Comments on: On The “Why Design Matters” Meme…

By: simon

simon — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 10:44:06 +0000

Absolutely. Zune, in particular, has not got off to a great start. Xbox is still losing money (especially with their latest $1B charge for hardware repairs).

By: Asam Bashir

Asam Bashir — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:55:33 +0000

With respect to the core business sure, not however with new business though, specifically Zune and Xbox strategy - even with the massive marketing machines behind them - have they made a profit yet or is it still being subsided by the declining core business?

By: simon

simon — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:59:51 +0000

Yes, the “design” problem definitely affects Microsoft. Although, Steve Ballmer is doing a good job with respect to the core business - Microsoft continues to grow both revenues and profits.

By: Asam Bashir

Asam Bashir — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:47:53 +0000

That is the problem of course with Microsoft. No matter how much talent they have it seems all their efforts are ruined by Steve Ballmer’s total lack of understanding of any principles of aesthetics and form. Once a double glazing salesman, always a double glazing salesman, when you factor in Ballmer, the probability goes off the wall.

By: Mr X

Mr X — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 13:49:22 +0000

Things are changing - in the past you’d interview for IBM with the silly 2 day offsite thing where you’d not meet any of the people you would actually be working with. How did you have any chance of choosing an environment where you’d fit in? The employee’s choice of the company was pretty random and so your stat’s applied. ( Note not the other way around as such selection techniques are not that discriminating between the good and the exceptional - you just had to be smart enough to work out that all that was required was to take charge of any discussion by asking other people what they think….)

Now the rules have changed - for lots of companies ( mostly tech and mostly American ) you can get a pretty good idea of what it’s like, and what the people are like before even applying.

This means a big advantage to those who project an exceptional image through exceptional people - potentially, it could polarize tech companies between those have and have nots in terms of talent.

Another side effect of the explosion in communication is like minded people can exchange ideas much more easily - but in terms of doing a start up as a group - going to college together or being at the same company still seems to dominate - probably reflecting the level of commitment such an undertaking requires.

Clearly the rot, or not, starts at the top - although not necessarily at the CEO level - some companies are actually not affected by the CEO - they are a bit like the early astronauts, they take all the credit but have nothing at all to do with the direction, or mission success - they are just along for the ride…..

By: simon

simon — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:56:04 +0000

Yes, the probability calculation assumes independence. I just wanted to make the “multiplication” point simply.

In a sense, the assumption is a “best-case, most-optimistic scenario”. As you say, the truth is that these things are often likely to be correlated, which makes the probability of success even lower. Another lesson is - better make sure you have a CEO that understands all the things that are genuinely critical to the success/survival of the business, ideally in the short, medium and long-terms…

By: Mr X

Mr X — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:18:37 +0000

Your probability calculation assumes independence between the chance of having a great design team and a great CEO. I’m not sure they are independent - ie good people like to work with good people - that’s why your get companies that are sooo… far ahead because talent attracts talent.

For example the “Bryan Cantrill’ of Dtrace fame joined Sun partly because of a conversation with Jeff Bonwicks one of the creators behind ZFS -
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here’s a quote:

“I wanted to do operating system development, and I interviewed everywhere,” Cantrill says. “The amount of energy at Sun was probably three orders of magnitude greater than any other place. All the other computer companies … their operating system development groups were like morgues, because operating system development was viewed as something of the past.”

Not so at Sun.

“I remember exactly where I was when this happened. It’s one of those moments in your life that is crystal clear in your memory. We were on Willow Road on the bridge over the 101. I was in the backseat of a blue minivan, talking to Jeff Bonwick (now a Distinguished Engineer at Sun, then an engineer in the operating system group) and sketching out some of these ideas. My question was, ‘Why is this impossible? I understand it must be impossible or you would have done it by now, but why is it impossible? What am I missing?’ And Jeff said, ‘Yeah, I think that would work.’

“It was clear to me at that moment that Sun was, particularly in operating system development, an environment where things were not thought to be impossible simply because they hadn’t been done before,” Cantrill continues.
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Lesson? Have your best people involved in interviews…..