How Software Companies Die (1995)

I was thinking about two stories that were in the Economist that I received today. (1) Hillary Clinton's defeat and (2) the concentration of profits in growth in a small number of companies.

The email story around Hillary Clinton has a lot to do with the general incompetence we see in IT in both the government and private sector. I think a lot of people, particularly older people, are resentful that IT is so important for business today so they don't take it seriously. You might think you are a librarian or banker or something like that and should be judged on that, but how well you make things happen with computers may be more important for your business than your tradition skills.

Similarly I think that that resentment prevents many businesses from getting the most benefit from IT. Leading companies are going full forward, but generally most places think "Amazon can do it right because it is big" rather than "Amazon is big because it does it right" and thus end up putting out substandard systems that damage their brand, demoralize employees, etc.