choong pw

As we are starting our last quarter, is a good time to reflex and start planning out what is next for the company in FY22. I like the way how my company is approaching things and strategy with deliberate exercise to get everybody (not just the management) involved.

Let’s start with a quick review of “General Magic”. You can rent the movie from Vimeo want to see the actual documentary. Anyway, I watched this movie with the pen and notes in hand to write down the key learning. Given that this was the instruction given by my GM. Is interesting to see so many points I have written down at the end of the show.

Reviews:

The General Magic team started with a good start. A great vision and a team of A-star engineers gang up to build something epic. It has so much momentum and expectation, that everyone is talking about it yet not sure what was is about from the outside. On the inside of the team, everyone is crystal clear about what the vision looks like. The vision was so clear, that they even have the sketches were drawn and details out.

Despite those, they still work hard (day and night) tackling all the tough challenges. While at it, they are also having so much fun building things that they are so passionate about. I think is important to have like-minded people to motivate and challenge each other.

It was all an exciting and smooth start until real business needs to be added into the equation. Business is not just about making the bucks. There is a lot more involved than just engineering. Eg, communication and marketing, relationship with VC and partners, market research, and so on.

In my opinion, the fall of General Magic was a tribute to many chains of events that is a result of bad decision and communication. It’s easy to recover from one bad mistake. But compounding them is bound to fail even with the A-star team.

Let me detail them out.

1. Communication between the partners CEO. General Magic and Apple weren’t on the same page. One was working in so much secrecy that is almost like a taboo to discuss the project.
2. This resulting in announcing Newton (the same vision as GM has) ahead of GM putting them under so much pressure for delivery. As any manager knows, pressure is no good for building a good quality product.
3. They overlooked much basic activity any product team would do. Prioritizing the backlog and market/user validation, target segment, pricing for example.
4. People are doing what they think is best or like. Even, the leaders are setting the bad example. Without any direction from the head to the leader, and finally to the one that is doing the work.
5. Perfectionist. In a highly competitive environment, is important to be agile. Having the ego and working in secrecy. They become tunnel vision, doing what they think is “perfect” which matter the fact is nothing close to perfect for the market.
6. Timing. The market and environment are not ready. No internet, no exposure. They are expecting the user to jump from textbook to techie is too much of a far-fetch for an average user. Even now, you still see old people can’t get used to the modern-day smartphone. We need a gradual upgrade.
7. Lastly, too big to lose. They could still score if they were able to pivot. Again, having stake so much and working overtime. I think everyone was just burned-out in the end. That spells the end of their chapter.

The end is the new beginning. Is not all doom and gloom. At the end of this saga, new things emerge. With the right timing and experience, new leaders stepped up. This includes Tony Fadell and Andy Rubin who have so much impact on today’s smartphone. 

There is so much more impact that is created out of the failure of General Magic. They are part of history, but not part of the current development anymore.

I’ll share part 2 of this exercise follow-up from watching this documentary, which is Obituary Exercise.