Rating: 
Summary: Humourous and insightful
Review: Overall, I found "In Search Of Stupidity" to be a very interesting and humorous read. In this book, Chapman sardonically chronicles many different business blunders that he observed in the computer industry from the eighties through the nineties from his marketing perspective.
In many ways, the most interesting thing about this book is that it successfully combines genuine insights with wit and humor without letting one spoil the other. This may be a personal taste, but I've found that my enjoyment of a book can get spoiled when humor is used inappropriately and the author finds themself trivializing situations and viewpoints in the name of humor. As such, as I was reading this book, I would make a mental note of how I might object to a particular joke or issue. For the most part, if I had an objection in my mind, the book would demonstrate an awareness of that issue. This made my enjoyment of the humorous aspects of this book "guilt free" for lack of better words.
To sum up, this book will not dissapoint.
Rating:
Summary: Humorous History of High-Tech Gaffes
Review: This book is designed to be the counterpart to the Tom Peters and Bob Waterman best seller since 1982, In Search of Excellence. I agree that it makes more sense to check out stupidity than excellence. Most people tell me that they learn more from seeing disasters than from reading about top performance. In addition, time has cast doubt on the wisdom of what those "excellent" companies did since so many of them have tanked since then.Why would anyone want to read about all of the stupid things that companies have done since the early 1980s to lose money, destroy customer relationships, go bankrupt and annoy everyone? Well, it should be because almost everyone makes a fatal error in a high tech company. Only Microsoft among the software companies has avoided that folly. Among PC companies, only Dell seems immune to date. Intel flirted with a fatal error when it tried to ignore its Pentium floating point problem. $500 million later, it was wiser. Another good reason for reading about them is that Mr. Chapman is a very funny writer. He makes the stories very entertaining. He also was present at some of the most inauspicious moments which gives the stories an extra verve that's irresistible. I especially enjoyed the afterword which explained in detail why it's always a stupid idea to rewrite working code from scratch to create the next release. I agree with the conclusion that tech companies need to be headed by people who understand the technical issues and the business challenges so they can make informed decisions about what to do next. I also suggest that investors read this book to get early warning signs of high tech meltdowns. Many people will be annoyed by this book because it suggests that Microsoft deserves its place in the software industry in part due to having avoided major errors and providing top-rated products. Naturally, there are still many stories of Microsoft's bullying tactics. So you'll still have a chance to be annoyed with Microsoft part of the time as you read the book. Mr. Chapman has such a talent for this work that I hope he will choose to apply it to politicians next. That could be really funny!
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