alea/blue,
the point re: opportunity cost vs what to sell, what to spend time on etc seems pretty solid to me, the whole point of a turnaround is to focus ... pick the most promising near term things, clean them up, focus, and get them moving, at the expense of not focusing on other things. I would add to this the 'impression cost' of contuning to push out things that need service/work, and that the impression cost may be durable, so the effort to sell a turnaround story to not just investors, but to customers, involves NOT selling things that are night clean, pleasant, easy, and functional.
as for as obfuscation etc., certainly at the top, I am inclined to speculate that it was 'shiny object syndrome', that SKS got bored with things when it started to become work to actually clean an invention up and market it, it started to seem real (which cut into the dream of it being worth a trillion dollars with a margin of 99%) so he dreamed up new projects. these aren't bad projects per se, but they distracted from closing the deal on the last project. I think this filtered through the company and undercut moral for those tasked with getting products out the door. there was no leadership on 'old' things like VSC, ERAS, SED management etc, I doubt SKS could be bothered to participate in problem solving in those areas, but all the power was his, and the focus was elsewhere.
at the 'launch' I thought GK was very solid. clear, concise, fluid, at complete ease. The first time I have seen anybody from Wave talk where I was pleased. Solms does fine, I'm happy with Solms, he's the front man for the plan and the process and the direction .... and when it gets technical he hands the ball off (to e.g GK or this other guy for the webinar demo thingy on Aug5). SKS never handed the ball off, and while his understanding is top notch (well above Solms) his presentation was atrocious, insulting, incoherent, repulsive, demeaning, illiterate, rambling, and arrogant. Oh, and SKS didn't have very good presentation skills. So he abandoned the post on leadership of getting products cleaned up and sold in favor of whatever the new shiny object was (one where the dream had not yet been inconvenienced by reality), and would mix in an occasional effort to sell things by doing one of his atrocious, insulting, incoherent, repulsive, demeaning, illiterate, rambling, and arrogant presentations.
GK really came across as somebody who has his eye on the ball. Wave's leadership is now Solms, GK, and the CFO. Previously it was SKS, SKS and SKS.
AI
