5 ms·
His story of the beginnings of Autodesk (“The Autodesk File”) is very interesting and contains a number of lessons: https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/ https://w
by gregw2 3y ago
His story of the beginnings of Autodesk (“The Autodesk File”) is very interesting and contains a number of lessons:
https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/
- xtracto 3y agoThis snippet is amazing and hilarious at the same time: >The game has changed. In 1977 this business was fun—the sellers and buyers were hotshot techies like ourselves, everybody spoke the same language and knew what was going on, and technical excellence was recognised and rewarded. Today, the microcomputer industry is run by middle manager types who know far more about P/L statements than they do RAM organization. They are the people who determine whether you succeed or fail, and their evaluations are seldom based on technical qualities. Hence, the first thing any venture in this field has to be is businesslike. I felt that way in the early 90s with PCs programming and late 90's with the Internet. Once the "suits" take over, things get boring for us techies.
- dylan604 3y agoIt's like that saying, "nobody goes there any more. it's too crowded"
- dcminter 3y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra#%22Yogi-isms%22 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra#%22Yogi-isms%22
- foofie 3y ago> Once the "suits" take over, things get boring for us techies. To be fair, "suits" are a sign of success and growth. Once your company is large enough to be just a single team, and starts requiring too much time to keep track of all things happening and what each employee thinks and does, managing becomes a dedicated job and delegating management requires dedicated managers. Also, I think that point of view is through rose-colored glasses. One circle of hell is comprised of being managed by an awkward antisocial techie.
- MetalGuru 3y agoAlthough rare, there are managers who are both technically competent and good at managing people (disparate skillsets). I think a manager who knows nothing about tech is often as destructive as a technical manager who's bad at people management. There just seems to be more of the former
- Brian_K_White 3y agoI would say that if someone is supposedly good at people or managing, but bad at tech and therefore bad at managing tech, then they are not good at people or managing.
- lukan 3y ago"One circle of hell is comprised of being managed by an awkward antisocial techie." And heaven is, competent techies, who know and trust each other and know the mission - and need not being managed.
- docmars 3y agoRight? Do passionate hobbiests really need non-tech managers if they're successful?
- johnnyanmac 3y agoRose or not. The current future of suits letting go of valuable talent to get a 0.2% higher quarterly earnings statement sure doesn't appeal to me. At least if some power hungry techy rants at me there's usually some technical fault I made instead of simply being a pawn on the board. There's nothing to learn or reflect on in a layoff.
- Ccecil 3y agoThis is very much how I feel about the RepRap/3d printing community. Must be a common pattern in tech.
- evaneykelen 3y agoI've read it at least twice over the years and its descriptions of hard-learned lessons, sales tactics, product decisions, hiring, management structures, internationalization, funding, dealing with partnerships, and chasing and reaching break-even are very much applicable to today's startups. Some paragraphs in the book even sound like PG whispered advice in John's ear but obviously the rise of Autodesk predates YC by decades.
- jdougan 3y agoI'd say the odds are good PG had read it. It has been on the Web since the mid 90s.
- evaneykelen 3y agoYou noticed my insinuation :-)