The More I Know

NBC had a series of Public Service Announcements titled, “The More You Know.” That’s it. Those four words do not a complete sentence make. It leaves off a crucial part, in fact. If I give them the benefit of the doubt, I’d say they intended to state something like, “The more you know the better off you are.” Or, if knowledge is power, the more you know the more empowered you become. For me, the more I know the more aggravated I become. Curmudgeon? Absolutely! Thanks for noticing.

All this I realized recently. I used to write rants like this quite frequently—at least once a month for a small, small newspaper. But, that was in college. In college, I was learning new stuff every day. The ranting possibilities were endless!

The more I learn about politics the farther away from it I want to be. The more I learn about successful businesses, the more disgusted I get. I have a 4 year degree in business. Then I quit going to school.

Those who study “Business” eventually end up studying “business models.” If the business was successful, then you’ll study why and how it was successful as a model for other businesses intent on success. Even an unsuccessful business has lessons to teach on what to avoid. All of that makes sense until you understand business success.

Microsoft is a successful business. Microsoft makes the Windows operating system that runs almost all the computers in the world. I hate Windows. But, before I get into that, I need to acknowledge that I have friends who work for Microsoft and I do not want to see any of them unemployed. They all work for divisions of the company that have nothing to do with the development of the operating system itself. As far as I know, they are good people. Actually, I’m pretty sure their product is very good. But, I have never had to use that product.

I am practically forced to use the operating system, though. It locks up for no apparent reason. It gets slower with each day that I own my computer. It allows in so much malicious and unwanted garbage that I have to pay another company extra to protect it. The more I know about it, the worse it gets.

This is what happened today: The commercials for this product advertise that it will allow me to stream live TV to my computer and even allow my computer to work as a DVR. Cool! But, it doesn’t just do that (of course not, silly!) So, I went to set that up. The information in doing so, says that I need to install a “TV Tuner” and right around the area where that information was provided is a link that suggests is there to go and get this necessary thing. But, clicking on the link takes one to a place that says, [great news, it’s included with your product] and another link to [go to it]. Ooooh, the building excitement is almost overwhelming.

Drumroll please…

Which loops you right back to the previous link. Worthless. Now, I have no doubt that my computer can be set up to do this amazing thing. However, I WILL NEED TO KNOW MORE TO DO IT. AND THE MORE I KNOW…

And that was only one of today’s issues. I’m composing this using another product of the company. It froze up for several minutes in the middle. No explanation. When it came back, (again, without explanation) the cursor was in a different place than where I left it, so it typed over and erased what was there. Clearly, that is the way it was designed to work because clearly customers such as me would WANT that.

But, (and it’s one big, smelly but) this company is one of the ultimate business models to date. Why? Does it dominate its market share? Yes… crushingly so. Is it profitable? Yes… astronomically. Then nothing else matters… yet.

The only hope is a dramatic change in one of those two factors. Technically, another hope lies in some altruistic initiative of the company to make an exceptional product complete with raving, fanatical, satisfied customers. Let me know when you’re done laughing.

History does not work in the customer’s favor on this one. And that is what makes it such a fiendish business model. This is one of the world’s most successful companies; yet, that status was achieved without ever having to focus on customer satisfaction. It throws so much of all the other things taught in business school right into the garbage. Schools teach that competition is so fierce and natural that no business should be able to succeed with unhappy customers. Dissatisfaction should create a void. Competitors should be able to step into that void and starve off the offender. How do you create a successful business? Find a need and fill it!

Oh, that is so old-school.

At least, that is what this business model teaches. This business, it turns out, took another approach: make yourself necessary and no one can avoid contributing to your profitability. And if a competitor tries to step forward, kill them quickly, and get good lawyers—really good lawyers. Not even the courts were able to impede this monopoly. Such are the lessons which business schools and their students can’t ignore.

I don’t see any of them lamenting it, either—quite the opposite. After all, making good products that actually work requires investments in research and development. It’s much more fun to funnel that money into “investments” in your own wallet.

If there is a company that is worse… I mean “more successful,” it’s AIG. Make yourself necessary? Check. In fact, they took it to a grand new level: They invented the phrase “too big to fail.” Not only will market forces fall impotent to their profitability, but the very government that allows it to operate and regulates it will be forced to 1) prevent its bankruptcy with huge cash infusions paid for by tax payers (which just happen to double as customers that already contributed to profits in the traditional sense) and 2) watch powerlessly as those funds are siphoned off in bonuses to some of the people that caused the problem—even if they are no longer employees.

Genius!—if by genius you mean “profitable” and “dominant.”

And, you should know, it does.