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Pick Your Own Net Person Of The Year
And none of it is good.
Definitions of greatness and influence are definitely becoming more fluid. Winston Churchill once held that spot, along with Stalin, Eisenhower, Einstein, Mao, Gorbachev and various inventors, world leaders and political figures.
How fitting that the man the nation's allegedly most influential newsmagazine chooses to usher in the new century has left this legacy to the world, according to the cover: "E-commerce is changing the way the world shops." Maybe the editors of Time need to get out more.
Is this really all that dramatic; the most significant person on the planet in l999? I shop online all the time, and it seems pretty non-revolutionary to me - I give them money, they send me stuff in cardboard boxes. Will historians down the road really be poring over Jeff Bezos life and times on Amazon to define the history of the l990's, or even of the Internet? That's a grim thought.
Bezos is mostly interesting because he's the perfect metaphor for the greedy, commercialized, insane atmosphere currently surrounding all things Web. Aside from causing the invention of some very nifty commercial software, and craftily evoking a wholesome commercial image, his big idea is to amass goods in warehouses - toys, electronics, books and music - and send them to people who want them. As is well known, he hasn't made a dime in profit, yet he's amassed billions. He's also attacking the very culture he's supposed to embody by suing competitors to block the spread of innovative software.
This makes him the man of the hour in terms of Web commerce, but it's not greatness or even influence. Can you recount a single thing this person has said or done that you will remember for years, or be talking about next month. Maybe one-click shopping is more significant than we realized.
All you need know about Bezos are the "Six Core Values" he preaches to Amazon's employees wherever he goes:
- Customer Obsession
- Ownership
- Bias for Action,
- Frugality
- High Hiring Bar
- Innovation.
I was nearly moved to tears. This is stirring stuff in corporate terms, an ideological blueprint for the rampaging corporatism infecting the Internet, if for nothing else.
I might have come up with a different list, not that anybody asked. My man of the year might be Linus Torvalds, who - unlike Bezos - really did change the world, liberating computer software and the information it carries from one company's tyrannical grip for many millions of people.
This year, Open Source become something much bigger than a geek obsession, turning into a full-blown mainstream social and commercial movement. Tim Berners-Lee might be on my short list. He did, after all, invent the very Web that on which Bezos is taking in billions this year. Or Jonathan Postel, who died last year, but whose work to keep the Internet free and open a generation ago is right now bearing fruit all over the planet. "Q" wouldn't be my top choice, but he'd have to make the list, just for kicks. He loved making weird, neat stuff.
Or a group cover: some programmers and developers who truly are transforming not only commerce but the way we do almost everything, including think, learn, publish, watch movies, acquire music, and interact with one another.
I might pick the housewife in Dayton, Ohio who put up a website to give away free coupons and stuff and gets a half-million hits a day, (many more readers than The New York Times. Or some of the elderly people on Senior Net who use the Net to post farewell messages to their friends and families before they die.
Or perhaps the protesters who organized online, then went to Seattle and began the laborious process of taking on the fat, greedy companies who are choking individualism.
I might put on the list one of the creators of ICQ, Hotline, or even AIM, all of which are transforming communications, creating more new kinds of communities in a day than was once possible in years. Or a geneticist who, for better or worse, is slaving away on the Human Genome Project, and is about to unravel the secrets of human life.
Those are just a handful of the Net People of the Year I might consider.
Jeff Bezos doesn't come close.
How about you?
My vote is for the IPO. In the time magazine "thing of the year" there was never any reason not to pick and object.
Well, the IPO madness really proves how wacky this economy is, and how nuts it is to invest in the stock market.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
... myself. No, reallly. In the last year, I have really influenced my life, and in a good way. I have overcome the shackles of The Man(tm), lived on Kraft Cheese & Macaroni and peanut butter for a few months, to now be making more money than before and doing what something I really enjoy, Linux stuff.
So, I implore all of you to follow in my footsteps and vote for me too. After all, do the same stuff, follow your dreams, and maybe next year you too can be Slashdot's Man Of the Year.
Thank you, and God bless.
One, because he found something that really harnesses the internet, a worldwide garage sale (instead of selling under cost but making up for it in volume) connecting people across the world one to one.
Second, he did as a hack for his wife (collecting Pez dispensers) instead of trying to become a mogul.
Thirdly, Ebay turns a profit (unlike Amazon).
George
My Vote goes to Al Gore, inventor of this fine Internet, and architect of the e-commerce revolution.
J-aims
--
Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
I believe we can't forget a man who died this year and contributed with all his knowledge and practice to the Unix world. A person only can be called a programmer if already read "Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment" or "UNIX Network Programming". Rest in peace Richard Stevens, a man who believed in the diffusion of knowledge.
"Learning, learning, learning - that is the secret of jewish survival" -- Ahad A'Ham.
"Learning, learning, learning - that is the secret of jewish survival" -- Ahad A'Ham
Similarly, there is no doubt at all that Jeff Bezos & Amazon has had a tremendous influence on the news this year. Every news program mentions shopping on the web, there have been stories about Malls panicing, and for the first time, there is apparently enough money being spent on the web to make taxing it a subject of discussion.
Bezos' achievements may or may not be great. Personally I think it's too soon to judge. However there is no doubt at all that they have been the source of much news over the last year.
We're awfully computer-centric around here. What about the scientists who discovered a 100% cure for a particularly lethal form of Leukemia?
Their cure uses a kinase inhibitor, which is a fairly new area of study, in terms of cancer research. Their success shows that studying kinase inhibitors is a valid approach, and it could well lead to many other cancer cures in the next 5-10 years.
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
Jon, are you pushing too much corporatism on Bezos?
Are you taking your personal peeves and using them to beat Time's selection of Person Of The Year over the head?
I am in absolute agreement over the coming corporatism conflicts with individualism, but Bezos is just nowhere near obsessed enough with profit to be representative of the money-at-all-cost ethic. Amazon's patent lawsuits are driven far more by myopia than actual plan, and will probably be dropped once the christmas season ends anyway. Worst case scenario, they're an example of "never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Katz, email me if you actually read this message. I have something WRT Amazon I'd like to discuss with you.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Sacrilige! You cry. But wait! Stop and think for a moment. Every single celebrity to feature on the cover of this magazine has suffered terrible misfortune. The Times Curse has a long reach, with those it pastes on it's front cover suffering public humiliation, bankrupcy, personal disasters and even (in the case of Pricess Diana) death.
Why should we wish such ill-fortune on our brightest and best? Or, indeed, any other fellow human being? Nay! It's far, far better that Amazon.com has called upon this evil fate, than for it to have befallen any suffering member of the human race.
I applaud Amazon for it's courage and bravery, to direct this evil Curse upon itself, to spare humanity further pain. I think it best if we send our condolences to the directors.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Even for people like Churchill. Yes, he did his job nicely.Still, there are quite a few people who could have done it too, but where doing something else important. Like being in the resistance etc. And even if we did want to compare, we are in no way capable of judging what would have happened without those people. Who knows, maybe if Churchill (and the many others on the allied side) had failed, hitler would still have commited suicide, a new furer would have come, who'd transformed the world into a utopia (yes, with freedom and all). Unlikely. But possible.
I said this in the previous discussion, but I think it bears repeating: Give Bezos a break.
/. crowd was on the Net before 1995. For those of you that were, which was the first website to conduct serious "e-commerce", selling real things, not just shareware or porn? Amazon.com.
I assume that most of the
And Amazon not only has become the de-facto Internet bookstore (when you post a link about some obscure book, how many times do you go looking for it on bn.com?) but also the gold standard for e-commerce sites.
Amazon may not be the world's best or most profitable Web company (incl. patent rant here) but noone can deny that Bezos had a vision and worked hard to make it a reality. And by doing so he legitimized commerce over the Internet which is really the primary reason, us techies are doing better now than any other professional group.
I was hoping for better memory from this crowd...
engineers never lie; we just approximate the truth.
Time has a poll at http://www.pathfinder.com/time/poy/
asking whether or not you agree with Time's choice.
Wow..This article tears into Bezos for alot of stuff that really isn't his fault. Amazon.com was revolutionary a few years ago, when they were the first ones to do commerce online, on the scale that they're doing it. If it wasn't so revolutionary, how come it took Barnes and Noble almost three years to catch up? Also, this whole Bezos-is-evil-because-of-the-patent thing is out of control. The directors of a corporation have a legal obligation to do what is in the best interest of the shareholders. I agree that the patent is stupid, and everyone should be able to have one-click ordering, but it's not Amazon's fault that they did what they were legally obligated to do. If you want to bitch, send your complaints to the USPTO.
I don't think that Bezos should be man of the year, but maybe he deserves a look for hindsight-man-of-5-years-ago...
But, of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong
Juiced? Or Not?
My father, a retired school teacher who lives in New Jersey, made his first on-line purchase this year. This is a man who does not own a computer, still does not have e-mail, and doesn't seem to be phased by it.
He bought a book from Amazon.com as a gift for my uncle's birthday. Now, he has no idea about any patent disputes. He could care less about Amazon's reported tendency to SPAM people -- the people who annoy him most are the people who solicit charitable donations by phone between 6 and 9 PM.
He just wanted to be able to order a gift for my uncle quickly and know that it would be delivered giftwrapped with his message on the card. He didn't have to call anyone. The whole process took a little over 5 minutes, and would have taken less time if he had ever used a mouse before.
When someone like my father knows enough to go on-line and buy something from a place they heard about called Amazon, and he feels comfortable enough to do it himself, the impact of millions of similar transactions really can be considered a major change.
So, you can pooh-pooh this all you want. But, the on-line shopping capability will be considered as revolutionary as the introduction of catalog / mail order shopping was in the 1800s.
Once Time Magazine decided that this is the idea that best represents change in the year 1999, they simply had to pick a person that best represented the concept to the average person. I think they picked Bezos because the average consumer in North America or Western Europe had not heard of him, but had been exposed to the company that he created.
Why does this bother so many people so much?
BTW, I think Linus Torvalds would have been an excellent choice as well, because he represents the maturation of the non-Microsoft technology base. But, if you think about who Time Magazine's audience is, it's not really surprising that they picked Steve Jobs as a runner up to Bezos instead of Linus.
Another point that I would like to touch on briefly is that Jobs resonates more with Time than Linus does because the average consumer does not buy technology -- they buy the products and services that are delivered via technology. So, as momentus as Linux and the OpenSource movement is from our perspective, it has not really exploded in the public's mind as much as the applications of OpenSource (i.e. the Internet and Internet delivered applications, like shopping) have.
--
Dave Aiello
-- Dave Aiello
Actually, that year Steve Jobs was *supposed* to be the man of the year.
Time diligently sent a reporter to interview Mr. Jobs for the story. The writer caught Jobs at a bad time, the meeting didn't go very well, and the reporter sent back an article that was basically just a smear job.
Time realised that they couldn't print such a biased, mud-slinging article, and the reporter refused to rewrite it.
Up againtst a deadline, Time dropped Steve Jobs, and settled on the personal computer.
Or that's the way the stort goes anyway.
john
Imagine all the people...
Katz needs to get out more. Please explain to me how Jeff Bezos qualifies as "greedy". Oh, I forgot, if someone has more money than Jon Katz, then he must be greedy.
And let me tackle this issue of profit ONE MORE TIME (by me and others). Amazon can make profit anytime they want. All they have to do is dial back their advertising. However, since they are smart (and clearly know more about business than Jon Katz -- not saying much), they have chosen to spend money on building their brand. This is why they are one of the top brands on the Internet. Jon, it's not rocket science. Go take a business class.
I will grant you that the "patent issue" disturbs me. However, other than that, I have never gotten less than superb service from Amazon, and Bezos deserves every dollar he has earned. Yes, I know the concept of earning money is foreign to Katz, but some of us actually believe that people who provide thousands of jobs and provide a valuable service to the economy deserve what they make. Apparently all the Amazon customers agree.
---
I was getting copied on the following through Internet Soc. I thought some of you might find it interesting. It starts with Gordon Howell, President, Electronic Commerce One writing the editors of TIME and then we see a reply from Vint Cerf. Pretty neat. Gordon also pushes for a deeper look into who has made a contribution to society. I think you all will enjoy this.....
:-)
.com entrpreneurs; he is more an example of 'right place, right time' with a huge PR achinge behind him than someone who has single-handedly really made a difference on the
First Vint:
------------
big smile
v
Now Gordon (you can take it from here):
-----------
At 10:46 AM 12/21/99 -0800, Gordon Howell wrote:
vint --
your modesty merely confirms my observations!
I have nothing but admiration (and a teensy bit of envy!) for Jeff and wouldn't diminish his achievements. My point is that this award sets
a milestone in history which will be looked at centuries hence. The long lens of history tells us that we don't by and large remember the names
of the entrepreneurs who made their fortunes digging the California gold, but we *do* remember that it was Sutter's Mill where it all happened. (of course you might argue back that TCP/IP could look a little different in a century...
However I bow to your gracious decline of the "People who really matter Man of the Year award" and suggest that we collectively create the "Geek of the millenium Award" and bestow it on Jon Postel.
Happy holidays to you. See you in the next century should the world still exist...
-gordon
Subject: Re: Time magazine "man of the year" choice
From: "vinton g. cerf"
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 20:20:27 -0500
X-Message-Number: 2
Dear Gordon,
Your letter to the Time editor is most kind. One imagines that the conventional wisdom is that business leaders have the most significant visibility when it comes to perceived impact. One has only to see the frequency with which Bill Gates is mentioned to appreciate this perspective.
There is some truth to the idea that people who are able to unleash the energy of the business sector have the most significant impact on everyone else, even if they did not invent the technology that allows them to succeed. So on balance, I think it is not entirely inappropriate for Jeff Bezos to receive this recognition.
Vint Cerf
Wishing everyone: http://HaveAVeryMerryXmas.com/
__________________________________
Editor --
I must express my diasappointment (and that of many of my professional colleagues in the Internet industry) at the choice of Jeff Bezos as Man of
the Year.
While all credit is due Jeff for his vision and drive, and being an inspiration to all the other budding
internet. In common with what many people are doing right now, Jeff creamed one of the more obvious candidates for Internet e-commerce.
While my hat is off to a great web site and business, he has little more to offer than any number of other potential choices, if you are specifically looking for an 'e' entrepreneur. One might even argue that Steve Case of AOL has more right to this position, as he has brought more people into contact with the Internet than anyone else.
However, to paraphrase Einstein, Jeff has only succeeded by standing on the shoulders of others, and I think that the final choice of the millenium really should have gone to one of these pioneers. In approximate order, I would suggest:
1. John Postel. Without his selfless dedication to managing the underlying administration of the Internet, the Internet would not be where it is today. His tragic death late last year has been perceived as owing in no small part to the personal energy he committed to the cause which
has made Jeff Bezos a wealthy man
2. Tim Berners-Lee. As the acknowledged sole inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim has resisted what I suspect are hundreds of opportunities of lucrative employment, board positions, equity in in order that he can maintain an unbiased position as director of The World Wide Web Consortium -- the organisation devoted to managing the standards of the WWW.
3. Vint Cerf. As one of the inventors of TCP/IP - the underlying protocol which make the Internet happen - Vint is a tireless promoter of the Internet and the need for social parity and the proper balance of regulation. His behind-the-scenes influence at the highest circles of government and corporations has been instrumental in keeping the Internet on course and out of proprietary hands. "The Internet is for Everyone" according to the founder of the Internet Society, and a key player in the development of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the key body defining the technical standards driving the net.
An infuential publication such as Time needs to look behind the hype to find the real movers and shakers, and promote these people as the reason we - and Jeff - are where we are today.
Sincerly,
-gordon
[have copied to members of the Internet Society for reference. My
statements are purely personal however.]
(for reference: Internet developer since 1983, founder of perhaps the UK's longest established Internet consultancy, co-founder of Scotland and England chapters of Internet Society, founder of Scotland's Internet Exchange, EuroAmerican internet business entrepreneur)
--
Gordon Howell, President, Electronic Commerce One
Now, get that image out of your head.
--
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Ahh bite me. I'm tired of the deification of that second rate actor.
Reagan was not taken prisoner by a bunch of generals attempting a coup because of what he did to end the cold war. Gorbachev was.
Ronnie Ray-Gun talked trash, and spent a gazillion of (partly) _my_ %%#$!@# tax dollars on the military because he listened to a bunch of toady CIA spooks telling him what he wanted to hear, that the "Evil Empire' _was_ a dangerous threat rather than the truth, which was that they were a barely functioning ex-superpower teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, whose soldiers _could_ have invaded Europe...
...for about fifteen miles, until their tanks ran out of gas because their commanders had sold it all on the black market to buy food.
Gorbachev _ended_ his form of government, ushered in democracy, and got himself sacked and almost shot for his troubles.
RayGun sat around, spent money and smiled in a senile fashion.
Now tell me who did more?
Time is to Man of the Year what MTV is to music... without a music video, you don't have a hit single. Without being telegenic / media friendly, you don't have a shot at Man of the Year. Scientific / humanist accomplishment is pretty much secondary to what will look good on a magazine cover.