Hearted Youtube comments on Asianometry (@Asianometry) channel.
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I worked for Wang Labs at corporate headquarters ("The Towers...") for 8 years, first as a product manager for several software communications products and then as part of the marketing team for the Americas/Asia/Pacific region (China, Aus, NZ, Latin America, Canada). I joined in 1984 when the company was on a growth tear, profitable, and almost 32,000 employees and about $3B in revenue (and note that $3B was worth a lot more back then); I stayed until 1992, when the company declared Chapter 11, revenue dropped to about $1B, and 20k employees were laid off. I learned a tremendous amount at the company, travelled extensively (25+ countries), and not once ever thought we would fail, in spite of profitability, revenue, and product issues toward the end. Comments below lay blame on both Dr. Wang and on Fred (which are valid: Fred was not ready to take over the company, other senior managers (Cunningham, for example) saw no future for themselves and left, and the Doctor was unable to see beyond the end of the VS and the mini-computer). However, remember that several other companies - many of them based in Massachusetts - were also laid low by the rise of the personal computer, including DEC, Prime, and Data General.
I spent 40 years in the tech industry, the last 16 as a tech industry analyst (Gartner and a couple others). I have been with companies that have gone Chapter 11 (Wang), run out of cash and closed the doors, gone public, been acquired, or have gone through massive downsizing. Tech is not for the faint of heart, but I can honestly say in 40 years I was never once bored.
For readers who are newer to the tech industry, let me leave you with a couple thoughts on why the lessons of the ancient past (in tech, 1982 is ancient history) are still relevant:
.If you think what happened to Wang can't happen to you or your company, you are wrong. Change always happens, and in tech it happens fast. (social media companies, I am looking at you).
.The future is rarely predictable. Hard to realize today, but the idea of replacing typewriters, paper, and administrative assistants with computers was once radical.
.The tech industry is a roller coaster. To survive you need a strong stomach and a healthy amount of stamina. And luck is a large part of it, right next to innovation and hard work. Anyone who hits it big and tries to tell you they didn't get lucky is fooling themselves.
Great story by Asianometry, thanks for making this happen.
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