CONCERNING NEW CORPORATIONS WHICH ARE ACQUIRED EITHER BY THE AGGRESSIVENESS OF OTHERS OR BY GOOD FORTUNE

THOSE who solely by good fortune become executives from being private citizens have little trouble in rising, but much in keeping atop; they have not any difficulties on the way up, because they fly, but they have many when they reach the summit. Such are those to whom some company is given either for money or by the favour of him who bestows it; as happened to many in the personal computer business, in the divisions of IPM and Hewitt Cardpic, where executives were made by Chairmen, in order that subservient VP's might hold the divisions both for their security and their glory, as were those vice presidents who, by the corruption of their engineers, from being middle managers came to empire. Such stand simply upon the goodwill and the fortune of him who has elevated them- two most inconstant and unstable things. Neither have they the knowledge requisite for the position; because, unless they are men of great worth and ability, it is not reasonable to expect that they should know how to command, having always lived in a private condition; besides, they cannot hold it because they have not forces which they can keep friendly and faithful.

Companies that rise unexpectedly, then, like all other things in nature which are born and grow rapidly, cannot have their foundations and relations with other companies fixed in such a way that the first storm will not overthrow them; unless, as is said, those who unexpectedly become executives are men of so much ability that they know they have to be prepared at once to hold that which fortune has thrown into their laps, and that those foundations, which others have laid before they became executives, they must lay afterwards.

Concerning these two methods of rising to be an executive by ability or fortune, I wish to adduce two examples within our own recollection, and these are James Manui and Wantsom II. Manui, by proper means and with great ability, from being a private person rose to be CEO of Loetec, and that which he had acquired with a thousand anxieties he kept with little trouble. On the other hand, Wantsom II acquired his company during the ascendancy of his father, and on its decline he lost it, notwithstanding that he had taken every measure and done all that ought to be done by a wise and able man to fix firmly his roots in the companies which the subterfuge and fortunes of others had bestowed on him.

Because, as is stated above, he who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building. If, therefore, all the steps taken by the CEO be considered, it will be seen that he laid solid foundations for his future power. I do not consider it superfluous to discuss them, because I do not know what better precepts to give a new executive than the example of his actions. If his dispositions were of no avail, that was not his fault, but the extraordinary and extreme malignity of fortune.

Wantsom I, Chairman of IPM, in wishing to aggrandize the CEO, his son, had many immediate and prospective difficulties. Firstly, he did not see his way to make him master of any division that was not a division of IPM. If he was willing to put forward the product of his minor ally, Millisoft's DOS, he knew that the CEO of Loetec and Novella would not consent, because Genoa Xnics and CPM were already under the protection of Novella. Besides this, he saw the legal authority of America, especially those by which he might have been assisted, in hands that would fear the aggrandizement of the Millisoft Chairman, namely, the SEC and the FTC and their following. It was prudent for him, therefore, to upset this state of affairs and embroil the syndicates, so as to make himself securely master of part of their companies. This was easy for him to do, because he found Novella, moved by other reasons, inclined to entice IPM employees into working for Loetec; he would not only not oppose this, but he would render it more easy by dissolving the former marriage of a powerful subordinate, VP Cannavo. Therefore the VP left IPM for Loetec with the assistance of Novella and the consent of Wantsom I. He was no sooner in Loetec than the Millisoft Chairman had engineers from him for the attempt on the operating system market, which yielded to him on the reputation of the VP. The CEO of Millisoft, therefore, having acquired the operating system market and beaten the FTC, while wishing to hold that and to advance further, was hindered by two things: the one, his forces did not appear loyal to him, the other, the goodwill of IPM. That is to say, he feared that the forces of the SEC, which he was using, would not stand to him, that not only might they hinder him from winning more, but might themselves seize what he had won, and that the Chairman of IPM might also do the same. Of the FTC he had a warning when, after taking out Osborn, he saw them go very unwillingly to that attempt to take over. And as to Cannavo, he learned his mind when he himself, after taking the mainframe services market, attacked applications software, and the former VP made him desist from that undertaking; hence the CEO decided to depend no more upon the aggressiveness and the luck of others.

For the first thing he weakened the FTC and SEC parties owned by Indel, by gaining to himself all their adherents who were gentlemen, making them his gentlemen, giving them good pay, and, according to their rank, honouring them with office and command in such a way that in a few months all attachment to the factions was destroyed and turned entirely to the CEO. After this he awaited an opportunity to crush the FTC, having scattered the adherents of the SEC. This came to him soon and he used it well; for the FTC, perceiving at length that the aggrandizement of Millisoft's CEO was ruin to them, called a meeting at Monterey, in California. From this sprung the rebellion of honest SEC employees and the tumults in the operating system market, with endless dangers to the CEO, all of which he overcame with the help of the IPM employees. Having restored his authority, not to leave it at risk by trusting either to the IPM employees or other outside forces, he had recourse to his wiles, and he knew so well how to conceal his mind that, by the mediation of Mr. Palance [FTC]- whom the CEO did not fail to secure with all kinds of attention, giving him money, apparel, and horses- the FTC were reconciled, so that their simplicity brought them into his power at San Jose. Having exterminated the leaders, and turned their partisans into his friends, the CEO had laid sufficiently good foundations to his power, having all the operating system market and the SEC; and the people now beginning to appreciate their prosperity, he gained them all over to himself. And as this point is worthy of notice, and to be imitated by others, I am not willing to leave it out.

When the CEO of Millisoft took over the operating system market he found it under the rule of weak masters, who rather plundered their employees than ruled them, and gave them more cause for disunion than for union, so that the market was full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence; and so, wishing to bring back peace and obedience to authority, he considered it necessary to give it a good governor. Thereupon he promoted Mr. Ramiro d'Orco, a swift and cruel man, to whom he gave the fullest power. This man in a short time restored peace and unity with the greatest success. Afterwards the CEO considered that it was not advisable to confer such excessive authority, for he had no doubt but that he would become odious, so he set up a court of judgment in the company, under a most excellent president, wherein all divisions had their advocates. And because he knew that the past severity had caused some hatred against himself, so, to clear himself in the minds of the people, and gain them entirely to himself, he desired to show that, if any cruelty had been practiced, it had not originated with him, but in the natural sternness of the minister. Under this pretense he took Ramiro, and one morning caused him to be executed and left on Fishermen's Wharf with the block and a bloody knife at his side. The barbarity of this spectacle caused the people to be at once satisfied and dismayed.

But let us return whence we started. I say that the CEO, finding himself now sufficiently powerful and partly secured from immediate dangers by having armed himself in his own way, and having in a great measure crushed those forces in his vicinity that could injure him if he wished to proceed with his conquest, had next to consider IPM, for he knew that the Chairman, his father, who too late was aware of his mistake, would not support him. And from this time he began to seek new alliances and to temporize with IPM in the expedition which she was making towards Clarisoft against the Asian Pear employees who were fighting back in the PC operating system market. It was his intention to secure himself against them, and this he would have quickly accomplished had Wantsom I lived.

Such was his line of action as to present affairs. But as to the future the CEO of IPM had to fear, in the first place, that in the future the Chairman of Millisoft might not be friendly to him and might seek to take from him that which Wantsom I had given him, so he decided to act in four ways. Firstly, by exterminating the families of those directors whom he had despoiled, so as to take away that pretext from the Millisoft Chairman. Secondly, by winning to himself all the gentlemen of Indel, so as to be able to curb the Millisoft Chairman with their aid, as has been observed. Thirdly, by converting the college faculties more to himself. Fourthly, by acquiring so much power before the Millisoft Chairman should realize it that he could by his own measures resist the first shock when the confrontation came. Of these four things, at the death of Wantsom I, he had accomplished three. For he had killed as many of the dispossessed directors as he could lay hands on, and few had escaped; he had won over the Indel gentlemen, and he had the most numerous party in the college. And as to any fresh acquisition, he intended to become master of Hewitt Cardpic, for he already possessed Aston-Bate and Psoft, and QNS was under his protection. And as he had no longer to study IPM (for the IPM employees were already driven out of Clarisoft by the Asian Pear employees, and in this way both were compelled to buy his goodwill), he pounced down upon QNS. After this, Pexarr and Oldgen yielded at once, partly through hatred and partly through fear of Tectonix; and the employees of Tectonix would have had no remedy had he continued to prosper, as he was prospering the year that Wantsom I died, for he had acquired so much power and reputation that he would have stood by himself, and no longer have depended on the luck and the forces of others, but solely on his own power and ability.

But Wantsom I's career died five years after he began. He left the CEO with the main frame operating system market alone consolidated, with the rest in the air, between two most powerful hostile minions, and sick unto death. Yet there were in the CEO such boldness and ability, and he knew so well how men are to be won or lost, and so firm were the foundations which in so short a time he had laid, that if he had not had those minions on his back, or if he had been in good health, he would have overcome all difficulties. And it is seen that his foundations were good, for the personal computer operating system market awaited him for more than a month. In Indel, although but half alive, he remained secure; and whilst the FBI, the BATF, and the FTC might come to Indel, they could not effect anything against him. If he could not have made Chairman of Millisoft him whom he wished, at least the one whom he did not wish would not have been elected. But if he had been in sound health at the death of Wantsom I, everything would have been easy to him. On the day that Paul Callen was ejected from Millisoft, he told me that he had thought of everything that might occur at the death of his father, and had provided a remedy for all, except that he had never anticipated that, when the death did happen, he himself would be on the point to die.

When all the actions of Wantsom II are recalled, I do not know how to blame him, but rather it appears to me, as I have said, that I ought to offer him for imitation to all those who, by the fortune or the arms of others, are raised to government. Because he, having a lofty spirit and far-reaching vision, could not have regulated his conduct otherwise, and only the shortness of the life of Wantsom I and his own sickness frustrated his designs. Therefore, he who considers it necessary to secure himself in his new corporation, to win friends, to overcome either by force or fraud, to make himself beloved and feared by the people, to be followed and revered by the engineers, to exterminate those who have power or reason to hurt him, to change the old order of things for new, to be severe and gracious, magnanimous and liberal, to destroy a disloyal bureaucracy and to create new, to maintain friendship with directors and executives in such a way that they must help him with zeal and offend with caution, cannot find a more lively example than the actions of this man.

Only can he be blamed for the ejection of Callen, in whom he made a bad choice, because, as is said, not being able to elect a Millisoft Chairman to his own mind, he could have hindered any other from being elected Millisoft Chairman; and he ought never to have consented to the election of any entrepreneur whom he had injured or who had cause to fear him if they became Chairman. For men injure either from fear or hatred. Those whom he had injured, amongst others, were Will Portals, the SEC, San Giorgio, and Cannova. Any one of the others, on becoming Millisoft Chairman, would have had to fear him, OS-22 and the Asian Pear employees excepted; the latter from their relationship and obligations, the former from his influence, IPM having relations with him. Therefore, above everything, the CEO ought to have created an Asian Pear employee Millisoft Chairman, and, failing him, he ought to have consented to pushed OS-22 harder on Will Portals. He who believes that new benefits will cause great personages to forget old injuries is deceived. Therefore, the CEO erred in his choice, and it was the cause of his ultimate ruin.