Thread regarding SAS Institute layoffs

"what benefits can we give to the customers?"

a good question that still needs answering

I doubt that there was a building big enough to contain both egos.

Imagine the short shelf life of the Big German if he had worked for Steve Jobs at SAS

Arrogance, nepotism, fealty.

“ We’ve already identified the causes of decline”

Repeating the same thing over and over makes you right…

Ditto on being privately held through nearly 50 years of the greatest technology value run up in world history. It ultimately impacted everything, especially combined with nearly 3 decades of retaining too many less than effective/competent employees.

A big reason reason why the magnificent 7 and a relative handful of other tech companies have done so well is there a business model put “having skin in the game” on the front burner, enabling them to hire top talent, many in their 20s when they started. That kind of brain power in youth is what built SAS MVA and made the founders billionaires.

In the years-to-decades that followed, much of the early SAS became too comfortable resulting in a dimmed vision for how to exploit changing computing paradigms caused by considerably stale skill sets. Management to enforce the SAS maxim of saving salary overhead at all cost — especially when it came to new hires. Non-spectacular salary plus no equity, no real promise of bonus or significant profit sharing. SAS got what it payed for.

Meanwhile, much of tech, including the very markets SAS once occupied a dominant place in, grew exponentially and progressively/continually hired top talent, the best of them, a full order of magnitude above your average SAS R&D employee. Let’s not even talk about the impact this dynamic had on management between 1990 and 2015 when managers/directors often remained in essentially their same positions, continuing to build out the same processes and technology they helped pioneer early on … while learning little to nothing about technology advances outside of SAS.

I'd add "Private ownership" as another reason for decline, for two reasons. Lack of external accountability, and employees not having skin in the game.

Wharton should read TheLayoff.com. We’ve already identified the causes of decline:

1. Peter Principle

2. Dunning-Kruger Effect


3. Open Source

4. Poor UX

5. Failed Cloud Transition


Did I miss any?

Steve Jobs said, "Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have a faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them."

SAS has been one of Fortune magazine's Best Companies to Work For for over 20 years and got there by developing a culture based on "trust between our employees and the company," said Jim Goodnight.

Would be fascinating and educational if a too shelf biz school such as Wharton did a case study on the decline of SAS.

Best explanation of why Viya failed.

The down votes are an indication of denial. Denying does not make the truth untruthful.

In the history of SAS Institute, user experience was often ignored. Viya is just the latest example.

SAS always valued features and performance. In the early days, those two goals were sufficient. When your product and your competitors are on punched cards, or a 25x80 screen, there’s not much UX to consider.


Once the GUIs arrived, many of us pushed for better user experience. But R&D managers did not value it or understand it. We were pushing for ideas that were not theirs. We got punished for rocking the boat.

For many years, SAS delivered good features and fast performance, and that path worked — until the same features and performance appeared in Open Source.

Jobs absolutely nailed it when he said you have to start with the customer then work back to the technology. Vice versa won't work and Viya is proof of that. Today we see at the mess that made for SAS ad a company. Heart breaking.

Bravo to the OP. By far the best post in a long time. Thank you

Others can speak better to how the Big German ignored customers.

@aw+1jhk3nsw7

I'll just leave this here:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/steve-jobs-deathbed-speech/

Steve Jobs died in 2011 at age 56. It has been 14 years already. A genius life cut short.
He said this before he died:
"In the end, my wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to. At this moment, lying on my bed and recalling my life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in have paled and become meaningless in the face of my death."