we do it not because it is easy, but because it is hard
-
Ron Beyer wrote:
Big companies don't take risks,
Of course they do. Matter of fact there are very large investment firms that do only that - venture capitalists. Larger companies just take risks that will not cripple their bottom line. Very small companies don't do that. Sometimes because they don't have a bottom line. And if they do then they often fail (statistically.)
-
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
I can't agree with the broad generality that big companies don't take risks. Yes, it's true in the hardware and software world that legacy support is a ball-and-chain around development; I do not believe from that you can assume that risks are not taken. In fact, large companies spend substantial amounts on R&D, and groups in large companies, like ATG at Microsoft, Google Labs, Apple Labs, are busy prototyping hardware and software whose "payout," if any, may be years off. The catch for mere-mortal developers is that to get a job as a developer in those groups at large companies you have to be a very remarkable programmer, and person ... as in "world class." And, there are serendipitous ways one can get in a position of being on the "cutting edge:" when the start-up I worked at in the late 1980's, Emerald City Software, in which I held the (ridiculous) title of "Director of PostScript Development" (perhaps the equivalent of being a Bolivian ... Bolivia is land-locked ... Admiral) was acquired by Adobe, John Warnock, deliberately, I believe, used us newcomers as "guerrillas" to create the prototype of what became Acrobat, having been very frustrated with trying to get his existing technology groups to deliver his vision. Now that "skunk works" project, which I nick-named, "Carousel," was fun and games galore, which included vicious assaults by other groups in the company, some of whom actually accused the four of us of trying to "destroy Adobe" :) High-risk, high-stress, insane deadlines, and no immediate glory. But, the moment we had a demo going where a NeXT machine, a Mac, and a PC, were all displaying the same richly-formatted document almost identically ... that moment was worth a lot. Are you willing to take the risk to make yourself a "great programmer" ? They don't call it the "bleeding edge" for nothing.
“But I don't want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can't help that,” said the Cat: “we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.” “How do you know I'm mad?” said Alice. “You must be," said the Cat, or you wouldn't have come here.” Lewis Carroll
-
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
There must be venture capitalists and romantic people founding companies like Ubuntu, but the rest are like you describe for a very good reason. They are controlled by managers who easily migrate from one company to another and thus think only about the bottom line. Even worse, they think only about the tomorrow bottom line at best.
-
very cool, however insane, wasn't there talk of a Tesla movie at one time...
-
Bergholt Stuttley Johnson wrote:
he certainly wasnt above using violence to make his point (read inforcing patents on items that didnt infringe them) he makes the Apple/Samsung tiff look like a couple of friends having a quiet chat
Except your point is in fact ignoring the rest of history for that period. Edison worked in the culture that existed then. You don't get to rewrite history by imposing current morals, laws and regulations that exist now on someone in the past and claim that they were somehow "bad". Under that criteria Edison doesn't even rank because there were vastly more vicious acts of all sort happening all over the place in various cultures during that time.
whilst I agree that you should put modern morals on historic events you should also not accept propergander as being truth, sending thugs round to beat you up and destroy your business just because you use film equipment not approved by you, was wrong then and still is. He used bully boy tactics in court and when that didnt work he used them in the real world, these were imoral then and imoral now.
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
"trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks " Now that seems to me like a bit of introspection is in order. The statement to me reads something like this "I am disappointed that there are no companies out there willing to go out on a limb whilst still offering me a risk free salary" To me there seems to be something fundamentally wrong with that statement, I just can't place my finger on it ....
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. ~ Albert Einstein
-
Not really, no one wants to be the odd one out. Mind you I'm more a Tesla fan! :-O
Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine. Indeed.
"Whereas smaller computer languages have features designed into them, C++ is unusual in having a whole swathe of functionality discovered, like a tract of 19th century Africa." -- Verity Stob http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/05/cplusplus\_cli/
-
Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine. Indeed.
"Whereas smaller computer languages have features designed into them, C++ is unusual in having a whole swathe of functionality discovered, like a tract of 19th century Africa." -- Verity Stob http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/05/cplusplus\_cli/
Indeed, the history is written by the victor:~
-
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
Yes, you're wrong. I work for one. But privacy issues prevent me from naming it publicly.
-
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
It is possible to dare, despite the fact that you work for invertebrates. My product emphasizes usability, even though everyone else's response to a 'situation' is "just pop up a dialog". This is for a machine that is printing on paper at 17 feet per second. I persist everything in human-readable XML files, even though everyone else thinks comma-separated values are "good enough". I use C# and WPF. 'Nuff said.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
I have to agree. My career ranged over 40+ years, and the only company where I worked that did anything creative was a mid sized one (approx 500 employees) that was still controlled by the original founder. Neither the lawyers, nor the accountants ran the company. He (the founder) had both lawyers and accountants to tell him HOW to do what he wanted, not tell him why he couldn't do it. He knew his industry inside and out, and had a knack for identifying what products would be needed in a couple of years, not what his competitors had today. In that company, not trying was the sin. Failing was OK, as long as there weren't too many failures. I remember a story about the development of the Boeing 747 where Bill Boeing and Juan Tripp (CEO of Pan-Am) essentially bet their companies on the 747 airplane, and that plane turned out to be one of the most successful planes. Much later, after Boeing had passed away, some executive at Boeing said with some pride, that that could never happen today (too many checks and balances in place). Most likely the only places where you can find the leading edge product development you're seeking is in very small start-ups, where the founders are actively engaged and everyone shares "the vision". My two cents worth.
volee1968
-
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
Companies taking such risks are not hiring people who get paid... These ideas start with people who are not working to feed their families. I disagree, I see it all of the time. I was just helping someone (for free) do some web work to help their company take money from dwolla. The setup... He does not have to work, but he is starting a company "in his garage", that some day may make a lot of people good money (and him rich, again)... Keep in mind. It was Edison, who promised Tesla a big bonus if he increased the efficiency of his motors, and then told him ~"No. I was joking. I am not paying you." So, keep in mind, you might get what you are looking for. I have been there, too. So, the ones doing what you describe, are not marketing, and usually don't have a big budget to hire people with great skills. They need some level of VC money to start hiring. Otherwise, go check out some of the incubators that might be in your area.
-
"trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks " Now that seems to me like a bit of introspection is in order. The statement to me reads something like this "I am disappointed that there are no companies out there willing to go out on a limb whilst still offering me a risk free salary" To me there seems to be something fundamentally wrong with that statement, I just can't place my finger on it ....
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. ~ Albert Einstein
Right on.
-
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
As an academic (in areas of science) I have a very similar experience about research in universities - the people who hold the reins (grant providers) want guaranteed results, so everyone does the easier stuff. Still, things can progress slowly, step by step, in this manner. However, like you I find such approaches largely uninspiring and I wonder whether progress overall is being slowed, since historically leaps and bounds were very important. Money never drives innovation, though it is a necessary ingredient it often holds innovation back.
-
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
J Julian wrote:
trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon... there is no companies like this anymore
They exist. They're called startups. Once people start depending on the company for a paycheck, that kind of risky behavior must stop. You're looking for a company trying to invent a new technology.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
-
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
-
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
Your points are well taken. There's the other side to it too - when we say "companies", we shouldn't forget that that means "people". Every company starts with some individual person, or a partnership of persons. Some no doubt are interested in just a bottom line - and that's not such a bad thing itself - but many begin businesses because they have a passion to move an interest forward and see it take on its own life, and are willing to take personal & financial risks to do so. When things fail in a business, those taking the risks must deal with the consequences. Sure, an employee of a company that fails may lose a job, and that's not something to dismiss. But that employee certainly can pursue another job with a different organization. The business owner though - that individual may very well have risked his or her life savings, a house, future retirement security, reasonable health care to establish the capital to create the company. Failure in the company means something entirely different for that individual that took the risk. This shouldn't be dismissed either. If a company is nervous about taking risks and shooting for the moon, understand it comes down to another person, such as yourself, who has to deal at a very different level with the consequences of potential failure. I started a small business a couple of years ago. The experience so far has been fascinating to me, particularly in expanding my own perspective about what it means to accept financial risk in the pursuit of a passion.
-
I was listening to talk radio this morning and the monologue hit a sore point with me. They were talking about the words to songs like "Impossible dream" and "I did it my way". They were talking about making a difference and chasing the impossible dream. This got me to thinking. I realized I've spent the last 25 or so years trying to find a company to work for that was willing to take risks and shoot for the moon. I realize that I haven't been able to find any. I haven't found a company like Edison that was willing to fail numerous times for that chance at one success. Willing to take a chance at shooting the moon, because it is too risky. We have no one that would be willing to try to land on the moon today. And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money. Am I wrong here? Are there companies that are willing to take these kind of risks? Maybe I'm just too cynical in my years. -- J Julian
J Julian wrote:
And I realized that the reason there is no companies like this anymore, is that they only worry about the bottom line. They no longer care to challenge or make a real difference. Only make more money.
Boy, you nailed that one on the head. Companies like you describe do exist ... well, at least I know of one: Me. I have always just developed stuff because I thought it would be useful and I enjoy coding. Have several things developed but it just hasn't become about money yet. What's funny is that I've become SME (after many years of working with it) to a product that will eventually be phased out but, in the meantime is paying me pretty well. You might say I hit the "mother lode" with that one but as for products I've developed myself, maybe one will catch fire someday, or not. Still like making them, though. :-) If you want to see one of them: http://www.simplesoftwarebydesign.com
-
now there was a genius, mad as a box of frogs, but still a genius
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
Bergholt Stuttley Johnson wrote:
mad as a box of frogs
Interesting, I never thought frogs had the intelligence to go insane or to get angry. They do have enough to sense danger and try to get away from it. (One will NOT sit quietly in a pot of water while you heat it up, instead it gets some urgency in its attempts to leave the pot.) Wow, I'd forgotten how cruel I could be in the name of science when I was a kid. By the way, when they get out of the box, do they retain their insanity?
-
whilst I agree that you should put modern morals on historic events you should also not accept propergander as being truth, sending thugs round to beat you up and destroy your business just because you use film equipment not approved by you, was wrong then and still is. He used bully boy tactics in court and when that didnt work he used them in the real world, these were imoral then and imoral now.
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.