New York magazine has a startlingly funny (and scary) blog post about Wired’s recent interview with “Universal Music Group CEO/supervillain Doug Morris.”
I haven’t read the full interview yet, but this part definitely has me interested:
In a way, he almost comes off as cute, like if your grandfather were accidentally hired to run Google (at one point, Morris hilariously compares his embattled industry to a character in “Li’l Abner,” a comic strip that stopped running in 1977).
Now, Universal, as you may recall, is attempting to take on iTunes via its “Total Music.”
If there was ever a reason to believe that this venture will almost certainly fail, Morris explains why the music industry has been so slow to react to legal digital distribution.
“There’s no one in the record industry that’s a technologist,” Morris explains. “That’s a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn’t. They just didn’t know what to do. It’s like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?”
Personally, I would hire a vet. But to Morris, even that wasn’t an option. “We didn’t know who to hire,” he says, becoming more agitated. “I wouldn’t be able to recognize a good technology person — anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me.”
Um, what?
Doug Morris, translated:
'Yes. We missed it. But we have an excuse. We're stupid.'
Money quote: "Surely it wouldn't have taken someone at Universal more than a month or two to learn enough about the Internet to know who to call to answer a few questions. They didn't even have any geeky interns? We give this industry six months to live."