“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” – President and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Way
The best thing about Jeff Bezos, the founder, chairman, president and chief executive of Amazon, is that he doesn’t give a hoot what anybody else thinks. The worst thing about Jeff Bezos is that he doesn’t give a hoot what anybody else thinks.
.. The real issue Amazon’s work culture raises — for blue- and white-collar employees alike — is: How disposable are people?
A previous generation of Americans could count on a social compact; if you stuck loyally by a company, it would stick by you, providing you with a good job and a decent retirement. Long ago, loyalty fell by the wayside, and longtime employees learned that their loyalty meant nothing when companies “downsized.”
‘A Dumb Person’s Idea of a Smart Person’: Whose Line Is It?
Elizabeth Bowen writing about Aldous Huxley in the Spectator, December 11, 1936:
“Mr. Huxley has been the alarming young man for a long time, a sort of perpetual clever nephew who can be relied on to flutter the lunch-party … He is at once the truly clever person and the stupid person’s idea of the clever person.”
Who said success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan?
The Original
Inquissima haec bellorum condicio est: prospera omnes sibi indicant, aduersa uni imputantur
Tacitus, Agricola 27:1 (written ~ 98AD) [1]
Rough translation:
This is an unfair thing about war: victory is claimed by all, failure to one alone