Robert X. Cringely Quotes

#1. What you have to watch out for are the theories that claim to be infallible. Because the only way their believers can win is to stomp out everyone who disagrees with them.

Robert X. Cringely

#2. For every hour of brains, you will be charged three hours. The other two hours go to management and project management, which is to say they are wasted.

Robert X. Cringely

#3. In 1979, for example, Microsoft gave Boeing Commercial Airplane Co. the right to buy any Microsoft product for $50 per copy, until the end of time. Today most Microsoft applications sell in the $300 to $500 range, ten years from now they may cost thousands each.

Robert X. Cringely

#4. More proof that trusting the Feds to protect our information is like hiring Homer Simpson to guard the donuts.

Robert X. Cringely

#5. The companies that can afford to do basic research (and can't afford not to) are ones that dominate their markets ... It's cheap insurance, since failing to do basic research guarantees that the next major advance will be oened by someone else.

Robert X. Cringely

#6. Hewlett Packard at one point had only three private offices. One belonged to Hewlett, one to Packard, and the third to a guy named Paul Ely who annoyed so many coworkers with his bellowing on the phone that the company finally extended his cubicle walls to the ceiling.

Robert X. Cringely

#7. The simple rule about weapons is that if thery can be built, they will be built.

Robert X. Cringely

#8. There is a fantasy in Redmond that Microsoft products are innovative, but this is based entirely on a peculiar confusion of the words "innovative" and "successful." Microsoft products are successful - they make a lot of money - but that doesn't make them innovative, or even particularly good.

Robert X. Cringely

#9. Apple and Google will compete like crazy for our data because once they have it we'll be their customers forever.

Robert X. Cringely

#10. If you ask someone whether our Constitutional rights are being flushed down the porcelain oubliette, and their response is, "If I answer that honestly they'll arrest me," then you already have your answer.

Robert X. Cringely