My article on Friday – In praise of engineers – created a storm of comment. All were highly critical of Sugar. “So out of touch with reality” or “Your piece today was the first I have ever forwarded to my wife and daughter. As someone with an engineering degree, they heard my blood boil on Wednesday!”
Another said “I’ve worked in the technology and business services sector for 30 years, but I’m an engineer and proud of it! I agree 100% with you Richard; it’s absolutely scandalous that Sugar should abuse his position and vilify the great innovators and visionaries of our world in this way. It’s also calls into question whether perhaps it’s time for Sugar himself to stand down. If he really believes what he’s said about engineers, just how in touch with business and commerce is he?”
Yet another said “Richard, you are so right. When The Apprentice is on, I spend my time telling university graduates and others not to listen to Alan Sugar as an example of how to run a company. This recent comment about engineers is completely irresponsible, apart from being just plain wrong. Having worked in the PC business since it started I know people that have worked in Sugar’s Amstrad and it was not a place to learn from, far from it. It’s such a pity that young people in this country should be influenced by someone who can get it so wrong, such as in February 2005 when he famously predicted that the iPod would be “dead, finished, gone, kaput” by the following Christmas”.
One reader was reminded of asking Sugar when he was going to adopt 16-bit processors only “to be told angrily that he couldn’t see any point in going 16-bit”. Indeed many referred to the Amstrad era as a lost opportunity – lost because of Sugar’s inability to grasp what was happening from an ‘engineering’ viewpoint. Others pointed to Sugar’s em@iler with derision. A senior partner at one of the Big Four wrote “as a trained (electronics) engineer, I wholeheartedly agree with your comments. OK, I’m also an accountant as well but I think of myself as an engineer first and foremost. The analytical/problem solving disciplines that engineering taught me are at the heart of everything I do on a day-to-day basis.” But another reader, although agreeing with my comments, chided me that “accountants can be passionate too (albeit not usually about accountancy!) and make good entrepreneurs”.
Thanks also for the link to the 2007 article “Why would anyone want to work for Sugar?” I think when even the Daily Mail brands you as “a model of bad management in the UK. Negative, bullying and narrow-minded, he is the antithesis of what today's most successful workplaces are about” you know something is seriously amiss!
Footnote – Although we have a Comments facility, few use it. Instead we get a lot of emails directly. Usually this is because readers don’t want us to use their names. We are happy either way and love receiving your comments – whether you agree with our views or not.