Tuesday, 4 February 2003 8:30 am
I'm sick as a dog with the flu today, so I won't write much of an article.  Instead, I will let others do the talking by referring you to a good discussion over on zdnet about one of my favorite topics: the decline of real innovation in high tech.  Charles Cooper's article is worth reading, but even more worth browsing is the feedback his article solicited.  Here is one response by David White:

"Several years ago I worked for a small software company. It was a great place to work with a happy relaxed atmosphere. We were doing really well with our product and having a blast as a company, and we were profitable. Then one day somebody got the great Idea of going public. Oh look at all the money we can make they said, oh look at all the stock options they said. Oh s#@% I said LOL.

"Sure enough we went public, got this new CEO up there running things. Next thing I know they start putting locks on the doors and we are wearing badges. The relaxed happy atmosphere turns in to a tense stressed atmosphere. They hire a pile of sales people and “vice presidents”. Then the lay offs start, only a few people, just cleaning out the slackers they say. Then they change the biz plan every quarterly meeting and have some more lay offs (oh but this is the last one they say). It’s at that point I realized they had no plan; it was just a marketing scheme to make the stock holders think they are doing something. I finally got nailed on the 5th lay off. I just talked to a buddy of mine yesterday who still works there; he was out drinking with the latest group of lay offs. All lower rung people as always. The stock is at $1.30; we went public at $8, so much for those options. From what I read the other day the CEO is still making 1 million a year though. Well, At least somebody getting rich right?

"Personally, I think the problem is they get too concerned about stockholders and forget about the very thing that is making them the money. The products, the people who create it, support it, and care about it. You kill the moral, and fire the people who know anything, all you’re left with is a house with no foundation."

This introduces another theme that I had not explored to date on what is killing innovation in the high tech industry: greed.  Not the type of greed that motivates people to work harder, but the the "killing the goose that laid the gold egg" type of greed.  Certainly this has played a major role in the decline of high tech.  Can we put the slaughtered goose back together again?  Probably not. Our only hope is to incubate and hatch a new one which, once mature, will lay the golden eggs again.