Bill, I know that you are busy with the demanding business
of making money, so if you don't mind, please allow me to
butt in and field this.
Okay, so what does Bill Wexler making tons of dough by
shorting Y2K specialists have to do to with Y2K being a
hoax? I will try to connect the dots.
First of all, Bill never says that the Y2K problem does not
exist. It does. It is a reality. But the way that this reality is
peddled is so riddled with misinformation, exaggeration and
self-interest that the amount of truth in the story is swamped
by the hype.
The tidal wave has reached these proportions because
everybody gets something out of it. Software professionals
sell services, products and build their egos. Stock
promoters and various kinds of Y2K pseudo experts hitch
along for the ride. The media sells lots of magazines,
newspapers, and books. Politicians get to save the day by
spending taxpayer's money.
Harder to understand is the incredible popularity of the issue
with ordinary people with nothing to sell. Like all great
myths, this story has elements which appeal to the popular imagination. Many folks that I talk to clearly fear the consequences, but are delighted that modern technology will get its comeuppance. Call it the revenge on the revenge of the nerds.
For an excellent article explaining this behavioral
phenomenon, have a look at Aaron Lynch's "The Millennium
Contagion: Is Your Mental Software Year 2000 Compliant?"
at mcs.net
Back to Bill. To my knowledge, he was the first person
without a computing background who was able to perceive
that the public (and investors) were misunderstanding the
very nature of the Y2K bug. He correctly identified it as a
fairly typical software maintenance problem. Unusually
widespread to be sure, but a straight forward problem that
is not too difficult to fix if the programmer knows the
application. As such, like most maintenance issues, it does
not lend itself to solution by software packages, code
generators or roaming consultants. It is best dealt with by
in-house staff, the very same people who make the myriad
of changes that are continually required due to changes in
company policy, union contracts, government regulation,
etc.
What the Y2K companies were selling was a lie based on a
truth, but a lie nevertheless. Bill exposed this lie. He also
understood enough about stock promotion to know how to
capitalize on it. |
