Re:Cash Cow Disease: The Cognitive Decline of Microsoft and ...
by raganwald on Friday December 17, 2010 @08:55PM
(#2018651)
However, despite those factors, it is still possible to look at specific decisions and have opinions on how good or bad they were. And I think that Bill Gates' decision to start the Xbox was good.
I think it is possible and laudable to make up your own mind about specific business decisions. However, it isn't really possible for us to argue the point unless we can agree on a metric for measuring their efficacy.
From an empirical perspective, a theory ("XBox is a good decision") is only meaningful if it is falsifiable. I only have two metrics in my toolbox for starting a new line of business: The ROI of the specific business and the ROI on the stock overall.
However, not all discussions neatly map to empirical methods, and even then there are other metrics besides those two ROIs. If you are saying that there is some validity to this discussion that can't be measured quite so neatly, if there are these "strategic" considerations that require a leap of faith to appreciate, well I can't argue with you.
I'm not trying deflate your argument by suggesting it's faith-based. Most corporations make a lot of decisions that aren't falsifiable. Executives stand up all the time and say, "it looks bad but it could have been worse," and it's very difficult to naysay them because we can't run A/B testing and find out whether Microsoft-Xbox does better or worse than Microsoft+Xbox.
So... In the spirit of Christmas I will wish you well and thank you for sharing your opinions in a reasoned tone.
I think it is possible and laudable to make up your own mind about specific business decisions. However, it isn't really possible for us to argue the point unless we can agree on a metric for measuring their efficacy.
From an empirical perspective, a theory ("XBox is a good decision") is only meaningful if it is falsifiable. I only have two metrics in my toolbox for starting a new line of business: The ROI of the specific business and the ROI on the stock overall.
However, not all discussions neatly map to empirical methods, and even then there are other metrics besides those two ROIs. If you are saying that there is some validity to this discussion that can't be measured quite so neatly, if there are these "strategic" considerations that require a leap of faith to appreciate, well I can't argue with you.
I'm not trying deflate your argument by suggesting it's faith-based. Most corporations make a lot of decisions that aren't falsifiable. Executives stand up all the time and say, "it looks bad but it could have been worse," and it's very difficult to naysay them because we can't run A/B testing and find out whether Microsoft-Xbox does better or worse than Microsoft+Xbox.
So... In the spirit of Christmas I will wish you well and thank you for sharing your opinions in a reasoned tone.