Re: Your favorite 10 analog IC's

From: John Larkin (jjlarkin_at_highSNIPlandTHIStechPLEASEnology.com)
Date: 02/17/05 

Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:19:33 -0800

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 19:02:13 GMT, gwhite <gwhite@deadend.com> wrote:

>John Larkin wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 09:45:16 -0700, Jim Thompson
>> <thegreatone@example.com> wrote:
>>
>> >If you've never been fired for insubordination, you've not lived. I
>> >got fired from Dickson Electronics (a hybrid house) for redirecting
>> >their business plan from heavily military to a mix between military
>> >and commercial... showing a healthy profit in the process. They went
>> >bust about two years after they fired me and sold out to Siemens. I
>> >think that's even gone now.
>>
>> I've always taken a peverse pleasure in dancing on the grave of a
>> company that tooled one around or ignored one's genius. I applaud the
>> deaths of Metricom,...
>
>I worked there. Why do you say that regarding them? I have my own views of why
>they failed.

What did you do?

Well, they were originally in the remote-read electric meter business.
I have some semi-cool technology that can do precise metering very
cheaply. I met with the guru Baran and - many times - with the prez,
Dilworth, and the engineers. They had serious doubts that my thing
actually worked - some trig-ignorant guys said flat-out that it
couldn't - so I did some semi-elaborate demos and customized my uP
code for their weird tests. It all worked. I proposed licensing my
stuff to them for 10% of what it would save them and they said, "No,
but how would you like to be a consultant?" Pricks.

They actually never wanted to be in the meter business; all the
engineers were Ham radio guys and seemed to think that measuring 60 Hz
was trivial and annoying. Plus the usual NIH of anybody outside having
a better idea.

The meter they designed was an expensive crock, and nobody would buy
it, so they became a Wireless Internet Company (which the hams
preferred) and burned through a bunch of presidents and hundreds of
megabucks and died.

Funny, I have a friend who had a very similar experience with Cellnet,
or Smellnet as he calls them.

I don't know any stories about Metricom after they switched to the
Ricochet thing; any good gossip about what they did wrong?

I think I actually saw a guy in a cafe using a laptop with a Ricochet.
Once.

John