Comments on: What to do when the executive has no clothes

Technology executives are notorious for not suffering fools lightly. But what happens when they're the fools?

[benjwah]

I'd file the MP3 player under "wipeout from time to time" - It's not gonna sink the company and it's a risk but in the (almost inconceivable) scenario that they became a half-decent player in the market, that very same executive will be paraded through the streets of Dell town for all the villagers to praise.
My money however, would be on a somehow simultaneous quick AND slow death. Like a car crash, it happens in an instant, but it will seem to observers to be in slow-motion.

[mkesterco]

Every time I my ex boss was (majorly) wrong and I made a point of it... he fired me. He would calm down, call me, beg me back, give me huge raise (20+%) and the cycle would start over. After the 5th time, I wouldn't go back... instead I demanded a contract labor position that paid more for less work.....

[toddbernhard]

Just vote him and his party out of office.

[twolf2919]

A couple other good examples: 1) the CEO of Sony dismissing the Nintendo Wii as a "niche market product"....never mind that it's outselling the Sony PS3 by a 3-to-1 margin.
2) Palm's introduction of the Foleo - a device that performed almost no useful function without being tethered to a Palm cell phone. Everyone, including analysts, the general public, the press thought it was a ridiculous idea. But either through the hubris of the CEO or him paying homage to the guy with the idea (the inventor of the Palm itself), the product got produced....and promptly canceled.

[evilned]

I have two words.

Palm
Folio

:)

[SnidleyWhiplash]

You don't even need the second word. "Palm" all by itself is enough of an example of an entire company built on not doing anything new, and being quite proud of it.

[Ted Todorov]

" 1) the CEO of Sony dismissing the Nintendo Wii as a "niche market product"....never mind that it's outselling the Sony PS3 by a 3-to-1 margin."
Obviously he hasn't learned a thing, as he just called Apple "a boutique company". Has he compared the market caps of Apple & Sony lately?

As for Dell's new MP3 player, with Rob Enderle on board as a consultant -- the train wreck should be impressive.

[DigitalFrog]

Not a tech company, but I remember when Triaminic came out with ads for non-drowsy children's cough syrup. Non-Drowsy??? they missed the whole point!

[Renegade Knight]

Convergence demands that you be able to deal with MP3's. Maybe they make it this time. Maybe they don't. The fact is that while the crappy MP3/PVP player market is crowded, the good MP3/PVP player market isn't.

My Archos is pretty good comparied to what's out there. It's outright crappy compared to it's own potential. That's pathetic, and it opens the doors for another player.

[juchestyle]

I once heard a vice president in front of the entire IT department say "I don't know why we need a data ware house, I can pull all of my reports manually in under 30 minutes."

What a tool!

[cheezr]

if you work for the executive, keep your resume up to date and keep your mouth shut.
if you dont work there, enjoy the show!

[RicRoe]

One current example... eBay where newly appointed CEO John Donahoe has thrown out the script that helped build the brand into a billion dollar global marketplace by providing casual sellers a platform from which they could list and sell unwanted items.

Millions of people earned small incomes to supplement incomes.The site grew as casual sellers began expanding from selling unused household clutter to actively seeking merchandise to sell for profit.

Now Mr Donahoe is instituting new policies aimed at squeezing out these small casual sellers and replacing them with mega sellers.

Case in point in buy.com which is not listing half a million items on eBay. The problem... buy.com has a sell through rate of less than 3% on eBay, indicating the products being offered are flopping and may be indicative of the fact that eBay buyers have no interest in new merchandise which is already available elsewhere on the web.

Mr Donahoe has instituted policies which have pushed sellers off the platform such as fee increases, feedback changes, biased seller ratings, and non functioning default search methods.

Mr Donahoe has allowed buy.com to place millions of listings at zero costto list, while charging allother sellers listing fees then lowering the paying sellers listing visibility.

As CEO, Mr Dopnahoe has shown a clear lack of understanding his customers and has succeeded in alienating buyers and sellers alike as he hangs the future of his company on the mega seller concept.

When it proves a failure, the alienated buyers and sellers will already have found new homes, and will be unlikely to return to eBay, preventing them from sucessfully reversing course.

Talk about a CEO that is out of touch, the best example is happening daily over at eBay. Look quick, if they stay their present course, they may be the next Enron.

It is unlikely that eBay will be able to rebuild if Mr Donahoe is wrong

[SooperGenius]

How about the Big 3 automakers that waited until early this summer (THIS SUMMER!?) to shutdown SUV production. With the dollar low, think of how popular an American made high MPG car might be about now.

These guys get $M for what?

[bobkatdell]

Companies change---people change, times change and in order to succeed in business, we have been listening a lot. Hopefully some of the changes you have seen to date are indicative of things to come: delivering to consumers personalized technology and experiences that make the new digital life better. In that respect what you are referencing is not simply another Dell MP3 player it?s about delivering an experience where customers can receive multiple sources of content on multiple devices.

[jabailo]

The next "bubble" to burst should be the high pay of these "Super Execs" who end up losing billions for investors with nothing to show. Vista? A nine year slide in stock price from $60 to $25. How do these guys get away with it?

[Hit_BY_A_Train]

Anyone interested in watching *The Emperor* strip (in real time) needs to go to the discussion boards at eBay! Click on *Seller Central* and watch the train come down the track!