Don Estridge: A misfit who built the IBM PC

https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Valley-Making-Personal-Computer/...

They thought it was a fad - that centralized systems (coincidentally, the machines they made) would be the computing platform that people would pay-per-minute/pay-per-hour/pay-per-month to access remotely. They wanted to be an information utility - a supplier to all - instead of selling a small, low margin box for one-time revenue.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

That's what you get at that level in a company that big. Anyone who is two or more levels from the top of the org chart and also two or more levels from the bottom lives in a reality that consists entirely of the attitudes and opinions of other people, weighted by each person's ability to impact their career. If they saw that the building they were in was on fire, their thought process would go something like: "Bob isn't here today because he's at that sales meeting. When he hears about the fire he'll downplay it as something minor, so I shouldn't evacuate or he'll think less of me. But Bob's boss Don is here. If Don evacuates and I don't, that might Don feel embarrassed and emasculated, and he'll take it out on Bob. So I need to evacuate if and only if Don evacuates. Bob won't mind me evacuating if Don does it. But Don's office is on the other side of that wall of approaching flames. Shit. My only chance is if he's in a meeting on this side of the building, so I can track him down and see what he's doing. Let me check his calendar real quick...."