Author: Matt

“If the rule is, ‘Gee, it’s going to take out something that inconveniences a cuddly little company,’ then we’re in trouble. We need another rule.”

Richard Schmalensee, dean of MIT’s Sloan School of Management and star antitrust witness for Microsoft, on the dangers of selective government enforcement, News.com, 4 October 2001

“We have not changed our merger plans based on the economy.”

Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, on executing her company’s unloved merger with rival Compaq in a vacuum, Forbes.com, 3 October 2001

“There was a notion that a company could be built that would serve the complex technology and backbone systems to a group of cable operators and participate in the economics…. But there’s no real reward.”

Will Hearst, venture capitalist and @Home’s founding CEO, on the company’s penniless demise after selling its network to AT&T, News.com, 28 September 2001

“Overendowing high-tech solutions is riskful in the absence of adequate understanding of the limitations of the technology and the frailties and perversities of human nature.”

SRI scientist Peter Neumann, on the dangers of relying on technology to prevent terrorism when humans are naughty by nature, The New York Times, 27 September 2001

“It’s hard to imagine someone would purposely do the kind of damage that was done to the Industry Standard’s brand…. Then again, what do I know about business? I was just an editor at a business magazine.”

Former Industry Standard editor Mark Robinson, on the company’s humiliating bankruptcy and sale of assets back to erstwhile owner International Data Group, San Francisco Chronicle, 26 September 2001