(Note: This was originally written in response to an interview with the Razorfish CEO, Jeff Dachis ... here is a link to a more humble interview)
Online Extra: Q&A with Razorfish's Jeff Dachis
Fixer wrote:
> um, but from where I sit, it has indeed started to change the course of
> the way the world is functioning. Look at the investment markets alone,
> with over 40-50% of ALL investments in the US in a technology company.
> The internet and it's impact has reached even these farthest corners of
> rural Ireland. What exactly do you find amusing about Jeff's statements?
> Nothing is ever 100% successful, there are always setbacks and
> challenges and hurdles in the road.
His arrogance is amusing considering the disaster we just went through... his 60-minutes interview was in fact one of the "tipping points" in how the world viewed the Internet/Web revolution.
> I still don't understand you sometimes, Bill. You can't be such a luddite
> and doomsayer as many of your posts seem to imply, as I know you've
> been in this business a lot longer than most.
I sent my first email in 1978 ... and I've been involved in the 'net since '94 ... co-founded Save.com ... etc. etc.. You'ld be a doomsayer too if you went through what I did in '99/'00 ....
I am not a luddite, would a Luddite own a Ricochet? I am a fan of functionality and great user interfaces. I 'green-lighted' Cyan's first CD-ROM title back in 1988 ... I can assure you that the folks at Activision considered me more of a lunatic than a luddite at that moment.
I think the web can be a great communications tool ... and I have put myself in serious hock to launch a company (YouWorkIt) in this space [to finally replace faxing designs]. Unlike the folks who managed to get suck-time at the VC teat ... I did it sans ANY VC funding ... because I could see the dot-bomb-ipo-ponzi-scheme for what it was ... and didn't want to build to flip ... I want to build to last (yes, I actually turned down dumb funding in the summer of 2000).
The 'Fish burned a lot of Fortune 500 companies. These sort of flashy-consultancies-e-holes are responsible for much of the bad image of the web ... an image that makes my typical sales cycle take months .. just to convince a rightfully cynical client that we can indeed save them money.
In many cases sales in 2000 fell thru because the companies we had been working with killed ALL their Internet initatives due to the general disgust with this market. I didn't even get a cent of revenue until this year.
I don't even have to go into what this sort of ARROGANCE did to the finanical markets.
The web was supposed to be about saving money and moving toward better contacts with customers... business as conversation and all that.
As Jim Santo wrote:
-Razorfish and its kin created a climate which greedy web shops felt
-free to charge clueless clients millions for sites that should have
-cost thousands -- and would have been more effective had they not
-encouraged their squads of ego-driven designers to emphasize looks
-over performance. Remember when the web was supposed to /save/
-companies money? Dachis et al changed that. They ratcheted up the
-cost of entry into e-commerce and neglected both their clients' needs
-and those of their clients' customers.
-In so doing, they killed the golden goose and lit the fuse of the
-dot-bomb. Next pink-slip party you attend, raise a toast to
-Razorfish, because they bear a large share of the blame for your
-current situation.
Look, I have a right to be righteously pissed off at these e-holes.
I personally have had MAJOR finanical losses due to the NASDAQ free-fall (locked up IPO stock in a non-Internet educational software company ... I had worked at for 5 years), can hardly pay any of my bills ... so I've paid the ticket for admission into the "angry technology executive club."
If you are in the business of selling IT solutions ... you might just feel the same way...