🐿️ Greatest Fried Chicken - The Insanely Profitable Tech Newsletter

Originally Published 6th May 2024

During my misspent youth, I lived in what you might call a “dodgy” neighbourhood, with rundown houses, abandoned cars, and shot-out streetlights. Shops were few and far between, mainly liquor stores and pawnbrokers, and restaurants were even rarer. The one exception was a cheerful storefront that stood out on the high street with a blinking neon hoarding that promised “Greatest Fried Chicken”. As a vegetarian my interest was minimal, but I did wander in one day with a friend intending to order some food–only to find that the staff weren’t even sure how to turn on the fryer, and most of the meat looked well beyond its sell-by date. We were pretty certain we’d stumbled on a “front”, a business that looked prosperous from the outside but is actually used to launder money or sell drugs. Any meals that happened to get served were just part of the cover.

Nearly thirty years later, I found myself in another “only for show” enterprise–the “innovation centre” of a major bank. Launched with great fanfare as a way for the financial behemoth to reinvent itself, the lab operated in vividly painted offices with neon signs (really!) trumpeting a commitment to “breakthrough tech” and “constant invention”--everything but “greatest fried chicken”. But behind the scenes, the “startups” running within the bank were hamstrung, requiring multiple approvals to change direction and unable even to talk to customers without legal approval; no OODA loops here! And woe betide you if your innovation might possibly compete with or improve on the bank’s existing services; such menaces were promptly and thoroughly stamped on. I got out quickly and wasn’t surprised when the Potemkin village quietly folded a few years later, with little or no actual effect on the bank or its customers.

I think of both these follies when I see splashy announcements by governments and big firms about their investments in new “startup hubs” and “centres of excellence”. There are isolated examples of successful disruptions coming from these initiatives, most notably IBM’s creation of the computer where you’re reading these words. But most of the time, the Innovator’s Dilemma rears its ugly head: new ideas threaten the existing, very successful modus operandi, and so the organisational immune system rejects inventions that, at first glance, don’t appear very successful anyway. Funding for innovation still serves its real purpose, making someone look good–and so the neon signs remain, blinking forlornly with their promise of delicious chicken-flavoured innovation, hanging just above engineers who have never seen a customer or run a successful experiment with a negative result. And we wonder why IT is treated as a cost centre….

This first appeared in my weekly Insanely Profitable Tech Newsletter which is received as part of the Squirrel Squadron every Monday, and was originally posted on 6th May 2024. To get my provocative thoughts and tips direct to your inbox first, sign up here: https://squirrelsquadron.com/