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April 17, 2006
Tom Peters: Rolling Stones Suck, and Netscape is the Best
You have to give management consultant Tom Peters credit. He has some provocative ideas, and he stands by them. Case in point: In a comment to another writer's post on Peters' eponymous site, Tom has the following to say (and catch the closing Netscape comment, in particular):The Beatles changed the world, and will be one of music's "Top 25" all-time stories-historical monuments 300 years from now. The Rolling Stones will have long, long been forgotten.The Rolling Stones will have been seen as a fabulous, long-lasting group of performers. The Beatles changed the entire world---the world of politics and society-as-a-whole as much as the world of music. Honestly, how could there be any comparison at all?
What is this absurd obsession with "built to last"? "Built to make an impact" is my mantra--and if you last you last, if you don't you don't.
I've long said that Netscape is one of my favorite companise ever: Born, changed the world, and died ... all in the space of 60 months. I'll stand by that remark.
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Why "built to make an impact" versus "built to maximize shareholder wealth"?
I'm not sure that a management consultant should publicly declare Netscape as one of his favourite companies ever, in that it didn't make an operating profit, let alone exceed its cost of capital. OTOH I acknowledge that there's a case to made that Netscape made sufficiently good strategic moves, and that the rise of Apache may be seen as just a bad roll of the dice for Netscape.
He's being over dramatic, but what's new? The Beatles may have made rock music more acceptable to the older generation of music listeners, but they didn't change the world. Put simply, had the Beatles not existed, the world would pretty much be the same as it is today (except without Yoko Ono, which would have been a very good thing, and really long PBS documentaries on the subject.)
One thing to remember is that most inventors, innovators, musicians, writers, etc. work within a context of ongoing developments. Most inventions would have still been invented. Had Netscape not existed, for example, the web still would have developed pretty much as it has.
Beatles-true innovators, musical pioneers, melodic and lyrical masters. stones, the great imitators but unfathomably superior marketing.
What! Tom Peters is smoking plastic.
I'm 30 years old--i.e. not a boomer with youthful allegiances--and I'd take the Stones over the Beatles in a nanosecond. I Wanna Hold Your Hand vs Jumpin Jack Flash? Sgt Pepper vs Satisfaction? Day Tripper vs Street Fighting Man? No comparison whatsoever.
Maybe the Beatles created some kind of defining socio-political moment completely by accident. But in terms of good old fashioned rock and roll, the Stones kick their asses all the way back to Liverpool.
Furthermore, if the human race is still around in 300 years, no one will give a damn about influences on 20th century politics. They'll look back on us with the same combination of horror and mirth with which we regard 17th century dentistry.
But Dark Side of the Moon will still be on the charts...