John Walker's Crisis Letter to Autodesk Employees (1983)

http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_22.html#SECTION00220000000000000000

by bigmac • 18 years ago

75 17 18 years ago

I could be wrong, but I think this letter illustrates why why many of us are attracted to startups. This kind of esprit de corps, this sleeping under your desk and working around the clock doing everything you can to move the ball forward, this single-minded insanity that focuses 100% of your effort and will on building something amazing and changing the world forever. Is it probably just naive and idealistic and ridiculous? Yeah, it probably is. But I think at the end of the day, many of us just want to be that committed to something.

caudicus• 18 years ago

Totally agree. I've found that one of the most depressing things is feeling like a "cog in the wheel". If someone sent me this letter, I WOULD open up the window and scream "I'm going to make this product the best I can", and trust that I will be rewarded for it as a shareholder. That would cast all what I have historically labeled as "cynicism" toward my employer away. I'd believe that they finally "get me".

I guess it's all about just getting the employees and management on the same page and attacking a problem - with a startup it is really easy, since the division between the two is pretty small and blurred. And that's why we love the startup lifestyle.

comatose_kid• 18 years ago

I would open up the window and say "It's my money, and I need it NOW!".

Okay, that was horrible, and I'm sorry. Apparently, I've been watching too many crappy TV ads: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX0fIi3H-es

vlad3• 18 years ago

>> That would cast all what I have historically labeled as "cynicism" toward my employer away.

This is actually a letter to non-employee shareholders... making this much more cooler.

mixmax• 18 years ago

I think you're spot on. An I also think that this is the reason that being a single founder is so hard - there's noone to share your esprit de corps with.

michaelneale• 18 years ago

It goes in order of increasing involvement:

Job < Career < Passion < Mission.

Its hard to get to the mission level (and even if you do, I guess it could consume you - and one day you have to realise if it was worth it or not I guess...)

bayareaguy3• 18 years ago

While the Autodesk file makes for interesting reading, I'd find Walker's personal opinions a little more credible if there were more material from other sources.

I've always been bothered by his attitude that he made no mistakes in how he handled an interview with an analyst who subsequently smeared Autodesk, after it lost half its market value in one day - http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_99.html

palish2• 18 years ago

"[Autodesk] lost half its market value in one day".

I'd say Autodesk didn't lose its intrinsic value. In Walker's words:

How can I possibly impugn the performance of the management of Autodesk when Autodesk has just finished the most successful year in its entire history? We have highest sales, highest profit, largest number of new products, greatest market share, broadest international distribution, more employees, more technology in the lab, more products scheduled for introduction next year than ever, okay. That's not a record of failure. The fact that our earnings were lower in the fourth quarter than some people on Wall Street expected because we sell to the two most cyclical industries in the world, construction and building, and we're in the middle of a depression, is not anything that has to do with Autodesk strategy. We began this year with about a 70% market share in the CAD business, we ended the year with a 71% market share in the CAD business--71.4 I believe it is. That's not a company that's being clobbered by competition. That's not a Lotus being clobbered by itself. That's a company that needs to build on the base that we have, and expand that base with additional products, with additional platforms such as Windows, to broaden to the point that we are a broadly diversified company. That has been our goal since the foundation of the company. We have been in the multimedia market for several years; we're in the retail market--we're increasing all that focus as time goes on.

Also, could you give specific examples of what Walker said in the interview that could be considered a big mistake?

The reporter who interviewed Walker started with what could be classified as "incoherent babbling":

GZ: I'll just remind 'ya that this is a newspaper interview and that we'll just treat it as such. Ah, well listen, I appreciate the chance to come by and talk with y'all cause, let's see, Autodesk is a very interesting company and, uh, you know, for reasons that have to do with the fact that, uh, they're just so many things we can get to... we haven't--haven't really paid it a lot of, much attention in the couple of years I've been covering software--I also cover personal computers--but, uh, I've had a chance to do some--a little bit of boning up on the company and, you know, I'm real grateful that I had a chance to come by and talk because, uh, there's really, is no substitute for talking to senior management when it comes to assessing how a company is doing or what it's up to so, uh, I hope that... now I don't know what kind of time frame you had, but I hope we can get through a lot of things and, I, I hope also you'll appreciate that, uh, you know, a lot more about the company than I do and I will benefit by whatever time you can, you can share with me because, ah, naturally I have a lot of qu... you know... there's a lot of things I'm trying to come to grips with and... and in a lot of ways you're the best people to help me.

So, a scenario: imagine that a potential new employee showed up to interview at your company and you posed to him a somewhat open-ended question, and he responded by babbling. How would you feel about the candidate's credibility or competence? Not good, I'd imagine.

The reporter was unfortunately dumb, and it is very easy to make mistakes when dealing with dumb people. I specifically chose the phrase "deal with dumb people" because that is what what you have to do in the above scenario -- uninformed, ignorant people who have strong opinions are attempting to frame you in a particular light, and you have to deal with the results.

John appears to have thought quickly and dealt with this dumb person swiftly. So, picture yourself in his situation: "I have just invited this reporter to ask questions of myself and the upper management of my company. I just discovered that he is unprofessional, somewhat incomprehensible, and has ulterior motives that were not communicated. Therefore, I am being bullied." What do you do? How do you respond in that type of situation? Throw him out? Can't, that would look terrible. Excuse yourself but let him continue to interview upper management? Same thing. So John had to proceed by dealing with a bully, and he seemed to have done just that. He seemed to have handled it OK, at least to me.

Anyway, that's my thought process, and I'm quite interested to hear yours, if you get time.

EDIT: Here are a couple amusing gems in the interview transcript. "GZ" is the reporter.

JW: I thought we weren't here to discuss personalities. That's what you said.

GZ: Yeah, yeah, right. We're not going to discuss personalities. That's right. But the personalities... People run this company, right?

JW: People run every company.

...

GZ: Do you undermine senior management by distributing a paper like this?

JW: No.

GZ: You don't.

JW: All of the senior management who was in charge then are in charge now. We've reorganised a little bit, but...

GZ: Well, Al Green is outgoing, I mean, I mean one could say, ad hoc, that senior management was undermined, I mean in the sense that, that...

JW: You could say that. It's not true.

...

GZ: The, the sad fact is, is that if you look at the successful software companies and you look at the unsuccessful ones, uh, the Ashton-Tates and the Lotuses, they don't have that [technical] person there. The Borlands and the Microsofts, the Symantecs--they do.

JW: I disagree with you. The largest software company in the world is IBM. It isn't run by a software guy.

GZ: Would you be happy with their record? (Laughs condescendingly.) Would 'ya, would 'ya...

JW: Fifteen per cent compounded growth for a century? Yes, sir, I'd be happy with that record.

...

GZ: Okay, so, what, I mean, what, in terms of Alvar's replacement, then, what, what is your thinking about, about that? You need someone who will just fit in, with the strong team that 'ya have already?

JW: (Interrupting). I don't need. I'm not on the CEO search committee; that's a board matter. And the board, is the board, which is charged by the investors...

GZ: (Interrupting). You are on the board, no, right?

JW: No, I'm not on the board.

GZ: You're not on the board anymore.

JW: I haven't been since 1988.

GZ: All right. (Long pause.)

...

GZ: What was the reaction, of, of folks to the, to the letter?

JW: Ahhhh, I think it was, uh, a little like when you fire a shotgun in an aviary, there was silence at first...

GZ: (Interrupting). In a, in a, in an ``ave-ary''?

JW: In an aviary.

GZ: Aver-arary, okay.

JW: You know, where they have birds?

GZ: Um-hummm.

My conclusion: John Walker is a badass android, and this reporter has some serious thought disorder issues.

bayareaguy3• 18 years ago

This exchange is a classic example of a failure to communicate. We have the uber-geek founder of one of the most successful companies of the time and a dumb reporter who just wants some standard fluff to cut-and-paste into his article and neither party really understands the other. While Walker clearly exposed the guy as being prejudiced and ill-informed, he should have realized even before the interview that it wasn't in the best interest of his company to allow that to happen.

Walker clearly "won" the argument but he lost an opportunity to communicate the reasons for Autodesk's successes.

andrewf• 18 years ago

That interview incident has always seemed at odds with a subsequent book by the reporter - http://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Micr... - which is quite a sympathetic view of the Windows NT deathmarch.

sireat• 18 years ago

Trust me on this, you'll never get a completely "truthful" article out of a journalist. Clearly this was an extreme case, but my advice applies even when the journalist is amicable and eager to please, even then your opinion/data/information will be mangled in some way, shape or form.

zandorg• 18 years ago

I know Ted Nelson, who was funded by John Walker (after an introduction at the secretive Hacker's conference) to the tune of $10 million for Xanadu. He's had problems getting funding for Zigzag, which is equally as innovative.

vlad3• 18 years ago

I apologize if I'm mistaken (I'm sure if I was right somebody would have also noticed this by now), but isn't this a letter to the shareholders of the company, telling them they need to help out, even relocating to their office for a month, as their full-time employees are already overloaded with work, and the company may go bankrupt in months?

This is a huge difference because the link isn't to a typical story about leadership telling their employees they need to work harder. It's in fact a different type of letter--one that appears to have been sent to shareholders who are not employees--that I don't think any of us have seen before.

mlinsey• 18 years ago

From the note at the top: Almost two years to the day after this letter was written, Autodesk completed its initial public stock offering;

So "shareholders" would have been employees and private investors.

vlad3• 18 years ago

Yes, employees could be a subset of shareholders, but again I specifically believe this letter was sent to non-employee shareholders. Here are quotes illustrating why:

>> Dear Autodesk Shareholder,

>> This is the time to neglect your job.

>> This is the time to take that leave of absence from the foundry and work for Autodesk.

>> If you have skills as a programmer, use them...machines... will be provided.

>> If you have management skills, offer to take over AutoCAD project management tasks...

>> If your skills are in general management, finish our business plan...

>> Move to Mill Valley for a month (all expenses paid). Spend a week in the center of the cyclone at 150 Shoreline.

>> The full time people in this company are working at or beyond capacity. We need help, your help, or we will fail.

This is not a letter to the employees like the submission title misrepresents, and other posters seem to believe... This is clearly something way cooler. This is something that's been talked about in reference to choosing your investors wisely, but this is the first application of those intangibles that I ever remember reading about--a letter calling on your (non-employee) shareholders to use their skills and connections to fill in the missing pieces and grow the company, with the other alternative being insolvency.

Assuming autodesk favored investors with technological understanding and expertise, this demonstrates that having investors who can help you in ways other than with money is very important.

John Walker's Crisis Letter to Autodesk Employees (1983)

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