In search of stupidity

What Hacker News says

1. stephenhueyMay 2026
   Before Facebook, I used Friendster. Years later, I read how Friendster execs were too busy patting themselves on the back and flying around on private jets to get around to fixing the horrendous site lag of sometimes a minute to even sign into the web app. How could a company's leadership be so foolish? I understood this paled in comparison to the doomed arrogance of IBM's leaders when I read stories about IBM's downfall in the delightful book In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters.
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2. jfilJan 2025
   A fun read on failures was "In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters" It taught me the lesson of "people will stop buying v1 of your product as soon as you announce v2... so don't announce it until it actually ships!"
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3. sqldbaApr 2023
   My favorite is “In Search of Stupidity” going over a lot of DOS era company failures.

   Do you have others to recommend?

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4. maxshmApr 2023
   Thank you for mentioning Wasniak book! I really enjoyed iWas.

   Another great book is “Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer” (Second Edition) 2nd Edition by Paul Freiberger (Author), Michael Swaine (Author)

   And I like as well a book from Merrill Chapman. “In search of stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters”.

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5. antmanNov 2022
   At this point it appears as if ARM is run by former Nokia Kodak and Yahoo executives. For similarly innovative tech strategies I suggest the book “In search of stupidity” by Merrill Chapman
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6. radmuzomJan 2022
   While not Microsoft history, try "In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters". Has many stories on what made MS successful.
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