Hardware Podcasts

The Rise and Fall of DEC

Oxide and Friends · 14 Jun 2022 · 1h 51m · Episode 16

What this episode covers

Bryan Cantrill, co-founder of Oxide Computer Company, leads a discussion on the rise and fall of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), analyzing its history through books like 'The Ultimate Entrepreneur' and 'DEC Is Dead, Long Live DEC'. Speakers including Tom Lyon, Dan Cross, and Tim Bray discuss DEC's engineering culture, the PDP series, and the company's failure to adapt to open systems and the PC market. The conversation highlights DEC's internal competition, Ken Olsen's autocratic leadership, and the eventual acquisition by Compaq, drawing parallels to Sun Microsystems and modern tech giants like Amazon and Google.

Most relevant to

established companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Digital Equipment Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Compaq, Oxide Computer Company
Products
PDP-10, PDP-11, VAX, Alpha, DECtalk, VT100

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