The Incentive Game

My friend Bob Litan, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is worried about COVID-19 herd immunity. Specifically, Bob worries that the only way our population can reach the 60-70 percent immunity rate required to protect us all from the novel coronavirus is if some people are paid to take the shot. And Bob may be correct: a Gallup poll last month concluded that 35 percent of Americans would refuse to be vaccinated.

Uh-oh.

Bob thinks the way around this problem is to pay people, giving them an economic incentive to do the right thing. This got me thinking about the whole concept of […]

By |September 3rd, 2020|2020, Business, Economy, Finance, Government|61 Comments
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Not Just the End of IT, the End of IT Contractors

Earlier this week I predicted the demise of conventional IT caused by the wide adoption of SD-WAN and SASE, accelerated by the emergency demands of everyone working from home. Now that Congress has passed a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 bail-out, let’s throw-in the implications of that legislation to see what effect it is all likely to have on what used to be IT. The short version is to expect an even bigger bloodbath as IT employees at all levels are let go forever. Please understand that some version of this bloodbath was going to happen anyway. What matters right now is how we respond to it.

While my previous column was generally about […]

By |March 30th, 2020|2020, cloud computing, computer networks, Predictions, strategy|42 Comments
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Cringely, like Milton, is blind. But Milton was a better writer.

Maybe you’ve wondered, “What happened to Cringely?” Nothing serious: I just stepped being able to read or write. Cataracts in my family hit like a hurricane, coming on suddenly and wth great force. It happened to my handsomer older brother two years ago and now to me. My medical care is through Kaiser, which does great work on such conditions, but it’s a bit like being in the army. First I wasn’t blind enough and then I was suddenly too blind, kicking me up to a slower level of service. I know, it makes no sense at all. In another 10 days I’m told it will all be behind me and I’ll have perfect vision […]

By |July 5th, 2017|2017, Family, Health|96 Comments
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DVD Is Dead

The DVD may have died this week.

Walmart is now selling Blu-Ray high-definition optical disk players for $68 in the U. S. Sure, plain old DVD players are cheaper still, but why would you buy one? Blu-Ray players can be used with your old DVD collection just fine and will line-double and up-shift your old disks a bit so they’ll look nice (but not as nice as 1080p Blu-Ray) on your new LCD or plasma TV. So unless the Blu-Ray can’t connect to your old TV for some reason, I can’t imagine why anyone would buy the old standard.

These things happen: Moore’s Law, remember? But in this case it feels to me like […]

By |December 22nd, 2009|2009|183 Comments
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The Adam Smith & Paul Krugman Show

We’ll get back to health care tomorrow, but first I have several video clips to share.

Adam Smith is a best-selling author and for 14 years had a weekly show on PBS called Adam Smith’s Money World that won four Emmys and a Peabody Award.  He’s a very smart guy.  Smith was Tom Wolfe’s editor at Esquire, founded Institutional Investor and New York magazines, and somewhere in there about 25 years ago became a friend of mine.  I try to collect heroes and this guy is definitely one of mine.

Smith lives in Princeton, NJ, next-door to Paul Krugman, Princeton professor, New York Times Op-Ed columnist and oh, by-the-way, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics.

I wonder how he invested that money?

On July 8th Smith […]

By |July 29th, 2009|Uncategorized|79 Comments
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