearing in the next, though recently it seems to have settled between ATI and Nvidia.
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.
Re:Oh, for the love of... (Score:3, Interesting)
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 downplaying the impact to others? People justify stealing music by saying that the artist really wouldn't have gained much from the sale of the album, or extortion by saying that ripping off a company is different than ripping off another person.
Religion "works" by making people afraid to act because they fear damnation. Having a sense of morality allows one to realize that their actions can and do affect society, and prepares one to "do the right thing" because they care for the good of their culture and society.
A sense of morality also doesn't depend on the belief that some mythical guy in the clouds cares what goes on down here.