undefined | Better HN

0 pointsGibbon11y ago0 comments

I had a lesson in this 25 years ago. I think it was National Semiconductor. They had an early website that was engineering focused and really good for the time. You could do parametric search, compare products, ask questions of their sales engineers, ask for samples. Download datasheets.

One day it was completely replaced by a site extolling the virtues of National Semiconductor stock and the CEO, CFO, and the board. With smiling head shorts and bio's of each. WTF? A few months later the old site reappeared as a link down in the lower right corner.

The lesson. I thought of National Semiconductor as a company that designed and sold mixed signal semiconductors. And the CEO and Board thought of National Semiconductor as a company that sold stock. And they didn't care at all about the people buying semiconductors, they cared about their real customers.

0 comments

2 comments · 1 top-level

throwaway484761y ago· 1 in thread

I think that's what happens when you hire from outside the company and the people brought in have no relationship with the people that buy the products.

Gibbon1OP1y ago

I think it's really worse than that. I'm always surprised how much psychological buy in you can get out of people with the right social incentives. It seems difficult for people surrounded by people with cultural attitudes and way of thinking to not slowly become corrupted by it.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse