[gumby]

> Adam Osborne, creator of the Osborne 1

I think this is a correct way to put it, but FWIW on HN: the person who actually designed the device (not just the hardware) was the legendary Lee Felsenstein. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Felsenstein

[garius]

Yes. As I cover in the piece, it's Felsenstein he singled out to physically design it. The two men knew each other from Homebrew and Osborne collared him at the West Coast Computer Faire, bringing him onboard for a share of the company and a basic subsistence salary until they could ship.

[FullyFunctional]

The piece is brilliant and gives great insight.

It had previously been reported (and exposed here) that the "Osborne effect" wasn't what killed the company, but (IIRC) quality issues with parts (floppy drive?) that delayed the Executive. Regardless, essentially the fall of the Osborne Computer Corp. is the age old story of a company growing faster than its organization and eventually collapsing.

[garius]

It's really complex.

I get into it as much as I can at the end, but the Osborne Effect absolutely plays a part. It's just not in the way that got press at the time (i.e. the Executive being announced too early).

Basically Adam repeatedly triggered mini-Osborne Effects, with product variants. None of which should have been enough to take the company down. But bad financial management had killed the company's runway, they'd exhausted funding from their VC backers, and they had no ability to raise covering loans from banks until they could IPO.

So what should have been a minor ripple in their finances ended up just taking the whole company down.

I honestly think, based on my research, that if they'd managed to secure the IPO - having sorted out their accounts first - then they'd have survived the IBM PC-clone transition. They were already pivoting to deal with it.

They just ran out of time.

[hinkley]

I think this is one of the benefits of raising prices to match supply with demand, that never gets talked about, and instead we bitch about 'greed'.

If I charge more I can keep my warehouses from emptying out. If a whale customer really needs a replacement, I've got one to spare instead of making them wait two weeks. I have ways to bribe critical path employees to show up (everything from good food to comping babysitting costs or buying them replacement tickets so they can stay and fix an issue). I can hire more people and be pickier about their initial skill level. And I can get experts (paid or from vendors) to come tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Vendors who think you have more money to spend or will take away the money you're already spending are often willing to throw you a little extra attention to keep you on the hook. That can be better rates, better maintenance, or a couple hours' worth of advice from one of their greybeards who has set up fifty other companies that work a bit like yours.