During the back half of the 1990s, I was in charge of corporate marketing at Cyrix, a Texas-based microprocessor company, and at National Semiconductor, the company that bought Cyrix.

Today, I looked at some of the CNET news stories I was quoted in back then. I couldn't believe some of the blustery crap that spewed effortlessly out of my mouth.

Everything we did was the fastest, most powerful, most highly integrated, lowest cost, blah, blah, blah. The processor gods blessed everything we designed. Customers were lining up around the block. Intel was the devil incarnate. Advanced Micro Devices was just a lowly also-ran, doomed to forever live in Intel's shadow.

As the story turns out, Cyrix imploded and National Semiconductor blew I-don't-know-how-many-billion dollars cleaning up the mess. Intel's still the world's largest semiconductor company, and AMD--well, AMD at least survived.… Read more

Crises happen. They happen to all companies and to all people. They happen in our personal lives and in our professional lives. By definition, crises bring change, big change. They can change the entire trajectory of your life or your company's future. That's why how we behave in a crisis, how we manage a crisis, is such a big deal.

For example, Yahoo is going through a crisis right now. It's attempting to reinvent itself. Microsoft's bid to buy the company further complicates matters. The way Yahoo's board handles this crisis will determine the fate of the company and its thousands of employees and shareholders. That's a pretty big deal.

One company's crisis can have a ripple effect on others. You might say that Microsoft is attempting to capitalize on Yahoo's crisis. In so doing, the software giant has created its own. Negotiating tens of billions of dollars to acquire a large company and remake its Internet business is definitely crisis material.… Read more

We spend lots of time with electronic gadgets and most of it sitting on our behinds. Xbox and iPhone may get all the press, but one of the most important gadgets in your office is your desk chair.

Think a chair isn't a gadget? Have you checked out the controls on any of these ergonomic chairs lately? Some of them are even licensing the technology for use in other markets.

I recently looked into the options and finally settled on a Think chair from Steelcase. The manufacturer markets Think as "The chair with a brain and a conscience." It's supposed to adjust itself to your body. But it isn't cheap.

Here's how I ended up with Think and my assessment of the product. Keep in mind that I don't review products for a living. That said, I am compulsive; my wife says I overanalyze everything. So when it came to the chair for my home office, I took it very seriously.… Read more

The great corporate graveyard is filled with hundreds, maybe thousands, of technology companies that managed to go public and then fizzled. Still, most of them weren't going anywhere and never should have gone public to begin with.

But venture capitalists funded them, investment banks underwrote them, analysts wrote glowing reports about them, and you and I bought into it, gullible lemmings that we are. Sorry for being such a negatron; that's just the way it is.

Anyway, what's different about these 10 companies is that they were once important, maybe even exciting. And now, for one reason or another, they're fading slowly and tediously into obscurity. Like people, most companies go out, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Depressing, isn't it?… Read more

I became a consultant in 2003, but not without some trepidation about leaving the safety net of the corporate world. It was hard to break away. I had worked in the tech industry for 23 years and, despite my reputation, a surprising number of apparently misguided companies wanted to hire me.

Still, my mind was made up. As one executive recruiter put it, you could put a fork in me; I was done.

So I told John Bourgoin, CEO of MIPS Technologies, that I would love to consult for him, but wasn't interested in joining the company.

John said he wouldn't hire me as a consultant.… Read more

One Sunday night, when I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, my dad noticed I was acting a little moody. "What's the matter, sonny boy?" That's what he called me sometimes. I think it's from an Al Jolson song.

"Ah, you know, I've got school tomorrow." I whined. "Weekends are great, but they're too short."

"You know what?" he replied, "I still feel that way about work."… Read more

This might have been more timely a week or two ago, but there's always Boss's Day (October 16th in case you were wondering) and the inevitable birthday. Regardless of the occasion, giving and receiving gifts are typically joyous experiences for both parties.

But when it comes to an employee giving his or her boss a gift, well, let's just say there might be a whole lot more going on there than meets the eye.

Your boss will likely think you're sucking up; dysfunctional executives love that sort of thing. But in fact, you're sending a … Read more

I don't know how many times I've read a post or an article by some small-minded, self-important journalist advising a public company's board of directors on how to "fix" the company. The most common advice is "sell the company," "fire the CEO," or better still, "fire all the executives."

Even if a company is screwing up, how is a journalist--whose entire management experience consists of looking at his watch to be sure he files a story by 3 p.m.--qualified to dole out management advice? Is mastery of a keyboard sufficient experience to know how to run a company?… Read more

On March 21, 1983, AMD went public. Adjusted for splits, the stock closed at $9.00 that day. Today, shares of AMD closed at $7.95. That means if you invested $10,000.00 in AMD's IPO, today you'd have $8,833.33. Adjusted for 25 years of inflation, that would be about a buck and a half.

Just to calibrate that, the same investment in Intel would have gotten you about a half a million dollars, Texas Instruments about $150,000, both the NASDAQ and S&P 500 about $100,000; even National Semiconductor and LSI beat AMD, although not by much.

Of course, some investors have figured out that you can make a fortune playing the AMD roller coaster. Except for the tech bubble and a brief spike two years ago, the stock has traded in a relatively narrow range. Seems like a nerve-wracking way to invest, but I know people who swear by it.… Read more