Losing the Signal with Sean Silcoff

Oxide and Friends · 27 Sept 2022 · 1h 08m · Episode 28

What this episode covers

Sean Silcoff, co-author of 'Losing the Signal' with Jacquie McNish, joins Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal to discuss the rise and fall of BlackBerry (RIM). They explore how RIM’s early success with wireless email and BBM was undermined by the rushed release of the Blackberry Storm, the disastrous NTP patent lawsuit, and the stock option backdating scandal. Silcoff explains how the co-CEO model between Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis broke down under pressure, leading to a failure to adapt to the iPhone and the shift in carrier power that allowed Apple and Google to dominate the smartphone market.

Mentioned

Companies
RIM, NTP, Apple, Google, BellSouth, Nokia, Motorola
Products
BlackBerry, Blackberry Storm, BBM, iPhone, Android, Droid, Slack
Also
Jim Balsillie, Mike Lazaridis, Larry Conley, Jacquie McNish, Bryan Cantrill, Adam Leventhal

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • How I Built This · 15m

    Live From The HIBT Summit: Stewart Butterfield

    Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr and Slack, discusses his history of pivoting from failed video games to successful software companies. He explains how the failure of 'Game Neverending' led to the creation of Flickr, and how the inability to explain the surreal nature of his next game, 'Glitch', combined with the shift to mobile, caused its shutdown. Butterfield emphasizes the importance of being able to clearly articulate a product's value to avoid the 'owner's delusion' that plagued Glitch but was eventually corrected in Slack's messaging.

  • The Hardware Entrepreneur · 16m

    #008 - What to learn from Pebble’s story: two times most funded Kickstarter campaign ever to its eventual end, with your host, Balint Horvath, Switzerland

    Host Balint Horvath analyzes the rise and fall of Pebble, the company that produced the first smartwatch and held two record-breaking Kickstarter campaigns. He argues that Pebble failed because it could not cross the chasm from early adopters to the early majority, specifically by missing the fitness application that competitors like Fitbit capitalized on. Horvath discusses the strategic errors regarding pricing, the lack of a recurring revenue model, and the failure to build a strong emotional brand or a 'system of progress' ecosystem.

  • How I Built This · 1h 04m

    Fitbit: James Park

    James Park, co-founder of Fitbit, explains how the Nintendo Wii’s motion-sensing technology inspired him and co-founder Eric Friedman to create a wearable fitness tracker. Park details the early struggles of prototyping with a balsa wood box and circuit boards, and the critical hardware failure where a display cable interfered with the antenna, which was temporarily fixed with toilet paper before being solved with rubber spacers. He discusses the company's rapid growth, the competitive threat from the Apple Watch, and the strategic pivot from hardware sales to a health and behavior-change service model, culminating in the acquisition by Google.

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 11m

    Magical Fire Bags

    Hosts Chris Gammell and Dave Jones discuss the engineering failures behind the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 battery explosions, attributing them to insufficient physical tolerance for battery swelling in a rigid aluminum enclosure. They analyze the rise and fall of Pebble and MakerBot as cautionary tales of startup hype and the risks of relying on third-party IoT service layers. The episode also covers the enduring relevance of the 8051 microcontroller, the complexity of historical chip documentation, and Ben Krasnow's use of off-the-shelf eBay components for rapid prototyping.

  • How I Built This · 1h 11m

    Square: Jim McKelvey. He Lost a $2,000 Sale, Then Built a $10 Billion Company

    Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square (now Block), explains how a lost $2,000 glass art sale to a customer with only an American Express card inspired the creation of the Square card reader. He details the engineering hack of using the iPhone's headphone jack to read magnetic stripes, bypassing Apple's restrictive dock connector, and the strategic decision to pitch investors with 140 reasons for failure to build trust. McKelvey describes how this 'innovation stack' of 14 necessary inventions protected Square from being crushed by Amazon's cheaper, copied product in 2014, allowing the company to thrive despite regulatory hurdles and legal disputes.

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Oxide and Friends. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.