IP: Dan Gillmor on Technology Mon Jul 09 13:15:22 EDT 2001

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Time off should offer a time for reflection
BY DAN GILLMOR
Mercury News Technology Columnist
Maybe it's like taking a deep breath. That's one way to look at last week's 
mini-vacation -- or put another way ``quasi-layoff'' -- at some big Silicon 
Valley companies.
Shutting down for a week was a reasonable business move, given the slump in 
the technology industry. It would be doubly sane if people who work at 
these companies also took advantage of the time off for an exercise we 
rarely encounter in such high-speed places.

<snip>

> In recent years, the financial wizards who helped launch the Internet 
> bubble turned short-term thinking into an evil art form. After helping 
> create a climate of no-lose gambling in financial markets, they shifted 
> all risk onto the backs of the people with the least knowledge and the 
> most to lose. If more than a few investment bankers and venture 
> capitalists gave thought to the corrosive effect they would have on 
> investors' trust in the long run, it wasn't obvious.
>
> Internet Time explains some of the behavior of the tech industry and its 
> helpers, but the people who write our laws don't have this excuse. They 
> face election deadlines, but deliberation is supposedly an integral part 
> of the process in Washington and in the state capitals. Which makes you 
> wonder how such monstrosities as the half-deregulation of California's 
> electricity industry or Congress' utterly dishonest tax cut could have 
> emerged in the first place.

<snip>

http://www.siliconvalley.com/opinion/dgillmor/



For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/