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There Must be a Pony in Here Somewhere
Kara Swisher's There Must be a Pony in Here Somewhere is subtitled "The AOL Time Warner debacle and the quest for the digital future." Debacle is not an over-exaggeration, as the chapters of the book unveil personal, professional, corporate and political dramas happening during the so-called merger. A reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Swisher knows many AOL executives personally, and according to her stories, frequently engaged in lively conversations conducted where else but in AOL Instant Messenger, available on PCs of top management and board members as the preferred means of communication.
The title of the book takes roots from a famous joke, attributed to Ronald Reagan, where a hopeful boy is dealing with a large pile of manure. When asked why he is so insistent about digging the pile with such enthusiasm, the boy replies that with such a pile there "must be a pony in there somewhere." If you read the press lately and followed AOLTW's stock ride, you probably know that the pony wasn't quite there.
It's amazing how many optimistic forecasts and wide smiles were presented to the press and general public on the day of the merger and long after it. The word "synergy" could qualify for the most popular noun of the year, used by AOL executives almost in every sentence.
As Swisher writes on page 18, "Most people involved in the deal seem to be suffering from a peculiar amnesia now, so it's easy to forget that kind of hype and optimism. Today, almost everyone near to this toxic merger runs screaming from it in an attempt to avoid any culpability. The denials come fast and furious: Not me. I wasn't involved. I thought it was wrong from the very beginning. And - most of all - Steve Case is a big, fat loser. This was always more familiar territory for me, since that was exactly how most of the world regarded Case throughout his career. For most of it, he had always and forever been a loser."
Well, you can tell that the author is not sucking up to AOL's ex-CEO.
Swisher's book is extremely personal. Unless you've been involved in AOL or Time Warner personally, you are probably not aware of the company's management. At the time, when executives of Yahoo, eBay and other Silicon Valley startups weren't just visionaries, they were cool, AOL's top management was rather bland and plain. They weren't the cool guys, they were just managing some dial-up ISP in Dulles, VA that somehow took over the United States with its goofy icons, goofy commercials, goofy sounds and likewise membership. The author takes you through the personalities of top managers, talks about the AOL-TW off-standish behavior towards one another, questionable deal and threatening techniques used by David Colburn and AOL's Business Affairs department.
The book is easy to read and is full of interesting details. For example, the day when the deal was announced, there was another company discussing potential merger with AOL. But since everyone was involved on Time Warner deal that was supposed to be "huge," Meg Whitman and eBay crew got almost no attention from America Online, with executives constantly leaving the room and portraying an attention span of five-year-olds. Perhaps if some executives paid more attention to eBay and discuss potential buyout, the Internet would look different nowadays.
Otherwise, the book looks like a classic business study on how failures happen and what to avoid when you are faced with the task of running world's largest media outfit. It's an easy and pleasant read, informative as well as entertaining. Don't expect technical details from it in regards to AOL's operations, load balancing and nationwide dial-up network, since Swisher's main audience is business types and readers interested in details behind the "deal of the millennium". The first chapter of the book is available online on New York Times Web site.
You can read more of Alex's reviews of business and technology titles. You can purchase There Must be a Pony in Here Somewhere from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
6 out of 10 is "okay" in my book. If I like it and want to re-read it some time later, it's probably 8-9. If it's outstanding, it's 10. 6 means "pretty good, room for improvement" as my English professor would say.
Orwellian in the sense that all animals are equal, but some are more equal.
Well, you can tell that the author is not sucking up to AOL's ex-CEO.
you mean, the CEO that in 1998 gave 8$ million to a christian school where they "cure" homosexuals?
IBM got out of HW,
Err... what planet are you from? IBM no longer sells PC's to retail customers at stores. Hardware in general remains about 35-40% of the business. For IBM, that translates to about 30 Billion dollars a year. It makes Sun look positively puny.
Even in PC's IBM sells more laptops to businesses than anyone else. IBM sells more servers than any other company by a significant amount. That is all serious money.
SirWired
Oh trust me. All of us who worked for TW and its subs before and after the merger curse AOL everytime we look at our 401(k) and stock options. There is a lot of hatred of AOL in the rank and file. The reason you don't hear the big wigs being outspoken about it is because they are the ones who fucked up royally. When I started here the stock was up over $70. Now it hovers around $17. You do the math. There were people who lost most of their retirement savings.
An excerpt from "How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life" by Peter Robinson
Chapter One
The Pony In the Dung Heap
When Life Buries You, Dig
Journal Entry, June 2002:
Over lunch today I asked Ed Meese about one of Reagan's favorite jokes. "The pony joke?" Meese replied. "Sure I remember it. If I heard him tell it once, I heard him tell it a thousand times."
The joke concerns twin boys of five or six. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities -- one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist -- their parents took them to a psychiatrist.
First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears. "What's the matter?" the psychiatrist asked, baffled. "Don't you want to play with any of the toys?" "Yes," the little boy bawled, "but if I did I'd only break them."
Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his out look, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. "What do you think you're doing?" the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. "With all this manure," the little boy replied, beaming, "there must be a pony in here somewhere!"
"Reagan told the joke so often," Meese said, chuckling, "that it got to be kind of a joke with the rest of us. Whenever something would go wrong, somebody on the staff would be sure to say, "There must be a pony in here somewhere.'"
I recently took a ATV tour around some farms in Kauai. Gorgeous place. It has a Star Wars missile defense research facility, and other areas that remind you that it isn't an unspoiled paradise.
But nothing made the pit of my stomach fall farther than when the Hawaiian tour guide brought us up to a fence and made a huge gesture with his arm. "All this land here, over 5,000 acres, was bought as a private estate by Steve Case."
Just remember, his money laundering brought him enough money to buy a huge portion of land that should be a state park. He gets to live in absolute paradise, in a gigantic mansion, as punishment for his crime.
A 401(k) is a company sponsored retirement plan. The "401(k)" title comes from the IRS (US tax agency) tax code number that defines them.
These plans allow employees to put away a percentage of their income into a retirement savings plan. The money you put in is not taxed, and neither is the interest it may earn. When you retire and start spending the money, anything you take out will be taxed. Most company plans have a selection of investment choices to put the cash into while you wait to retire.
As an added bonus, some companies match what you put into the plan with additional funds.
The Time Warner 401(k) members ass-raping happened because these matching funds were added as TW stock, and could not be converted to anything else.
So, the merger happens and the stock takes a tumble from 80 to 8. That's a 90% loss on 1/3 of your retirement fund. This does NOT build company morale.
They have since changed the plan. Matching funds are still company stock, but can now be converted to other funds.
AOL is headquatered in Northern Virginia. Hardly "West Coast".
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood