7 ms·

I've always wondered, how do some smart companies, or smart film directors, or smart musicians can fail so hard? I understand that, sometimes, it's a matter of

I've always wondered, how do some smart companies, or smart film directors, or smart musicians can fail so hard? I understand that, sometimes, it's a matter of someone abusing a project for personal gain. Some CEOs, workers just want to pitch, pocket the money, and move on, but the level of absurdity of some of the decisions made are counter-productive the 'get rich quick' scheme too. I think there are self perpetuating echo chamber self dellusions. Perhaps this is why an outside perspective can see the painfully obvious. This is probably why having some churn with the outside world, and also understanding what is the periphery of the outside, unbiased opinion is, is very important.

KerrAvon 1y ago
It doesn’t even have to be that negative. With the best intentions in the world, it’s rare to have a CEO who is fundamentally capable of understanding both the technology and the viable market applications of that technology. Steve Jobs didn’t manage to do it at NeXT.
- acroyear 1y ago
  NeXT was a failed rocket launch (analogous to early rocket failures within SpaceX). A great step forward and a necessary step in the evolution of the PC. I thought NeXT workstations were pretty bad-ass for their time and place. Recall that only 3 years prior to NeXT, was computers like the Atari ST .. what a vast difference!!
  - buescher 1y ago
    The original NeXT computer was a gorgeously sexy machine but slow compared to competitive workstations and considered very expensive for what it was at the time. It also didn't have the software ecosystem of a less expensive loaded PC or loaded Mac II. It's easy to look back with hindsight and rose-tinted glasses, squint a little, and see a macOS machine but it wouldn't be that for many years.
    - zozbot234 1y ago
      I mean, the NeXT, Atari ST and Mac computers around that time were all m68k-based... And the Atari ST was the cheapest by far, since it was competing in the home computer market.
      - buescher 1y ago
        The Atari ST and similar machines like the Amiga and compact Macintoshes other than the SE/30 were not its competition, any more than the Sega Genesis was. Its immediate competition included Sun and SGI workstations (as well as other workstations) and the Mac II series - and for specific tasks, loaded 386DX and 486DX PCs. Sun was pivoting at that time to the SPARC platform and SGI to the MIPS platform, both away from Motorola 68K.
        icedchai 1y ago
        There were some high end Ataris and Amigas (Atart TT 030, Amiga 3000, etc.) but they came out a bit later. There was even the A3000UX that ran a Unix port! Still, I agree. The 68K workstation was essentially obsolete by the time NeXT shipped. Sun was shipping early Sparc systems around the same time. The writing was on the wall. No wonder they didn't stick with their own hardware for very long.
        TheAmazingRace 1y ago
        Jon Rubenstein was said to have been cooking up a NeXT computer prototype based on Motorola 88k chips and would have been a serious contender in the workstation market, had it been realized sooner. Sadly, it ended up getting canceled right around the time NeXT became a software-only shop. Honestly, Motorola is entirely to blame for losing out on the workstation market. They iterated too slowly and never took Intel seriously enough. I say this as I wistfully eyeball the lonely 68060 CPU I have sitting on my desk for a future project...
        icedchai 1y ago
  - icedchai 1y ago
    Also remember the original NeXT workstation was incredibly expensive compared to the "consumer" 68K machines like the ST, Amiga, and even Mac. The cube was roughly $6500 at the time (late 80's money, close to $18K today!) The base system had a magneto optical disk and didn't even include a hard drive. The NeXT hardware was massively under powered for the software it ran. Other major workstation vendors like Sun were already moving to their own RISC hardware.
nikanj 1y ago
Essentially no organizations actually reward telling your superiors that they're wrong. You pretend to sip the kool-aid and work on your resume. If one or two high-ranking leaders are steering the ship to the rocks, there's basically nothing the rank-and-file can do
- igtztorrero 1y ago
  Who doth not answer to the rudder shall answer to the rock.
foobarian 1y ago
At some point organizations get taken over by the 9-5 crowd who just want to collect a paycheck and live a nice life. This also leads to the hard-driving talent to leave for more aggressive organizations, leaving behind a more average team. What leaders remain will come up with not so great ideas, and the rank and file will follow along because there won't be a critical mass of passionate thought leaders to find a better way. I don't mean to look down on this kind of group, I am probably one of them. There is nothing wrong with people enjoying a good work life balance at a decent paying job. However, I think there is a reality that if one wants a world-best company creating world-best products this is simply not good enough. Just like a team of weekend warriors would not be able to win the Superbowl (or even ever make it anywhere close to a NFL team) - which is perfectly fine! - the same way it's not fair to expect an average organization to perform world champion feats.
- keyringlight 1y ago
  I wonder if there will be a similar situation at nvidia, which apparently has a challenge with so many of their employees being rich as their stock has rocketed up in value, and then could cause concerns about motivation or if skilled and knowledgeable employees will leave.
  - iwontberude 1y ago
    I think many Nvidia employees will stick around because their new found wealth being at the biggest most important company in the world will give them insight about the market they invest in. I make an order of magnitude more day trading than as a software engineer at a Mag7 company and I stay employed for the access to they way modern businesses think. Companies like mine are an amalgamation of management and engineering from other Silicon Valley companies so the tribal knowledge gets spread around to my neck of the woods.
    - Demiurge 1y ago
      I don’t think that’s common
- 1y ago
bsder 1y ago
> This is probably why having some churn with the outside world, and also understanding what is the periphery of the outside, unbiased opinion is, is very important. Maximally efficient is minimally robust. Squeezing every penny out of something means optimizing perfectly for present conditions--no more, no less. As long as those conditions shift slowly, slight adjustments work. If those conditions shift suddenly though, death ensues.
- scrubs 1y ago
  Really love this point. Perfect optimization depends on maximal content knowledge which by construction we can only know what we know now.
- BeFlatXIII 1y ago
  The same is true for biological evolution. During times of rapid catastrophe, the biggest, baddest, and most intelligent are the first to die out because their caloric needs are unsustainable in the new environment. It’s the mediocre and adaptable who survive to restart the specialization process.

KerrAvon 1y ago

It doesn’t even have to be that negative. With the best intentions in the world, it’s rare to have a CEO who is fundamentally capable of understanding both the technology and the viable market applications of that technology. Steve Jobs didn’t manage to do it at NeXT.

acroyear 1y ago
NeXT was a failed rocket launch (analogous to early rocket failures within SpaceX). A great step forward and a necessary step in the evolution of the PC. I thought NeXT workstations were pretty bad-ass for their time and place. Recall that only 3 years prior to NeXT, was computers like the Atari ST .. what a vast difference!!
- buescher 1y ago
  The original NeXT computer was a gorgeously sexy machine but slow compared to competitive workstations and considered very expensive for what it was at the time. It also didn't have the software ecosystem of a less expensive loaded PC or loaded Mac II. It's easy to look back with hindsight and rose-tinted glasses, squint a little, and see a macOS machine but it wouldn't be that for many years.
  - zozbot234 1y ago
    I mean, the NeXT, Atari ST and Mac computers around that time were all m68k-based... And the Atari ST was the cheapest by far, since it was competing in the home computer market.
    - buescher 1y ago
      The Atari ST and similar machines like the Amiga and compact Macintoshes other than the SE/30 were not its competition, any more than the Sega Genesis was. Its immediate competition included Sun and SGI workstations (as well as other workstations) and the Mac II series - and for specific tasks, loaded 386DX and 486DX PCs. Sun was pivoting at that time to the SPARC platform and SGI to the MIPS platform, both away from Motorola 68K.
      - icedchai 1y ago
        There were some high end Ataris and Amigas (Atart TT 030, Amiga 3000, etc.) but they came out a bit later. There was even the A3000UX that ran a Unix port! Still, I agree. The 68K workstation was essentially obsolete by the time NeXT shipped. Sun was shipping early Sparc systems around the same time. The writing was on the wall. No wonder they didn't stick with their own hardware for very long.
        TheAmazingRace 1y ago
        Jon Rubenstein was said to have been cooking up a NeXT computer prototype based on Motorola 88k chips and would have been a serious contender in the workstation market, had it been realized sooner. Sadly, it ended up getting canceled right around the time NeXT became a software-only shop. Honestly, Motorola is entirely to blame for losing out on the workstation market. They iterated too slowly and never took Intel seriously enough. I say this as I wistfully eyeball the lonely 68060 CPU I have sitting on my desk for a future project...
        icedchai 1y ago
- icedchai 1y ago
  Also remember the original NeXT workstation was incredibly expensive compared to the "consumer" 68K machines like the ST, Amiga, and even Mac. The cube was roughly $6500 at the time (late 80's money, close to $18K today!) The base system had a magneto optical disk and didn't even include a hard drive. The NeXT hardware was massively under powered for the software it ran. Other major workstation vendors like Sun were already moving to their own RISC hardware.

nikanj 1y ago

Essentially no organizations actually reward telling your superiors that they're wrong. You pretend to sip the kool-aid and work on your resume. If one or two high-ranking leaders are steering the ship to the rocks, there's basically nothing the rank-and-file can do

igtztorrero 1y ago
Who doth not answer to the rudder shall answer to the rock.

foobarian 1y ago

At some point organizations get taken over by the 9-5 crowd who just want to collect a paycheck and live a nice life. This also leads to the hard-driving talent to leave for more aggressive organizations, leaving behind a more average team. What leaders remain will come up with not so great ideas, and the rank and file will follow along because there won't be a critical mass of passionate thought leaders to find a better way. I don't mean to look down on this kind of group, I am probably one of them. There is nothing wrong with people enjoying a good work life balance at a decent paying job. However, I think there is a reality that if one wants a world-best company creating world-best products this is simply not good enough. Just like a team of weekend warriors would not be able to win the Superbowl (or even ever make it anywhere close to a NFL team) - which is perfectly fine! - the same way it's not fair to expect an average organization to perform world champion feats.

keyringlight 1y ago
I wonder if there will be a similar situation at nvidia, which apparently has a challenge with so many of their employees being rich as their stock has rocketed up in value, and then could cause concerns about motivation or if skilled and knowledgeable employees will leave.
- iwontberude 1y ago
  I think many Nvidia employees will stick around because their new found wealth being at the biggest most important company in the world will give them insight about the market they invest in. I make an order of magnitude more day trading than as a software engineer at a Mag7 company and I stay employed for the access to they way modern businesses think. Companies like mine are an amalgamation of management and engineering from other Silicon Valley companies so the tribal knowledge gets spread around to my neck of the woods.
  - Demiurge 1y ago
    I don’t think that’s common
1y ago

bsder 1y ago

> This is probably why having some churn with the outside world, and also understanding what is the periphery of the outside, unbiased opinion is, is very important. Maximally efficient is minimally robust. Squeezing every penny out of something means optimizing perfectly for present conditions--no more, no less. As long as those conditions shift slowly, slight adjustments work. If those conditions shift suddenly though, death ensues.

scrubs 1y ago
Really love this point. Perfect optimization depends on maximal content knowledge which by construction we can only know what we know now.
BeFlatXIII 1y ago
The same is true for biological evolution. During times of rapid catastrophe, the biggest, baddest, and most intelligent are the first to die out because their caloric needs are unsustainable in the new environment. It’s the mediocre and adaptable who survive to restart the specialization process.