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Behind Times

Loved reading this interview with the the only guy who is still in the floppy-drive business. He speaks for many in niche and supposedly dying businesses when he says: 

..I’m not exactly a person with great vision. I just follow what our customers want us to do. When people ask me: “Why are you into floppy disks today?” the answer is: “Because I forgot to get out of the business.” Everybody else in the world looked at the future and came to the conclusion that this was a dying industry. Because I’d already bought all my equipment and inventory, I thought I’d just keep this revenue stream. I stuck with it and didn’t try to expand.

This interview reminded me of a water-cooler conversation I had been part of in my second job out of college. Being as green as I was then, I listened to the my older and wiser colleagues as if their word were the gospel. Specially, the ones who delivered only occasional wisdom and with great conviction. That morning the conversation was around how a developer stays sharp for all time to come so that they be employed as a developer. The consensus opinion was you move on the management and leadership roles over time and allow young people to be be developers. 

There was one contrarian opinion to this. P was a soft-spoken lead developer, well-liked and respected by his team. He said he was confident he could retire being a Powerbuilder developer and make steady and decent money the whole time. That was his lane and he was intent on sticking with it. You could hear a pin drop after those words were said. Had anyone less respectable than outstanding than P would have been greeted with howls of ridicule, we just dispersed mildly confused by what he had said. P would be in mid 60s now and if he is still inclined to find work he would be right - there are jobs of that skill even today. 

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