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Sober IT truths from the island-state

by Michael Tan, Singapore

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This guy gets paid a king's ransom to make a template cell phone?

Oct 29, 2009 10:11

See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/technology/companies/29moto.html?ref=technology

Say we can keep politics at 10 percent of your time a day.

For some guy to coordinate exterior design, PCB design, OS vendor, make a phone, then coordinate development, bug fix, and also just talk to one major customer, and leave the rest to sales and marketing, it's not really an incredible achievement, really. Even LESS if the phone is already entering a segment cleared by others. And even less of an achievement if the company you entered has a DAMN SIGHT more money than a startup.

So why does Sanjay Jha get paid so much for one crowning achievement? In fact, paid so much for heading a huge company to make a phone, based on the more than year-old and mature Android operating system which a single smart individuals can get to work on hardware in less than one day, with a form factor like a phone released a year ago, and the substantial resources of Motorola?

Even the UI (user interface) is not Motorola's. Google did all the work--the vision and grunt work. And HTC did all the groundbreaking work of making the first phone and getting user feedback.

I think the board of directors thought that making phones was as difficult as before. Today, it's just a template. Even a teenager could do it, I suppose.

So I guess politics is really a drag. No wonder the main quote was: "Mr Jha recalled in a recent interview that he had hoped, at a minimum, that his talk 'gave the team general comfort I wasn't a huckster'.

So that means to minimize the chances of getting a huckster at the helm, you have to pay top dollar these days.

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About Michael Tan

Michael Tan is lucky enough not to have to choose between his job and his passion. He is the responsible for all aspects of developing new businesses and sourcing new productlines for a regional IT distribution company. He also oversees the company's legal affairs as General Counsel. In real life, he is a technology enthusiast, from both the fun and business viewpoint. The only choices he has to make are whether to play with his astro telescopes, his PC games, his Wii console, hit the track, tweak his car, or refine his biofilters, post his blogs, research for a new digicam, scour every forum to feed his habit further, play with his son… You can reach Michael at michaeltanyk@gmail.com ALL BLOGPOSTS ONLY REFLECT MICHAEL'S OPINIONS AND NOBODY ELSES'.