=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This E-mail is Sponsored by: Small Dog Electronics
--> Specializing in New & Factory Refurbished Apple computers <--
Surf to <http://www.smalldog.com> Check out our daily specials!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=733
Meet The GrayMac
By Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac
July 30th 2002
Silicon Valley: from Boom to Boomers.
Everyone''s getting older in Silicon Valley. It''s a truism, but it''s a real one in
today''s post-dot com era.
As the San Francisco Chronicle notes, there''s not a lot of room in the tech world for
20-somethings. It''s more a world for 30 and 40-somethings.
You guessed right: the Boomers have won and the X-ers are out.
The SFC story looks at the graying of Silicon Valley. The vital statistics?
20-somethings can''t be trusted with money or corporations; average age of engineers
is up from about 25 to 32 at Apple; and tech headhunters have declared that ''gray is
in''. Experienced gray, that is.
And, shock horrow: Woz is now 51 and Jobs 47. A far cry from the 25 and 20
respectively when they founded Apple.
A quick look at your pixelated QuickTime broadcast of MWSF should tell you that
there''s more grayscale than there used to be, when you look at where the top of
Steve''s head should be. Or perhaps that should be ''platinum''. Or Graphite.
Maybe it even explains the shift in the color of PowerBooks from black to Ti-gray. To
reflect your hari color, geddit?
Alternatively, the iBook could span two demographics: white for the elderly; and for
those who just had to hit the peroxide once they turned 18.
The big issue, however, is how the conservative the Valley might have become, unable
to look beyond traditional PC and server paradigms. In an industry where every
strategic move could boost the company, or kill its stock price, gigantic leaps of the
tech imagination might be positively discouraged.
Look at Microsoft (and how successful they are): has anything changed in the way they
do things? No. They were once an upstart company (compared with IBM, anyone was an
upstart company). They didn''t wear suits. They worked out of cruddy offices. They
wrote fast, but kludgey code - better code than IBM''s engineers as it turned out, but
prone to problems.
But their iterative approach to their applications hasn''t changed in 20 years: keep
adding to Office without changing it fundamentally. Keep bloating out Windows. Relwase
IE way before its ready, but just fix it gradually with each new release. Same for WMP.
Conservative. Frustrating for users. But it works for the company.
The buggest problem, perhaps, is that the dot com collapse and the recession has
discouraged younger people from seeking careers in CS or IS as spending dries up. The
tech boom also produced so many graduates and MCSEs that if you''re starting out, you
know there''re perhaps tens of thousands of people ahead of you.
Whereas during the 1990s tech boom you could leapfrog all that ''age and experience''
stuff and maybe launch your own startup, the money is scarce now. As one commentator
in the SFC article notes, they wouldn''t let a 20-something run a company unless they
could appointed a seasoned CEO.
But that doesn''t amount to much change, does it? Think of Mark Markkula (a seasoned
30-something) who wound up as chairman of Jobs and Woz''s Apple. Oh, and he got a
really big piece of the IPO pie as well.
Plus �a change...
Post your comments at:
http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=733
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Copyright (c) 2002 Insanely Great Mac. All rights reserved. This article
may not be republished in part or whole without explicit written
permission from Insanely Great Mac.
Brought to you by Insanely Great Mac <http://www.insanely-great.com/>
To SUBSCRIBE - send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with subject
subscribe macnews
To UNSUBSCRIBE - send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with subject
unsubscribe macnews
Subscription problems/questions please email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
