Dr. Dobb's Journal July, 2004
Neil Armstrong had to go all the way to the moon to find a situation in which "one small step for a man" could be "one giant leap for mankind." Normally, it works the other way: What is one giant leap for you is at best one small step for mankind. IBM's legendary OS/360 project manager Fred Brooks explained the disturbing frequency of failure in software projects: Software projects often operate at the limits of what mankind can do. One step for the team building the next version of Windows or "the next Windows" could be a giant leap for mankind, but it could also, as Brooks knows, be a hop into the tar pit. When the comet comes, it may be better to be a skulking mammal than a leaping lizard. If fossils could talk, they'd say nothing but, "Had I but known," "Who'da thunk?" and other such couldawouldashouldaisms.
Regret. Is it good for anything? Actor John Barrymore, who apparently didn't regret much, said, "A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams." Actor William Shatner, who ought to be able to think of a few things he regrets, says, "Regret is not something I live with. If there is something I wished I hadn't done, I don't do it anymore." I'm going to try to live that philosophy, and quit not getting rich overnight anymore.
Among the things we regret are missed opportunities. Do a Google search on the phrase "missed opportunities" and most of the found sites deal with 9/11. Or so it was when I did that experiment on the anniversary of the end of the Iraq war. The six permutations of "coulda woulda shoulda" all netted between 2000 and 10,000 hits, suggesting that there is no consensus version of this phrase. My phrase "messed upportunities" got no hits at all, suggesting universal consensus that it's just too silly. I regret coining it.
But regret blips are all over the radar screen now with Google going public, recalling past IPO madness and Internet millionaires who are not you. There have been many regret-forming balloon-and-burst cycles in the history of technology and of business. You coulda protected your IRA by pulling out of the market before the dot-com crash. You woulda been able to retire now if you'd bought Microsoft or Intel or Cisco at the right time. You shoulda bought Dell at 8.
People have different regret thresholds, it seems. Tim Keck and Chris Johnson regret selling The Onion for $19,000, but Allan Williams claims he doesn't regret giving up management of the Beatles, and Ron Wayne claims he doesn't regret selling his 10-percent stake in Apple for $800. John Sculley's biggest regret is that Apple didn't turn HyperCard into the first web browser, Steve Jobs regrets hiring John Sculley, and Gil Amelio regrets hiring Steve Jobs. Does Scott McNealy regret that fighting Microsoft over Java paved the way for dot-net? Does Mike Dell regret anything at all? Well, why should he? But if not, what a missed opportunity that is.
Because we can learn from regret. At least that's what I've heard. Me? For a nonTexan I'm surprisingly free of regret. But here are two things I could say that I regret:
I regret that I missed the Desktop Linux Summit in April. After last year's event, which some critics complained was too much a Lindows-fest, I didn't make plans to attend this year's. Now I learn that Doc Searls gave a provocative speech on how to compete with Microsoft, Clay Christensen spoke on disruptive technologies, and Real Networks showed off their work on their open-source Helix Player. Couldawouldashoulda.
Then there's the Google IPO. Their profit margin is 59 percent? The founders will become not instant billionaires but instant multibillionaires? That stirs a little regret. I regret not being a founder of Google. How did I miss that one? Woody Allen said, "My one regret in life is that I am not someone else." That was some time ago; I suspect he's found some new regrets since then. Anybody who regretted not being Woody Allen back then might now regret that regret.
I trust that I have now answered the question, "Isn't regret good for anything?" And if I haven't, I'll emulate William Shatner and not do that anymore.