The first edition of Accidental Empires missed something pretty important — the Internet. Of course there wasn’t much of a commercial Internet in 1990. So I addressed it somewhat with the 1996 revised edition, the preface of which is below. Tomorrow we’ll go on to the original preface from 1990.
1996
In his novel Brighton Rock, Graham Greene’s protagonist, a cocky 14-year-old gang leader named Pinky, has his first sexual experience. Nervously undressing, Pinky is relieved when the girl doesn’t laugh at the sight of his adolescent body. I know exactly how Pinky felt.
When I finished writing this book five years ago, I had no idea how it would be received. Nothing quite like it had been written before. Books about the personal computer industry at that time either were mired in technobabble or described a gee-whiz culture in which there were no bad guys. In this book, there are bad guys. The book contained the total wisdom of my fifteen-plus years in the personal computer business. But what if I had no wisdom? What if I was wrong?
With this new edition, I can happily report that the verdict is in: for the most part, I was right. Hundreds of thousands of readers, many of whom work in the personal computer industry, have generally validated the material presented here. With the exception of an occasional typographical error and my stupid prediction that Bill Gates would not marry, what you are about to read is generally accepted as right on the money.
Not that everyone is happy with me. Certainly Bill Gates doesn’t like to be characterized as a megalomaniac, and Steve Jobs doesn’t like to be described as a sociopath, but that’s what they are. Trust me.
This new edition is prompted by a three-hour television miniseries based on the book and scheduled to play during 1996 in most of the English-speaking world. The production, which took a year to make, includes more than 120 hours of interviews with the really important people in this story—even the megalomaniacs and sociopaths. These interviews, too, confirmed many of the ideas I originally presented in the book, as well as providing material for the new chapters at the end.
What follows are the fifteen original chapters from the 1992 edition and a pair of new ones updating the story through early 1996.
So let the computer chips fall where they may.
So good so far. Will just need to add in mobile now, like internet was.
Second!!
My first computer was a Tandy lapper. I was 8 or 9. I remember filling the memory with one story.
I think the sociopath comment needs some more explanation. Perhaps Bob is using this definition “a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder . Perhaps he is referring to building upon the work of others without giving credit.
Building on the work of others without giving credit doesn’t qualify one as a sociopath.
What you say makes sense to me. That’s why I quoted the wiki, which doesn’t seem quite right, but may be what Bob meant when he called Steve Jobs a sociopath.
Excerpts from “The Gervais Principle” (http://bit.ly/g6ttt):
“The Sociopaths enter and exit organizations at will, at any stage, and do whatever it takes to come out on top. The contribute creativity in early stages of a organization’s life, neurotic leadership in the middle stages, and cold-bloodedness in the later stages, where they drive decisions like mergers, acquisitions and layoffs that others are too scared or too compassionate to drive. They are also the ones capable of equally impersonally exploiting a young idea for growth in the beginning, killing one good idea to concentrate resources on another at maturity, and milking an end-of-life idea through harvest-and-exit market strategies…
Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves.”
What a wonderful idea – reprinting the whole book, chapter by chapter, online – and inviting updates, additions, emendations, new wisdom.
I look forward to this delicious project!
All the tech/sillicon valley jokes in Accidental Empires made me snicker to myself behind my thick eyeglasses. After I finished it a few months ago I googled the author and came to this blog. It’s pretty cool Cringely is still actively talking about this stuff. Are there anymore books coming up? Perhaps with a focus on the rise of Social networks and/or mobile now?
I’m definitely looking forward to the new chapters.
I was able to get a copy of the book in hardcover (Third Printing, May 1992) shortly after seeing Triumph of the Nerds for the very first time. It’s the only copy of the book I’ve read, and several times, at that. It left an impression.
Is your phone number in the book still good? Do you think you’ll see an increase in phone call activity when you publish the chapter with it?
Calling someone is soo 90’s.
Haha. Yes, indeed. Perhaps that phone number now accepts text messages.
was there any problem with emails with part 2?
I received part 1 and part 3 …
Agree to this comment. Anyway, came here from the link provided in the blog.
BTW: this is enjoyable, I really like your book, can’t stop to say it on every issue.
Ditto (Anyone remember that super utility for IBM mainframes running DOS – the “real” OS, for IBM 360/370 computers, not a mere PC?)
I was there then, but can’t quite recall it.
There was a utility program for OS/360 called DEBE (Does Everything But Eat). I think DEBE could be run standalone.
Considering the history the original book covered, and what has come since, and what appears to be on the horizon, all I can think of is the famous line from All About Eve: “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”
A future without freakin’ software updates interrupting your day.
– that would be nice.
The *need* for better tools to certify software correctness are long overdue.
At the very least contractual APIs with failover code. (transactional)