Managers and Technology: the DOTCOm.bubble

I have a strong sense of ownership in the Internet. Al Gore already beat me in inventing it, but my interests in technology and particularly, computer science began early. I had my first contact with a computer at the age of six and quickly fell in love. Like most people, I was at first drawn to gaming and grew up seeing firsthand how technology evolved, how video games came from being a niche occupied by hardcore fanatics like me, to a multi-billion dollar industry. I lived through the introduction of the client-server model in multi-player gaming which allowed people to join games already in progress, something that today appears obvious, but at the time was completely revolutionary; the introduction of the first graphics card that handled transformation and lightening (T&L) allowing for the creation of complex 3D environments; the popularization of broadband and the new applications like Napster that it made possible. I watched gaming change and somewhere along the way, I realized that there was nothing left of the world which I was so passionate about. I had to move on.

At the time I didn?t think of it this way, but I was angry because it was the gamers that changed, not the games. I didn?t fit in and had to find myself something new. At thirteen, I learned programming, the basics of HTML and went on to making my first money from web development at fourteen. Since then I?ve built interactive bulletin boards, news portals and e-commerce sites. Unix based systems, system design and programming, and a position as a systems administrator, followed. Up until 2003, I was a self-taught kid but understood that I had to "formalize" my education if I wanted to be looked at seriously by employers. I began by taking networking classes at Mila College (www.mila.edu.pl) in Poland and have achieved Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) status. Since then, I?ve published research and worked in an internship position at an Internet Service Provider (ISP). I do not claim to be an expert in the area of programming, web-development, systems administration or networking, but for an eighteen year old I?ve had a fair amount of experience in all of them. As an administrator, an owner of a personal website, a published researcher, and a relentless programmer, I believe I helped build part of what the Internet is today.

About four years ago I discovered the stock market and the subject of economics, both which I could now easily learn about from the Internet. Understanding the basics of economics taught me that applying technology only made sense if it increased productivity or created new business opportunities; technology couldn?t exists just for its own sake. Those who invested in the dotcom companies of the late nineties learned the hard way that tech or non-tech, businesses must eventually have profits. At the time I was too young to understand what was really going on, but the take away regarding technology is clear: instead of rushing out to get the newest and latest, wait two years and hire someone who has successfully deployed the new technology in an organization larger than yours.

Open source software (OSS), which the CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer calls "the biggest threat facing Microsoft in the coming decade" is developed mostly by unpaid volunteers from around the world and provides an interesting case study of the role of management. Look at the big OSS projects that have been successful: the Linux Kernel project with the strong, centralized leadership of Linux Torvalds; RedHat Linux developed and distributed by RedHat Inc.; OpenOffice, developed by Sun Microsystem; the Firefox web browser, developed based on the source code provided by Netscape under the direction of the Mozilla Foundation; the Apache HTTP server, developed by the Apache Software foundation; the MySQL database created by MySQL AB; the Evolution groupware suite, developed by Novell. Do you see a common thread here? All these products have either centralized leadership or a major corporation that oversees the project. We don?t have to look far to find what happens without management, the numerous incompatible multimedia in Linux are prime example. Some see this as a great advantage, saying that the best solution will win in the market and perhaps in the end they will be right, but as for now, the situation is miserable. No multimedia solution is dominant, application developers don?t know which system to use, system developers have to choose between bad and worse solutions, and the end user gets a system that cannot properly handle half of the multimedia formats used today. Management?s role is critical to the success of any major software project.

Computer gaming wasn?t just a hobby to me, it was my life and quitting was very hard. I had to leave because as gaming reached the masses it attracted a new generation of players, a generation that didn?t want to play, they wanted to be played with. I want to be a player. To work with the best in the world, and to be amongst those who will introduce the next Personal Computer, the next Google or the next iPod. Attending and earning a joint-degree in business and engineering from one of the top universities in the world is a step that will help me achieve my dreams. Many people tell me that I shouldn?t even try applying to Penn, that the chances of getting in are just like the chances of winning a lottery and there is only disappointment to be had from this application. I don?t know if I have a chance of getting in to one of the most selective schools in the country or if I will ever realize my dreams. All I can do is try relentlessly.