3 ms·
Many of the American tech titans of past years are fading (see IBM, Kodak, Xerox). I wonder how much of this is due to the "cult of the MBA", which focuses on
by mr_overalls 9y ago
Many of the American tech titans of past years are fading (see IBM, Kodak, Xerox).
I wonder how much of this is due to the "cult of the MBA", which focuses on short-term optimization of shareholder benefit, rather than long-term thinking, true innovation, etc.
- johan_larson 9y agoI think it has more to do with the difficulty of responding to market changes. If you are running a successful company that dominates a particular market, it is HARD to make big changes, even if you foresee that the market is going to change under you. DEC was a great minicomputer company. But it just couldn't make the change to the microcomputer era, despite formidable management and technical expertise. Kodak was making all kinds of crazy money from film and photo paper, which made them really slow on the draw when the market shifted under them and moved to digital photography.
- craftyguy 9y agoIt's both. Kodak was slow on the draw because making the big investments early on to move to digital photography would have pissed off shareholders who would percieve the move as a drain on the coffers and hurting 'Kodak's bottom line'. You can see this with other companies today (IBM, Intel, Microsoft, etc) that are struggling to stay relevant in areas where they have not traditionally been, they don't have the stomach to make the long term investments early enough, and if they do, they don't stick with them long enough.