I’ve said it God knows how many times: nothing fails like success.
And nothing in my lifetime has succeeded so fast and so utterly as the internet.
We have spent days, if not weeks, moving a server from windows to linux.
And no petty obstacle has been left unplaced in our path to stop us doing so.
What has happened is that a few smart people got in on the ground floor when the internet got going and made millions or even billions, sometimes deservedly, often not.
Then they lost interest, and employed platoons of underlings – the sort who used to get jobs as counter clerks in post offices, but without the ability to read and write – to run things.
One problem is, too many people who succeed never realise how much of it was due to luck. Another is that the qualities it takes to build something are often not much good at employing or managing large numbers in a big organisation.
It happened with Microsoft. It’s happening with Google. Yahoo clearly llost the plot years ago. Unless an astonishing person like Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffet stays there and has that rare, grounded sense of the real it always happens.
Mind you, I’m not saying I’d do any better.
Incidentally, have you been watching the hysterically funny campaign from the Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest. Essentially all it says is “we’re going to try and do a proper job”.
e
