News and Analysis

The Letter Heard Round The World

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If you haven’t seen this bouncing around the internet, here you go: a very public letter of resignation from Goldman-Sachs from Greg Smith, one of their executive directors.  You can guess by the fact this is very public he wasn’t happy, and essentially sites a declining culture focused on quick profits over relationships and dehumanizing to clients.

So my guess is that you don’t feel you have to read it because you’re nodding vigorously.  Still, take the time to go through it.

I’ve followed some pushback, but most of it is assuming he was disgruntled – but few disgruntled people tell off a company that large (and to an extent an entire industry) over a low bonus or a lack of promotion.  If that was the case, we’d see a lot more of it.

Curious where Mr. Smith goes next and if this letter will produce any actions or penetrate further into public conciousness.  Certainly there’s concern over financial regulation – and I’m wondering just how badly he’s screwed Goldman-Sachs.

– Steven Savage

 

Really. Yahoo is suing Facebook

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No, I’m not kidding.  I’d heard rumors of this coming, but there you go.

It seems incredibly obvious with the timing (and past history) that this is an attempt to get a settlement out of Facebook to give them some cash.  However reactions I’ve seen across the net are mostly “what a load.”

For Facebook, well, they’ll weather this (they have other problems).  For Yahoo this looks incredibly pathetic (and a repeat of their suit against Google), and breaks a kind of unwritten rule among web companies of “don’t sue over this.”  They’re going to loose a lot of sympathy over this.

Also, frankly, the patents don’t seem to be very defendable because they’re rather general (though the linked analysis seems a bit off) and look like the kind of things Yahoo could sue enormous amounts of companies over.  Some good lawyers could probably take this thing apart fast.

This is humiliating for Yahoo, and smells of desperation to me – they’re resorting to patent trolling.  Sure they might win – or they might get smashed while everyone else looks on and applauds.  But they’re making a lot of people angry.

If they’re resorting to this level of action to raise money, I’m going to say take Yahoo OFF your to-work for list.  I think they may be in worse trouble than we thought.

– Steven Savage

– Steven Savage

Valve Made Money Via Free

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TechDirt has a great analysis of a larger analysis on Valve’s profitability, specifically how TF2 worked when it went free.  The major lessons are research, connecting with customers, make it so pay isn’t needed to play, and give people a good reason to buy (not a negative).  In short, it appears to be a giant  mass of common sense, which of course makes it rare and remarkable.

Well worth reading.

Also, what I’d add here is that Valve’s approaches are not based on adversity, they’re based on building alliances and providing value (as noted “piracy is a service problem.”).  This is a great model that is also common sense, but begs the question why common sense seems so alien today.  I’d argue that once companies get big enough to throw their weight around, and gain enough “age” to feel they’re fixtures, there’s a risk of abuse.

– Steven Savage