day 5

the parable of an innovator 2

In our last episode, our hearts went out to the five widows of Tom Mix, who was looking for Las Vegas but wound up dead as an Intel 486 after the debut of the Pentium chip. Instead. Tom never made it to the promised land. The Parable of an Innovator is Tom Mix's story, and it is the story of so many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Why? Because Tom and the wheeler-dealers of Sunnyvale are pioneers in a new industry. He and his computer industry cousins are both innovators and risk takers. Tom would probably be at home with many of the computer entrepreneurs that hang out at Dinah's Restaurant in Palo Alto. Like so many of the early Silicon Valley companies, Tom's company lacked the expertise needed to run a business. His wild west show was partially successful even after his movie career crashed, but he could never make anything last very long. Like Tom Mix, many computer industry executives would make better cowboys than executives. Yes, I am talking about Apple Computer. Like Tom Mix, Apple invented its own persona. It CREATED the personal computer industry. Then it drove its fancy car into the arroyo. [IBM, Microsoft, Compaq, and the other accidental tourists of the PC business are mere copiers - not creators. Without Apple, we would still be using a VT100 terminal connected to a VAX]. And also like Tom Mix, Apple is bent on its own destruction. Its drunken binge from 1984 until 1995 has firmly established it as the company with the worst business judgment in Silicon Valley. After years of mismanagement by a string of incompetent leaders Apple still hasn't gotten the picture - they never understood the difference between growing an industry versus growing a company. Apple is confused, thinking the Macintosh was THE industry, but handling it as a point product. Sure, the Mac could have been a contender for the champion of an entire industry, but the quarterbacks at Apple fumbled the ball so many times that even overtime play will not put them back on the scoreboard. What went wrong?

parable of an innovator: 1 2 3 4 5 Daily Dose Index