If you’re no longer working for the company, why are you here? Why badmouth the company you worked for when you’re long gone? It’s not helping you. It’s only hurting others.
36 replies (most recent on top)
"In theory, an innovative CTO cancel all the least profitable products, do a mass layoff of the worst performers, and use the savings to build new and profitable products."
Yes.... In theory. But in reality that has never happened. In reality there has never been a better time than now. It is hard to to understand why SAS forever clings to so many loser products.
A company keen on selling would have tossed the loser products long ago. And the staff associated with them.
The talk of selling is just flirtation for attention. And here we are, being su-kers taking that bait.
It can't change because SAS has damaged its reputation over time by taking customers for granted. Once they leave, they don't come back.
Thanks for that analysis. We mostly agree, but here’s a slightly different take.
I believe there is room, even in the crowded analytics space, to build innovative new revenue streams — given sufficient funding.
In theory, an innovative CTO could cancel all the least profitable products, do a mass layoff of the worst performers, and use the savings to build new and profitable products.
They wouldn’t necessarily have to launch a new company. With sufficient funding, they could maintain the V9 cash cow, and even improve it.
But a mass layoff… that kind of cost savings won’t happen under current ownership. The Majority Owner will do all he can to minimize layoffs.
We can call it kindness, or paternalism, or whatever we like… but he is minimizing the pain for his employees. In a public company, any CEO would do a quick layoff of 20% at least.
An IPO will make this a public company. Count your blessings, and make your plans.
"Okay, team, let's all gather round, and we'll draw assignments out of this hat."
"Why can't it change? SAS can't get another CEO but surely it can get another CTO that is capable to turn things around and to have this new CTO to advise the CEO."
That's an interesting question worth exploring. If a CTO was to change things, and attempt to turn things around, what would it turn SAS into?
So what does SAS have that is a platform to build from?
Not the right people...as many posters here have pointed out, the good ones have mostly all left.
Not the right products...most here would agree that SAS9 is dying of old age, and Viya is the unwanted child with no future.
Not the right brand...ask most people in business about SAS and they will think your referring to a Scandinavian airline, the British special forces, or perhaps a dinosaur tech company that they'll be surprised still exists.
The analytics market is now so dominated by open source, that it hardly seems sensible to have another shot at building a commercial analytics platform.
So to turn things around at SAS would mean replacing all the people, ditching all the products, and rebranding....what's the point? If you wanted to do that, you'd launch another company and we all know JG isn't going to do that.
So to anyone suggesting it's possible to turn things around at SAS...you're dreaming. It'll never happen.
"... people in power don’t know how to create new revenue streams. And that isn’t going to change."
Why can't it change? SAS can't get another CEO but surely it can get another CTO that is capable to turn things around and to have this new CTO to advise the CEO.
SAS can change but for some reason it doesn't want to....wasting precious time.
censor negative comments, pull more wool over your eyes. everything is obviously fine. everything is great. the emperor's clothes are truly beautiful. magnificent. the kool aid is wonderful. it's just a few odd, negative comments ruining such a lovely party. /s if that were true, why worry about a few criticisms?
Managers get promoted for the wrong reasons at many companies. That isn’t specific to SAS.
What’s specific to SAS is the proportion of poorly qualified managers. This is a result of Corporate Socialism and the Peter Principle. SAS did not hire only the best, and yet for many years SAS retained those they hired, and almost always promoted from within. People got promoted to their level of incompetence, and stayed there.
Many of my managers were never trained to manage software. They were mostly nice people, but when faced with a choice of alternatives, they had no idea how to decide.
They could have decided by reasoned discussion. That might have revealed that they did not understand the discussion. For that or other reasons, reasoned discussion was a process they never considered.
Some of them would count noses. They’d literally walk around asking people’s opinions. That was better than themselves choosing blindly, but it turned technical or business decisions into political decisions.
At SAS, I had some of the best managers of my career. But those were a minority. And when decisions were made at their level, they had to compromise with the under-qualified majority. The end result was mediocre products.
Several of my managers blamed their employees. We were all hired from the same pool, and poorly qualified people exist at every level. But employees aren’t in a position to make decisions.
Yes, some of the promotions were unfair, and some of the managers were downright toxic. These behaviors should never have been tolerated. But they aren’t the main problem.
The main problem is that revenues are declining now, and the people in power don’t know how to create new revenue streams. And that isn’t going to change.
If you think all those in Management rose through merit, think again. Perhaps a few of them did. But others rose through fealty or other odd circumstances.
@5xcg+1pxM3AOv
Paternity suite? OMG, really?
I worked in R&D for many years. The last manager I worked with was minimally qualified to run a free flower stand. For whatever reason, I will always believe that their employment and ascension is due to a paternity suit. It's a bizarre, and unsettling belief. And we wonder why SAS is failing?
I worked in R&D and my experience was similar. I wasted my best years at SAS and wish I had left earlier.
About 30% of my managers were wonderful — mostly in the early years — highly competent people who cared about their employees.
Only about 10% of my managers were toxic. Those should not have been allowed to manage animals, let alone people.
The other 60% were not bad people. They just weren’t well qualified to make technical or business decisions. SAS gave them almost no management training, and they never learned.
This is a peculiarity of SAS that will not change. For this reason, SAS will not change.
If I were near retirement age, I’d stick it out. It’s a gamble, but with odds in your favor. But for younger folks… it’s a big world out there. At the end of your career, you don’t want regrets.
Good luck to all!
Like others here, I spent a substantial part of my career at SAS and now have a lot of regret I didn't make a change earlier. It's important to me that other good people don't get su-ked into the vortex and get sp-t out years later wondering what happened. For me it was the mystique and prestige that having a job at SAS used to cary and all my friends and family telling me constantly how great it was. I suffered through years of mismanagement and just a general toxic work environment and saw so many of my colleagues there doing the same. SAS is NOT a great place to work, it doesn't look great on your resume and you could end up wasting years.... If just one potential employee changes their mind about accepting a job at SAS then this site is a success!
SAS was ruined long ago. Nobody is "ruining it for you", we are revealing it for you.
Your welcome!
Hey Jenn, how’s it going with SAS’ ranking in the woke corporation scorecard olympics? Gotta keep SAS population Min-to-GenZ happy — they your future!
More importantly, how"s SAS’ ranking in Fortune’s 100 Best, 2023 edition?
@1rki+1pxM3AOv speaks for many of us former employees. I also spent 90% of my career in SAS R&D. Likewise, some of what I saw was deeply troubling, making me wish that SAS “focused on healthier and more effective management.” Nevertheless, I too worked extra hours, because SAS offered the chance to build some truly world-class software.
SAS management minimizes layoff announcements. That may be good strategy for an IPO, but it makes this site the best source of information. That’s why we’re here; we all still care about the company, and our friends who remain there.
We’re old; we’re the past; but we’ve posted some useful information. If you read the threads on revenue, revenue per employee, the IPO, and Viya, they can help you prepare for a future that is different from the past.
Could be, or could be that someone at SAS asked the legion of employees who regularly regurgitate whatever the official SAS social media accounts gurgitate to visit this site to provide a "more balanced perspective". It's hilarious because "Jenn" is right - SAS leadership has no interest in hearing what anyone who posts here has to say.
In every interaction with senior leadership, it is clear that the heavy thinking is done and the only thing left to do is execute on the current "vision", after which all the pieces should just fall in place. The problem isn't the vision, you see, it's the execution. So it's not senior leadership or their Big Plan, but the company's employees that are constantly failing SAS. Why would SAS leadership want to hear what those employees have to say?
"Y’all really think your comments on this site are going to have any positive effect on the company, its management, and internal workings? Seriously?"
No, of course not! But it might have a positive impact on some workers who may not fully understand just how bad things are because management have decieved them with into believing it's still "a Great Place to Work".
Interesting that this poster made no reference to employees....only management.
Y’all really think your comments on this site are going to have any positive effect on the company, its management, and internal workings? Seriously?
P2
… lack insight …
To the OP.
I spent 90% of my career at SAS in R&D and consider the company my “tech cradle”. To this day, I (and no doubt many others here) have a great love for the original SAS culture that although changed over time, was magnificent for at least the first 30+ years. Across a long SAS career, I personally sacrificed several thousand hours of my life working well beyond standard “SAS work-life balance” expectations. I suspect the same is true for others here. Many of us did so from a sense of gratitude for working for such a wonderful company. SAS had a unique culture that for a couple of decades was the envy of the industry to the degree powerhouse’s like Google studied and emulated many tech workplace ideas that SAS pioneered.
My posts have attempted to be honest about everything I witnessed and experienced, the good and the bad. I accept that many of the less-than-optimal-to-downright bad aspects are part of the growing pains of any organization that grew from a handful of founding employees to a worldwide leader in analytic software. I’m also willing to admit that I have blind spots and like inside into many of the issues and dynamics at play. That said, I like many others here care deeply about the future SAS and hope the best for its ongoing. We now have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and are sharing it here. Sadly, some of what we witnessed and experienced was deeply troubling and would not have been as pervasive had SAS been focused on healthier and more effective management.
I find most of the alumni posts very useful, I gain different outlook on things when I consider their perspective. Very grateful for your posts, guys and gals, keep them coming.
According to Bezos, a day one company's obsessive goal should be to avoid becoming a day two company. In his own words, "Day two is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline.
To the OP...this is a dark place full of subversive behaviour. If you want the truth, just go to www.sas.com.
@fta+1pxM3AOv — FTW
SAS did not become successful by doing things the conventional way. Then once we became successful, SAS progressively became a bureaucracy more like IBM, Oracle, etc. than most were willing to truthfully acknowledge. A tacit collusion arose between growing apathy/fading practical competency in the ranks, held in tension with micromanaging division heads who in some cases thought they were smarter than anyone else, when in reality they were better “players” than technologists. I think this is what Bezos means by “day two” companies.
What's the matter, OP, you can't handle the truth?
Nobody here bad mouth SAS. We all loved/love SAS. We only speak the truth based on our experience at SAS even if it is painful to hear. We like nothing better than for management to wake up and take action to right all the wrong decisions so that SAS can last another 50 years and not go down as the once great company to ever collapse due to mismanagement.
Dear Winston,
We understand it may be difficult to cope in Oceana. We value the citizens of Oceana, so we've provided a few tips to help you maintain your citizenship in good standing.
- Disregard all that you read on this site. It will only bring you mental anguish, and Big Brother does not want that for you. Send this site down the memory hole.
- Sing and clap along with Big Brother and your other dear leaders as they preach grand stories of success. Remember, even when flagship products are bundled for free within a sales deal, a sale did occur. Celebrate these wins as if the customer paid for the flagship product. This is important to Big Brother, as we all want success for Oceana.
- Never speak to, nor acknowledge the citizens sent to Room 101. Never speak to, nor acknowledge those who have been expelled from Oceana. They have disappeared for a reason, and it was entirely their fault. Associating with them or acknowledging them in any manner upsets Big Brother and the harmony of Oceana. Those disregarding this suggestion risk a similar fate.
- Never, ever ask question what is presented by the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue). Big Brother is not obligated to show you hard numbers. Never, ever question the Ministry of Truth's statements about revenue. As a citizen of Oceana, you are to accept every statement from Minitrue as fact.
By following these simple rules you can remain a productive citizen of Oceana and spare yourself the horrors of Room 101.
Now please relegate this site to The Memory Hole.
Best Wishes,
Your Friends in The Ministry of Love (Miniluv)
OP: revenue adjusted for inflation is not growing. There is are reasons for that and sadly, those reasons speak way louder than you. Wake up!
Could not have said it better. The fact is that an investor doing credible due diligence is going to dig much deeper than any of us ever could. They are going to be able to open the books and get Intel within the industry that none of us are privy to.
SAS had/has its own special kind of echo chamber. In my post SAS work life, I met someone (with a PhD in a very difficult engineering based discipline) who was once a partner liaison from another company (prior to the one we worked at together) and came to the Cary SAS campus. His salient remark was something like "the SAS people I dealt with seemed very arrogant --- like they had the only technology proposition worth considering". This was somewhere between 4 and 10 years ago.
Former SAS folks post here out of frustration. We’re emotionally invested. We naturally want our careers to have had value. So we hate to see what is happening to this once-great company, to which we devoted our best years.
Some of us were badly managed, and have used this forum to vent about it. This is, in fact, helping some of us. It’s therapy, to know that one is not alone.
Finally, in this forum, we learn from the comments of others, about products we were not involved in.
We don’t believe our comments are hurting anyone. The truth may be unwelcome, but it cannot hurt. The IPO will be what it will be, and serious investors will not be guided by comments here.
We all hope our comments inform and help our friends who are still employed. We wish them luck — all the luck in the world.
The trouble is SAS leadership can pull the wool over employees eyes because unlike most tech companies that are publicly listed, there is no transparency. If the books were open to publoc scruitiny, the internal messaging would have to be a lot more honest.
Because what the company is telling you, in my opinion, is baloney. The Emperor Has No Clothes and ultimately, your career will pay the price for it.
Be honest, why are you here? I think you know the answer.
Maybe there are some people who remain that are completely oblivious to the fact that the ship is rapidly sinking. Maybe by reading this stuff, they'll do the sensible thing and look for a lifeboat. In which case it's not hurting others, it's actually helping.
How is telling the truth from first hand experiences hurting others? Some are likely here because they were laid off, possibly even unfairly.
How does discussion about the difficulties we observed at SAS negatively impact people who have chosen to stay?
Do you think potential buyers might be reading this stuff and getting put off?