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Back during the Watson hype our company had a partnership with another company who was betting big on Watson. So, I was loosely around to watch it unfold. It s

Back during the Watson hype our company had a partnership with another company who was betting big on Watson. So, I was loosely around to watch it unfold. It started off rosy, the CEO of the company we were partnered with had fully bought onto the hype train. Every meeting we had he couldn't help but mention Watson (by name). I tried to gently warn him that maybe, just maybe, he had fallen for the marketing hype and the idea wasn't going to be a blockbuster like he thought. It fell on deaf ears. Over the course of the next year or so, they pumped big $$$ into the project. Eventually, the project was quite delayed and over budget and the CEO stopped bringing it up. I asked about the status of that Watson thing and the look on his face said everything. Not long after the entire leadership team was shaken up.

hirako2000 3y ago
This story is a standard inside tech leadership discussions. I love how acknowledgment of misinvestments are always brushed off, thrown down into the abysses of managerial due to incompetence losses, with little to no written traces of what happened. that look in their eye is also a warning to not bring this up again.
jfengel 3y ago
We also found ourselves "competing" with Watson. Watson promised Big Improvements For Free, while we were up front that you put in work for easier time down the road. At least Watson was an unknown. We got mostly annoyed at other things where we could say "You already tried that and it didn't work, which is why you're talking to us". Even though they kept living in hope that something would turn big masses of noise into clean data with no effort. A decade later, they might actually be getting that. I'm skeptical, but at least it's a real thing.