https://www.thelayoff.com/bose
"I was with Bose for 13 years, and some of the poor decisions the company made, paved the way for where it is now.
The surround sound TV. When this was announced myself and quite a few coworkers were in shock at this decision. TV technology changes almost every year and to think that consumers would buy a 5k 42” TV, just showed the lack of market knowledge. I was standing next to my manager during this announcement and told him this was a mistake. He didn’t agree. When it was finally announced that we’re not going to make or sell them, I believe the total number sold was 5.
Building a manufacturing facility in Malaysia. This was the worst decision ever. When this was announced I told 3 of my closest buddies that in less than 5 years we would sell it. We should’ve outsourced the work to one of the many CM’s in Malaysia instead of spending millions on building a facility from scratch. And no I’m not playing Monday morning QB. More people felt the same way but were afraid to talk because it meant that the leadership didn’t know what they were doing.
And here’s another example of money being wasted. The extra +/- 100k (not sure on the exact figure anymore) given to the architect to make our logo resemble a dragon. When this was presented, everyone in the conference room looked at each other in disbelief and started laughing. Every time I and many others visited the facility, the joke was “did you see the dragon yet?”
The millions spend on this facility could have been used in R&D and market analysis."
"I was with Bose for 13 years, and some of the poor decisions the company made, paved the way for where it is now.
The surround sound TV. When this was announced myself and quite a few coworkers were in shock at this decision. TV technology changes almost every year and to think that consumers would buy a 5k 42” TV, just showed the lack of market knowledge. I was standing next to my manager during this announcement and told him this was a mistake. He didn’t agree. When it was finally announced that we’re not going to make or sell them, I believe the total number sold was 5.
Building a manufacturing facility in Malaysia. This was the worst decision ever. When this was announced I told 3 of my closest buddies that in less than 5 years we would sell it. We should’ve outsourced the work to one of the many CM’s in Malaysia instead of spending millions on building a facility from scratch. And no I’m not playing Monday morning QB. More people felt the same way but were afraid to talk because it meant that the leadership didn’t know what they were doing.
And here’s another example of money being wasted. The extra +/- 100k (not sure on the exact figure anymore) given to the architect to make our logo resemble a dragon. When this was presented, everyone in the conference room looked at each other in disbelief and started laughing. Every time I and many others visited the facility, the joke was “did you see the dragon yet?”
The millions spend on this facility could have been used in R&D and market analysis."
Meh, standard corporate stupidity. That's why the C levels get paid the big bucks...sigh...
A good friend rang today and said he had a new job. He changed because he worked for a smallish company that seemed caught up in foolish decisions like these. The new employer is about the same size, but when he offered up a simple idea for improvement his new boss was right on board with a (paraphrasing) "why didn't I think of that?". Businesses that encourage all employees to give input, and listen will usually be successful, and dynamic.
Top-down mentality triggers me.
Everyone is doing their jobs, someone trying to "lord it" over me will get their reply in full. I can respect "stuff has to get done", but that goes both ways.
We have a "high ceiling" as we call it, everyone speak their minds freely and it works well. Most companies are more strict about roles and that crap but are frequently over-the-top top-heavy...
If you're getting dirt under your fingernails it means you're generating value, if the management fails to understand that then something is wrong.
Everyone is doing their jobs, someone trying to "lord it" over me will get their reply in full. I can respect "stuff has to get done", but that goes both ways.
We have a "high ceiling" as we call it, everyone speak their minds freely and it works well. Most companies are more strict about roles and that crap but are frequently over-the-top top-heavy...
If you're getting dirt under your fingernails it means you're generating value, if the management fails to understand that then something is wrong.
I can relate having been the victim of some poor corporate decisions myself. But I'm retired now so I don't care much anymore. A long time ago I noticed that companies come and go but the staff are your old friends. We were told that as geeks, we didn't understand the customer. Partly true, but Marketing people do not understand the possibilities and limitations. Then there is the money thing. I'm cheap because I was never paid terribly well. It amazes me what ordinary people pay for a smart phone etc, when they do not understand the features that they are paying for. And there are institutional customers who pay millions for good stuff, but hardly worth what they pay. Huge profits are hard to argue with. I suppose they are paying for confidence. I once had a hard time explaining why buying 10Meg hard drive was not a long-term plan. I sabotaged a project once by showing how to do it with a couple lines of code. But then people expect miracles and don't understand the limitations. I think good technology management requires a team that includes some engineers who are on top of the current technology and its direction. Steve Jobs was important, but Wozniak was the real key to success. Bill Gates was a success because he could write code himself.
Re: Bill Gates. Long before he turned into one of the world's wealthiest, er, entities 😈 and doing all manner of curious "philanthropic" things promoting "world health" with his money (but all that's a story best told by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and perhaps others 😕)...there was a tiny company named Microsoft. I'm talking about the 1970s. Now, I confess all my knowledge comes from early magazines like the long-gone Creative Computing. I believe you're right about Gates. Sometimes today I see people disparage him as not being technically proficient. But, at least according to articles I read when I was in high school and the Commodore PET was the cool kid on the block, and there was that funny black and white computer from Radio Shack, and some new company named Apple had a cool computer you could hook to a color TV, Microsoft Basic was one of the highest quality BASICs available for "microcomputers." Rumor had it that Gates coded with great skill. Perhaps that is why Microsoft BASIC was found in nearly all of the early consumer PCs, including the IBM PC.
I got into computers at a SUPER YOUNG age. Got started with a VIC-20 when I was seven years old. When I was eight or nine years old, we had a teacher who was hired to show us "how computers work." I could tell she didn't know much about computers and I ended up helping her out a lot. In hindsight, it would be really bizarre to see an eight year old helping the teacher run the class.
The book "Outliers" makes a fairly compelling case that Gates had a leg up on his competition because he had access to distributed systems. I have a friend who works at Amazon who has a story that's similar to Bill Gates. Basically, Boeing had discarded some computer that cost something like $100K in 1975 and his Dad worked out a deal to keep it, and so my friend had a PDP-11 running in his garage(!)
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mrvuLFTRlVA/maxresdefault.jpg
With access to hardware like that, and some motivation, my friend would certainly have a heck of a headstart against anyone in his CompSci classes.
Another weird example of this:
I went to college in an absolutely crummy part of the country, but my college had a Cray Supercomputer and some IBM AIX machines. I've always preferred Windows to UNIX, but my teachers forced me to learn UNIX. In my 20s I was doing super-basic I.T. work, like fixing printers that were jammed and replacing bad hard disks in an office setting. Then someone in the corporate office happened to do a keyword scan on every resume of every employee in the I.T. department, and learned that I knew UNIX. They instantly promoted me, basically doubling my salary and giving me responsibility for systems that were used by over ten million retail customers at once.
I think it's random stuff like this that led to things like Bill Gates getting the contract to write Basic for the Commodore 64:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_BASIC
He was 22.
The book "Outliers" makes a fairly compelling case that Gates had a leg up on his competition because he had access to distributed systems. I have a friend who works at Amazon who has a story that's similar to Bill Gates. Basically, Boeing had discarded some computer that cost something like $100K in 1975 and his Dad worked out a deal to keep it, and so my friend had a PDP-11 running in his garage(!)
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mrvuLFTRlVA/maxresdefault.jpg
With access to hardware like that, and some motivation, my friend would certainly have a heck of a headstart against anyone in his CompSci classes.
Another weird example of this:
I went to college in an absolutely crummy part of the country, but my college had a Cray Supercomputer and some IBM AIX machines. I've always preferred Windows to UNIX, but my teachers forced me to learn UNIX. In my 20s I was doing super-basic I.T. work, like fixing printers that were jammed and replacing bad hard disks in an office setting. Then someone in the corporate office happened to do a keyword scan on every resume of every employee in the I.T. department, and learned that I knew UNIX. They instantly promoted me, basically doubling my salary and giving me responsibility for systems that were used by over ten million retail customers at once.
I think it's random stuff like this that led to things like Bill Gates getting the contract to write Basic for the Commodore 64:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_BASIC
He was 22.
I worked for a modem business in 1981.
They got all sorts of grants to keep the business going.
But the items designed, built and sold werent big sellers.
The boss was very much a control freak and when a new batch of recruits were brought in my job was given to one of them and I was put back on testing.
The bloke said he couldnt do my job so I was given it back !
Then they brought in a new top hardware engineer.
Again I was put on to test so I left.
A day later the businesses accountant knocked on my door asking me to go back.
Apparently by boss didnt know it was me who was going to be writing the software for their new device !
So I wrote the basic software for it and when it came to the last bit I left leaving them to finish it off.
They went bust 3 months later.
They got all sorts of grants to keep the business going.
But the items designed, built and sold werent big sellers.
The boss was very much a control freak and when a new batch of recruits were brought in my job was given to one of them and I was put back on testing.
The bloke said he couldnt do my job so I was given it back !
Then they brought in a new top hardware engineer.
Again I was put on to test so I left.
A day later the businesses accountant knocked on my door asking me to go back.
Apparently by boss didnt know it was me who was going to be writing the software for their new device !
So I wrote the basic software for it and when it came to the last bit I left leaving them to finish it off.
They went bust 3 months later.
OS2 had a lot of potential. A shame it withered.
I was also in modem design in 1981. We had a lot of success though... 🙂
I was also in modem design in 1981. We had a lot of success though... 🙂
I worked at Tivoli and I liked OS/2, but IBM's Lotus Notes was no bueno.
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When I was in school, I was rooting for the Motorola 6800 while others were studying the 8080...I picked the wrong horse. One day we were all to bring our computers to class that we had at home, I had my Commodore 64, someone brought his SX-64, cool-*** machine. A buddy of mine bought the new IBM personal computer (1984), we spent lots of time just getting it up & running...the little flashing cursor, "Now what?" stupid us, no built-in software...no operating system.
I grew to not like computers....I loved the microwave lab though...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rick...
I grew to not like computers....I loved the microwave lab though...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rick...