Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Definition of scorched earth?

Numair Faraz's Motorola letter is pretty fiery. It's also the kind of thing that could be easily parlayed into a book deal, speaking tour and frequent appearances on CNBC. Isn't it? Railing against everything from a stupid boss to outsourcing, Faraz is an instant folk-hero. There are, of course, other lessons here like the importance of innovation but all that might get overlooked because it's the golf score accusations and overall violent indignation that makes this story so fascinating.

And certainly, this would appeal to someone at Fox Business News: "'It was my experience at Motorola, with...all of the loyal employees who still remain, that taught me what corporate America can and should be. But with people such as...yourself, Motorola symbolizes the worst of our country's corporate culture. As an immigrant American, and someone who has traveled all over the world, I really do appreciate the uniqueness and importance of the American culture of creativity and ingenuity. Whereas other countries back their money on gold and commodities, we back ours on our ability to invent the future.'"

If Endgadget is correct--that "Motorola's current CEO, Greg Brown, is so technologically out of touch he refuses to use a computer for communications, and has all his email correspondences printed by his secretary and replied to by dictation"--that's a wonderful detail.

ADDED: I first wrote that Faraz's letter was "salacious" but I don't think that's the right word. So I changed it to "fiery." Although, it IS salacious in a kind of business-news-as-porn way.

1 comment:

Suniverse said...

That was AWESOME.

Can I work with that guy?