I am leaving soon and I am very much looking forward to my last day here. I only regret that I stuck around this long.
There are still many talented people here who are letting this company waste their talents. They could achieve much more elsewhere.
If your talent is going to waste, be sure to work hard on refreshing it asap. Use resources outside the company. Living in isolation is very bad for you, your career, and your company.
THAT’s the one, the very cartoon from Gary Larson. Thank you so much for sharing! I should’ve had the insight to search for it and include the link in @1kefk+1mxEGrmy! From my vantage point, as a long-term R&D geek who participated from pre-MVA all the way into the depths of Viya, the imbalance between the two sides of rowers represent the lack of clear leadership and vision, along with (relatively speaking) competence versus incompetence which unfolded over time.
MVA was originally built with predominantly “A” players because at that point in history (mid 1980s), the modern tech work culture was not ubiquitous. By the early 1990s many of those A players were in management and began to hire B players. Fiefdoms formed with QA testing becoming one of the largest and most powerful. A few “Rockstars” arose who rocketed up the chain by being bright, highly motivated, and working 70 hours per week. These folks often shook things up. Although they could be difficult to work with, at the same time, they were critical in helping SAS technology move forward. Two in particular wound up leading R&D.
SAS had a culture that virtually no other tech company of any size had and for the most part this enabled SAS to be very selective as to who got hired. Math and Statistics departments at universities all over the United States knew of SAS and up until the early 2000s, SAS was able to hire their many of their best PhD and postdoc graduates.
From my vantage point, by the mid 90s, there was a dearth of systems-level architectural talent and diminishing basic research in this area. A handful of “corporate jocks” arose as systems dev managers or directors. Although most were intelligent and hard-working, they hindered some of the more talented, long-term systems-level geeks from being as effective as they could’ve been in keeping SAS architecture fresh and relevant. Micromanaging was common place. Some of the best SAS systems programmers moved over to work on Southpeak Interactive (gaming) which kept them from affectively contributing to SAS core platform technology at the critical juncture when cloud companies were just beginning to gather steam in the industry.
There is more to the story and it certainly helps explain a non-trivial portion of the trajectory that resulted in SAS being where it is today.
The founders made a huge financial bet on Version 6. MVA was a brilliant innovation, perhaps the most portable architecture ever. Few other companies even tried to run on every machine between the mainframes and the PCs. SAS not only tried, but succeeded.
Then the GUIs came to the PCs. John argued that this required a completely different UX for SAS. Others argued that customers wanted SAS to look the same on all devices. John left R&D to build JMP.
Afterwards, there was only one Viking at the prow of the ship. R&D became controlled by a mix of greater and lesser talents. When they had good ideas, none of them had the political clout of an owner.
MVA was so strong that SAS grew for 20 years on that single revenue stream. But after MVA, innovations became more politicized, and creating new revenue streams became more difficult.
Thus SAS arrived at its present position.
Large companies can change direction. But it requires wholesale change.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/385339311863591206/
EDIT : roughly 5 years for MVA
Regarding the Viking cartoon (I believe far side/Gary Larson, but this could be wrong) thumbtacked to the bulletin board in the second floor building E (R&D) break room circa 1986).
It depicted two Vikings (with the names Jim and John scribbled on them) on the bow of their ship (similarly with the name "Version 6" [the initial MVA version] scribbled on it) in the middle of some rough seas. John had a spyglass and said "Gee Jim, do you have a feeling we are sailing in circles?"
MVA became the basis for most of SAS historical revenue. It stands among the largest and most complex C language projects of its time. It took 100s (for a while R&D hired ~15 staff per month) of developers and QA testers over roughly a years before a stable product was shipped.
In the meantime, Version 5 was still shipping on three mainframe OSs and several mini computers. This is based on the original mainframe assembly language core written in large part by Anthony James Barr, (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_James_Barr) yet considerably modified as time went on. Of course, the mini computer SAS implementation had its own core services. The Verzion 5 and earlier PROCs were mosly written in PL/1 so if memory serves me correctly, they were at least somewhat portable between the main frame, and minis like the DEC/VAX,
So friends and neighbors, SAS faced a similar dilemma 3 to 4 decades ago, with regard to architecturally different releases, as they do today between version nine and Viya. Significant incompatibilities existed between versions 5 and 6. The parallels do not exactly correspond, and certainly company scale is much greater today. SAS was ultimately successful and converting customers to V6 which is architecturally the basis for much of V9 today -- especially core money making pieces.
The differences is the founders were much younger and very committed to the success of the company, hiring staff who could get the work done, etc. It does not appear the necessary motivation exists today with regard to moving SAS9 forward to Viya.
"I’d like to hear the story of the two Vikings in Building E, if that poster is still around."
Me too. Please spill!
I’d like to hear the story of the two Vikings in Building E, if that poster is still around.
SAS was my first job out of college and I put in around 25 years. When I left I found that (a) ageism is horrible in the software industry, and (b) my years at SAS were NOT a selling point. You were looked at as someone who only learned one company's way of doing things.
And that was absolutely true. SAS was assembly-line programming where you only learned what you needed to know to do your little part of the job. When someone asks me what did I do there I say "I wrote the code for the "Quit" bu-ton." Add in the fact that SAS was behind the software tech curve. Interviewers will not look favorably on your 25 year SAS resume.
If you are relatively young and find yourself jobless now consider it a GOOD thing. SAS is a dinosaur living off renewals. You'll learn a LOT more working elsewhere.
I’ve been told that, shortly before his resignation, the Forester requested a large number of new developers to build SAS Viya. If he made that request, it’s no surprise it was denied, as SAS is in cost-cutting mode.
However, SAS is still building Viya, and converting products to run on Viya. Without the requested developers, the conversion goes slowly.
Viya has not attracted any large group of new customers. So SAS must retain existing customers, by simultaneously supporting products on SAS MVA. This pulls more developers off SAS Viya -- further slowing the conversion.
It's fair to hold the Forester responsible for what happened during his tenure — but not for the 2.5 years since he resigned. SAS seems to be still following his plan, but at a slow pace.
JHG has said in the past that he requires his company to be profitable. Profitability fits with the goal of becoming “IPO-ready” (which also readies SAS for sale to any private buyer). You’d want to tell prospective buyers that “We’ve always been profitable.”
So I guess this is the future of SAS: a slow MVA-to-Viya conversion, with continued cost-cutting to support profitability — until there is an IPO or private sale.
What would you do? Abandon Viya, invest more in it, or convert to it while minimizing your investment? To become “IPO-ready”, the conservative choice is probably best.
… because the “bodily fluids argument” is so logically strong in the face of actual facts.
Quote:
"...From this vantage point, it should be apparent that Forrester used his genius to make the best possible set of decisions given all of the constraints..."
I'm sure some of us can replace the Forester's name in the above statement with our own names and come up with the same overall outcome - zilch. Now imagine going to your next job interview.
Interviewer: "I see you've worked at SAS for some time. Can you tell me about your accomplishments?"
Candidate: "Try as I might, I didn't accomplish anything. Oh sure, there were lots of little wins here and there, but in the overall scheme of things, I was simply urinating in the wind. You could say I got my legs wet. I did accomplish that for what it's worth."
Interviewer: "Oh, okay. Sounds great. Well, we have about four other candidates scheduled for interviews, we'll let you know." - Click (the end).
Now how do you move forward with that history?
Forester is not ultimately and certainly not singularly responsible for the diminished success of Viya. It is a broader systemic issue, already explained fragmentarily, not only on this thread, but others containing the details about the history of SAS, its principal founder, and especially R&D. Here are summary points to consider.
The Forester did give us Music Monday
Regarding OpenUI5, many of us thought it was a poor technical decision, because the technology was old. I inquired and was told it was not a technical decision at all, but a business decision. At that time, we had a partnership with SAP; that was the reason.
"If I were an enemy, I couldn't think of a more effective covert / asymmetric war strategy for wasting resources than SAS trying to customize SAP Open UI 5..."
Well put!
Many historical employees have recognized the “dysfunctional family system“ nature of SAS, beginning as far back as three decades ago. On balance, probably not more so than any other corporation that grew to the size (a significant accomplishment when you consider the point in which MVA went GA in 1990) and gained the prestige that it did. The fact that SAS remained privately held, and tightly controlled by its principle founder made the family angle even more acute.
A close friend of mine worked for SalesForce and said it felt cult-like. Google has the “Googliness factor” as a measure of how suited an individual is to their culture/ideology. These kind of systems are certainly not unique to SAS.
Back to the Forester being "the most important person in the company", that sounds like he was the "Golden Child" of a dysfunctional family system. It's a toxic dynamic that many, unfortunately, are used to from our own families of origin. No wonder working there felt like being part of some odd high school cult.
On a slightly different note, why did SAS insist on building out this "Open UI 5" stuff based on the SAP Open Source HTML rather than buying an off the shelf HTML 5 solution?
If I were an enemy, I couldn't think of a more effective covert / asymmetric war strategy for wasting resources than SAS trying to customize SAP Open UI 5. How many Developer Years of productivity did SAS spend building that framework out and customizing it?
In the meantime, products went NOWHERE; stuck in the mud. It probably would have been far cheaper and more effective to buy some external UI framework, or framework company, and incorporate that technology rather than waste all that productivity building that out.
Does anyone have any insight into this decision?
Very valid questions to ask. I’ll have to tell the “Two Vikings at the bow of their ship” story from the Building E — the inner sanctum of R&D circa 1986. Alas, it’s the weekend, so I’ll get to it when I can.
So why has what he built not sold?
"What he built" is a generalization of course. I don't mean to imply that every individual contribution failed to sell.
But as CTO/COO, the Forester's main contribution was Viya. If sales were a few hundred million, that doesn't begin to offset the >20% decline in revenues during his tenure.
Was Viya, as you suggest, insufficiently grounded in computer science? Was it unable to compete with open source? Was it just the wrong thing to build?
And where is it headed now? Last I heard, SAS still has two flavors, SAS MVA and SAS Viya, and both are still being developed.
As much as I’ve defended the Forrester’s productivity and deep concern for the future of SAS, during his tenure as a technical luminary and eventual leader, this was no doubt bound up in his desire to advance as a protégé of the most powerful man in the company, its founder. I have it on solid authority this was mutual for a long time. JG was impressed to the point of declaring (~2012) that the Forrester was the most important employee in the company. This is a very interesting symbiosis that lies at the heart of what the previous post is getting at.
Remember, 2012 was just after SAS was voted number one two years in a row on the Fortune 100 best companies list. At that time SAS revenue was fairly strong, open source analytics/data management was still nascent, and “the cloud” was only beginning to unfold to the level that would reach just a few years later. SAS was the overwhelming leader (larger market share than its next seven competitors combined) in advanced analytics (predictive/forecasting/modeling) and very strong in other areas. The public cloud was not yet in widespread use so businesses were still running. Their own data centers were the burgeoning V9 infrastructure stack could function in a more natural environment. All of this to say that it was easy to “not see” cataclysmic upheavals coming in the analytics market, and the way computing services in general would be consumed just a few years out.
Many have already discussed the missed ominous warning signs that perhaps a more insightful, less massively wealthy executive who had maintained forward-looking R&D and Market assessments might have caught. Yet, SAS was riding tall. JG seemed happy that the Forrester was taking so much initiative with parallel computing using distributed processing when necessary — it was pleasing SAS’ largest banking and financial customers too. What’s more is that The Forrester was building this tech using existing SAS TK infrastructure in C and taking a “streamlined” approach to thorny distributed systems and low level data management infrastructure problems. I have no doubt this very much pleased JG because it continue to build upon his long-term capital investment and personal identity with technology the company he cofounded had been innovating for over 25 years by that point.
Several others have pointed out the shortcomings of this. I personally believe a deeper commitment to the academic computer science of distributed systems, database, internals, and industry standard interfaces, like SQL would have been a more sound approach as the underpinning for Viya. However, this was never really the SAS way. JG favored applied math people who could code new analytics algorithms over systems programmers with deep computer science acumen. It is also true that the the best and most competent in the both categories were being hired by the West Coast cloud, companies, and anywhere from 2X to 5X what SAS was willing to pay.
It's great to point out that the Forester got the power he did, in part, because he most closely matched JG in many key areas. That was an observation I made way back, as on paper it almost seemed like the Forester was a younger version of JG himself; he was a new way to extend JG's life and reign over the company.
The common thread of vanity runs through all this, as seen in the belief of omnipotence and the unwillingness to change and adapt when circumstances dictated. Through all this vanity, SAS leadership missed the opportunity to learn an important existential lesson - What got you here will get you no further. Doing more of the same works for a time, but it doesn't work in perpetuity. At some point, it ceases to work at all. But some keep trying, failing to recognize they've hit 'rock bottom' and its over.
I've seen this tendency in a couple of software companies now, where the owners try unsuccessfully to milk revenue from a dead cow. Those company owners were unwilling to confront their own vanity, realize they and their product suites were past their prime, and change tactics. It's sad. And what's worse is to be an employee embroiled in one of these situations, unaware of what you're dealing with, stuck and draining your own life and skills away in the futility of trying to convince these folks to adapt to the present. Don't get stuck like many of us did, get out and move on.
Regarding the Forrester and current SAS financials:
“However, inflation-adjusted revenues have declined >20% during the past ten years. What _he built_ has not sold.”
This is not entirely true. The Forrester contributed to a considerable amount of legacy analytics revenue (e.g. mixed model PROCs) based on MVA, embedded process database analytics, LASR/VA, and yes, his magnum opus CAS/Viya which alone was (not sure of the current numbers ) responsible for a few hundred million dollars in revenue. How much of this revenue is still present as of mid 2023 is another matter, but I guarantee you on an individual level the Forrester “paid his freight” at a considerably higher multiple than any other individual salaried employee in the history of SAS.
The loss in net new revenue is not only from customers not adopting Viya, but more likely from legacy products and expensive to run/platform aging V9 multi-tier stacks being dumped.
The previous post is a solid summary of reality. I was there for the whole time with a deep history in R&D and personal experience working with many of the key players. At this point it’s important to recognize the “proverbial 30 ton elephant in the room”!
The two founders became billionaires prior to year 2000. They had already invested hundreds of millions into what is now a legacy architecture/infrastructure built on C and eventually a considerable amount of Java. This is the classic economics of long-term (15 years between 1985 and 2000 is long-term in the tech industry) capital expenditure colliding with market domination and tight control by a primary founder who is fiscally very conservative.
SAS was capitalized through organic growth versus outside investment. As we crossed into the 21st century there was no clear winner in computing paradigms. The cloud was nascent at best, distributed computing was still relatively primitive and a plethora of host platforms/OS variants were still generating revenue growth for SAS. JG stated it was difficult to plan for any new technology past about two years out. So, we have the perfect storm of a successful growing company with a very loyal user base, no real competitive threat in key areas, and an extremely conservative founder who, by 1995 (the zenith of MVA), wasn’t given to funding longer-term R&D projects, especially those that didn’t result in more revenue generating products based on the current SAS architecture. The thought of having to significantly re-architect SAS (beyond extending it via TK — which was already a stretch for many), was fundamentally out of the question.
The Forrester began his R&D Career as this perfect storm gathered even stronger headwinds. Given the absolute power that JG had/has over a significant change in all aspects of SAS, I don’t think Forester having a formal software engineering education would have made any significant difference. However, the previous poster is correct that no one will likely ever again get the opportunity he had. In fact, I will go as far as the conjecture, that the only reason he had the opportunity he did is because he did not come from a formal software engineering background but instead from statistical academia, just like JG. Even though his PhD was in forestry, it was all applied mathematics and statistics. The Forrester is very brilliant at applied mathematics. I have seen him explain SVD with great lucidity on a whiteboard. I’m also aware of an exceptionally bright “10x” West Coast programmer who declared the Forrester possesses deep competency in implementing ML algorithm code. Make no mistake about it “the Forrester” was the ideal person for JG to anoint during the last 15 or so years he served SAS.
I'm glad that some of you were able to have good careers under the Forester.
However, inflation-adjusted revenues have declined >20% during the past ten years. What he built has not sold.
It's true that he struggled with an old culture unsuited to new challenges. Many SAS managers became accustomed to a stable revenue stream with few competitors. And for sure, some were "protected" and "gamed the system for their own personal gain".
But we're always better at what we study. The Forester could have been more successful had he studied software engineering rather than forestry. And any leader does better to show humility rather than arrogance.
The Forester was probably our last best hope. He was given many years to do his job, with more authority than any previous leader. Absent radical change, it's unlikely that anyone will get a better chance.
Yes sir, I'm glad we've come to a peaceful resolution of this conversation! I too have been "that arrogant guy" although I never meant to be -- it was mostly personal insecurity, mixed with an intense desire for perfectionism in my work. Even today people misunderstand me because my method of verbal/written communication is somtimes too forceful and may appear boastful because I tend to overshare personal details in an effort to be transparent. I certainly don't mean to offend anyone, nor project superiority.
The Forrester we speak of has certainly had a unique and impressive career. I understand he is now back in academia after an executive stint at a hot West Coast tech company that is approaching IPO.
He is definitely one of the most influential people in the history of my very long tech career and I am very grateful for his mentorship, support and trust. I cannot imagine where SAS would be today without his massive contributions.
Hindsight is always 2020 as is often said, but the software business is brutal, it's a tar pit, as observed by one of its most astute architects. It's also virtually impossible to maintain prior market success across successive generations in computing paradigm shifts. That is what SAS, and indeed many other software concerns of massively greater Scale continue to struggle with.
The Forrester was determined to make SAS as successful as possible in the shift to massively parallel, analytical computing -- be it in the cloud or otherwise. If between 2000 and now, a greater percentage of R&D management had had his single-minded drive and work ethic I believe the landscape would be very different for the company moving forward.
The Forester was on to the stubborn Development Manager I worked with, and had been trying for some time to hold him accountable. The guy held out, but the Forester eventually got rid of him. That product eventually lost much of it's staff through attrition, and is probably a shell of what it once was.
I can't imagine how the Forester felt dealing with the managers who seemed to treat their jobs as a Corporate Conservatorship, especially those who seemed 'protected' for some odd reason. It must have been really maddening for him.
I appreciate your respectful reply.
Those who seemed passionate about doing the right thing for the company seemed to be few and far between, while it seemed there were plenty who gamed the system for their own personal gain. The latter bunch were quite frustrating to work with.
It's good to hear that the person we speak of learned some humility and empathy afterwards. Having also been that arrogant guy, it took a hard fall and a handful of years to learn how to become a more decent and empathetic person.
So through our comments I can now say that I have some respect for the journey he went through, and I can understand his frustration. We're not so much different after all.
EDIT:
“ who kept you making progress …”
—should instead read—
“ who kept you from making progress …”
Thank you for your detailed reply! I certainly respect our differences in perspective. I had a long history in R&D, and certainly have insights/opinions that others with similar histories did not always agree with, and likely would not today if we were to ever get together and be interviewed regarding SAS history. I did not always have proximity to “the Forrester” and having had direct experience with another historical “rock star” (who was ceremoniously escorted off campus by executive security after a violent verbal outburst against a subordinate), was quite cautious about getting in Forrester’s orbit because I had heard plenty of stories. However, once I got to know him professionally (and later personally), I saw how deeply he cared for the future of SAS, and was willing to sacrifice and even serve others in ways that most of R&D management was not. He was a driven individual, determined to make real progress.
Yep, that “stubborn development manager” who kept you making progress for years. Rinse and repeat 20 times over a dozen different teams and you’ll see what “the Forrester“ had to deal with once he was put in charge of R&D (and truthfully have been dealing with for over a decade in his drive to advance SAS as a technology). This is what I meant by longer-term, organizational problems — problems that should’ve been addressed by an even higher authority. Did it occur to your manager (or yourself) that you could have simply said “the feature is scheduled and we can certainly bump its priority”?
I will readily admit that dealing head on with “the Forrester“ required courage, the ability to maintain composure/objectivity in the face of his often intense glare, and especially a prepared, comprehensive defense of your work/designs, etc.. My personal interactions with him frequently required this and I felt his rather large boot (figuratively speaking) in my a-s more than once. However, I also grew more professionally, and even personally during my tenure, working with him that I had at any other time at SAS, except, perhaps the very early years of MVA. One thing he never did was micromanage and providing you could make a reasoned defense he was open to design ideas, architectural and code changes that might’ve ran contrary to his original thinking.
As far as infallibility, I don’t believe he ever claimed that. In my later, especially post-SAS interactions, I found him to have evolved considerably as a human being, developing a very empathic side.
The Forester was an arrogant guy. Dismiss it all you like with your tone of supremacy, but others have different stories. You were just in that guy's light, sharing the same pedestal, so your view is different than mine. Not right or wrong, just different.
Imagine working on a particular product vertical for YEARS with a stubborn Development Manager who would make no progress on cleaning up his mess of a product so that new features could be added in a systematic way. After YEARS of working on the internal departmental politics of convincing others to start cleaning up that mess of a product, you have the pieces arranged on the board and are close to "Check"; you can finally make progress. Then the Forester schedules an ad hoc product review meeting with your Development Team.
"Where's this one feature?", the Forester, now referred to as 'The Pigeon' asked.
"We haven't added it yet", the Development Manager replies.
Little does he know, but the feature IS planned, and IS scheduled to be added to the product in a systematic way. But The Pigeon doesn't inquire about that.
"Put the feature here (where it's doesn't belong)" The Pigeon orders, before flying off to foul up the next product's chessboard.
All that political chess work and forward progress down the drain. What could have been an organized product is still a convoluted, hacky-mess, and is probably beyond hope now. Thanks, Pigeon. Now I have to contradict The Pigeon's order, in order to get a planned implementation back on track. I did it, and it was career su----e.
Had The Pigeon been several magnitudes less arrogant and done some open minded investigation before issuing proclamations, then people could actually present their case as to what was going on, and he could have fixed the true problems. He could have cultivated an actual Forest of products. But he was too arrogant for that, choosing to use raw power over actual governance. But his ego was too large, and his mind too small, hence, I'll now refer to him as The Pigeon.
Defend the dude all you like. Others have a different view.
I've heard stories of The Pigeon having meetings with Managers he'd never met, and then arrogantly telling them about their work histories. His math and versions were incorrect, but no one dare contradict his 'supreme confidence', as you call it. Stop putting these people on pedestals. They aren't infallible, they just think they are.
Who was "The Forrester"? Just ignore if it would be rude or unethical to reveal their name.
I would like to address some comments about “the Forrester”. First a little background: I participated in and helped influence SAS internals during the modern history of R&D. Recently retired — outside of any offered package, and with an opportunity to stay at a higher level of compensation.
I have either known personally or worked with virtually everyone of any significance in the history of SAS core product development. That said, I consider “the Forrester” to be one of the most important individuals in the history of SAS (and so did JG at least up until the point when “Forrester” resigned.). While some may have perceived him as arrogant, I did not find him to be so (and this is with considerable direct experience). Instead, he is supremely confident, having built a mathematical and intellectual foundation on solid first principles from his youth on. Unfortunately, the same level of Intellectual rigor cannot be attributed to many who rose to positions of power and influence within R&D — especially by the late 90s.
A myriad of organizational problems existed within R&D and indeed most of SAS. This began as early as the late 80s, due to the exceptionally rapid growth of the company/revenue with the introduction of the MVA architecture — which, while revolutionary, set the course for a very complex set of software engineering and ultimately product management challenges. Such are not unique to SAS and are the reason why we have so much cr-p software in the world. Anyway, from 1991 until 2001, SAS successfully built upon MVA and eventually surpassed $1B in annual revenue through pure organic growth.
Around 2002, “the Forrester” joined SAS R&D. Coming from academia and having a European bearing, this man dressed more formally than most in Building R. He possessed a voracious work ethic and a no-BS approach to getting things done. Of course, this ruffled some feathers, yet, the quality and quantity of his code quickly surpassed the majority of even the best programmers at SAS. Within a few short years, “the Forester” would be by Jim G’s side and in charge of innovating new parallel computing initiatives, in database integrations with analytics, etc. — “hard stuff” that plenty of folks with PhD’s in computer, science and software engineering fail to innovate. This man was operating at a whole higher level than the vast majority of R&D.
The “Forrester” was instrumental in the LASR analytic server and VA (The fastest product to reach $100 million in revenue) which ultimately led to CAS and Viya. Regardless of what can be said about the current state of these products, “the Forrester” moved innovation, forward at SAS in a manner and scale that virtually no one else in R&D history even came close to achieving. The fact that he did not have a PhD in computer science, a masters in software engineering, or some Cr--ker Jack box Agile project management certification is beside the point. The Forrester and his small teams achieved results a building full of people with these credentials failed at.
Now, for a bit of reality check — so I can’t be accused of being completely biased. Were there some serious communication breakdowns and problems surrounding architectural, scope, product cohesion, etc. — especially as we moved into the Viya era? ABSOLUTELY, effing Absolutely! Was “the Forrester” in part responsible for this, given his stature in the corporation and the confidence/mandate, JG anointed him with? Yes, I think even he would agree that this is the case.
However, having worked directly with him during this tumultuous time. I can tell you that “the Forester” sacrificed his own health for far too long and worked 60 to 70+ hours a week intensely to make everything as successful as possible. The longer-term, lethargic nature of many in R&D management was equally if not more even more culpable for the ongoing product identity crisis that continues to plague SAS today.
Both Forestry and Psychology involve a lot of Statistics. But if we're thinking of the same Forester guy, he was about as arrogant a sphincter as they come. A real pigeon on the chessboard, so to speak. It lightened my heart to see him get his comeuppance.
In SAS R&D, talent was wasted because most managers could not recognize it. Given a choice between two developers, they could not tell which was more talented. The one more likely to get promoted was often the one they liked better.
R&D managers reacted similarly when given a choice between technical ideas. They couldn't tell the difference. Most of them weren't bad people; they just couldn't tell.
The worst of these managers were threatened by ideas, and threatened by talent. These people hurt SAS, because they encouraged an insular culture, and encouraged talent to leave.
SAS R&D was unusual in its promotion of poorly trained people to high positions. We promoted business majors, psych majors, and even one forester. These people were never educated to manage software projects or developers, and we gave them little additional training.
Many of these people did well -- in the early days, when their job was to maintain a revenue stream with few competitors. In that job, Kim Kardashian could also have done well.
The challenges came in recent years, when SAS attracted strong competitors and needed new revenue streams. That requires managers who are trained to develop software and nurture talent. There remain at SAS today many excellent and hard-working R&D managers capable of both.
But these people are a minority. Where they sit, they must compromise with the majority, and moving them to higher positions would require radical change.
I was in SAS R&D for several decades. By around 2008 until 2015, my endgame was to go back and get a graduate degree as a means of re-tooling — even though I was sneaking up on advanced middle aged. I had always focused on first principles learning and felt confident that I could grow quickly in an academic or new workplace environment.
In the last 5 to 8 years that began to change, especially as I realized that another degree probably wouldn’t make that much difference. I was able to collaborate with some truly world-class engineers and see just how good the best people outside of SAS are. It made me realize that assiduous self-directed learning was probably the best path. So I began doing so on my own time. I was also fortunate to be in a strategic role at work.
Eventually, during the pandemic tech craze, I made a move after fielding recruiters from several different West Coast tech companies. Have never regretted it.
There is a tremendous opportunity cost involved in staying at a tech company for decades, especially a privately held one that has not adapted as quickly as it should have to the open source in cloud worlds.
I also stayed over 25 years. We probably know each other. When you invest so much in anything, it's very hard to leave.
Take online courses and create a portfolio. Plan to submit over 100 job applications. Because of age discrimination, it's an onerous process. It took me most of a year, but I did find a better job.
The alternative was staying in a job I disliked, learning nothing, and waiting on an endgame that would put me in a worse position.
If you need only a few years until retirement, you'll probably get them at SAS, so it's reasonable to stay. But if you need more, that's a gamble, and not one I wanted to take.
Best of luck!
You are not alone. Although I've been out of SAS for a handful of years, I too would like to find some way to wash the 'taint' of SAS off, get some 'wins', and get back into the workforce. It's back to school and working upwards from there. My hope is to recover my education and work skills, and then move into a different field.
I wonder how many of us (me included) are suffering from sunk cost fallacy? I just wanna see how this all ends. Also, it will be somewhat difficult to pivot into a new role given my atrophied skills and age I think. I have found other companies look upon my resume with suspicion when they see I have been at SAS for over 25 years. It definitely was a mistake staying here so long but not sure what to do about it now.