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The Apprentice should challenge candidates to develop a new Facebook - not flog fish fingers The Apprentice should challenge candidates to develop a new Facebook – not flog fish fingers
(about 20 hours later)
I always relish the moment a new season of The Apprentice approaches. It means I can put a cast-iron slot in my diary when I will not be watching television. For Alan Sugar’s show is now about as close to business reality as Fawlty Towers is to the modern hotel trade. I don’t mind that it has become a parallel universe in which a bunch of high-camp, power-dressing capitalists shout at hapless middle-management types. I do mind that a child might watch this compulsorily manic spectacle and think it’s something like the world of work.I always relish the moment a new season of The Apprentice approaches. It means I can put a cast-iron slot in my diary when I will not be watching television. For Alan Sugar’s show is now about as close to business reality as Fawlty Towers is to the modern hotel trade. I don’t mind that it has become a parallel universe in which a bunch of high-camp, power-dressing capitalists shout at hapless middle-management types. I do mind that a child might watch this compulsorily manic spectacle and think it’s something like the world of work.
New contestant Joey Valente, a plumber from Peterborough, tells us in his audition clip: “I imagine myself being a millionaire, because if Richard Branson can do it, if Donald Trump can do it, if the guy from Facebook can do it, then I can do it. They’ve got nothing special about them that I don’t possess.”New contestant Joey Valente, a plumber from Peterborough, tells us in his audition clip: “I imagine myself being a millionaire, because if Richard Branson can do it, if Donald Trump can do it, if the guy from Facebook can do it, then I can do it. They’ve got nothing special about them that I don’t possess.”
I know we are meant to laugh – and cruelly – at the candidates, not with them, but after I watched Joey’s preview pitch (his hero is Hugh Hefner), I wasn’t laughing at all.I know we are meant to laugh – and cruelly – at the candidates, not with them, but after I watched Joey’s preview pitch (his hero is Hugh Hefner), I wasn’t laughing at all.
I don’t know how to put this kindly, but “the guy from Facebook” whose name Joey can’t remember (Mark Zuckerberg) is a billionaire because he runs a company that is based on defensible intellectual property – a computer programme he wrote himself. Zuckerberg has built on his first-mover advantage in social media to amass 1.2 billion customers in just 10 years.I don’t know how to put this kindly, but “the guy from Facebook” whose name Joey can’t remember (Mark Zuckerberg) is a billionaire because he runs a company that is based on defensible intellectual property – a computer programme he wrote himself. Zuckerberg has built on his first-mover advantage in social media to amass 1.2 billion customers in just 10 years.
You can ask what it was about Zuckerberg’s management style that built the company from scratch to a valuation of $250bn, but it’s the wrong question. Other companies dressed down, provided beer and pizza and hung around the gates of Stanford University trying to recruit software engineers as they came out.You can ask what it was about Zuckerberg’s management style that built the company from scratch to a valuation of $250bn, but it’s the wrong question. Other companies dressed down, provided beer and pizza and hung around the gates of Stanford University trying to recruit software engineers as they came out.
The reason why Facebook, with 10,000 employees, is worth more than Walmart, with 2 million, is technology. It is a tech company. It has carved out a position in its field so dominant that it was able to spend $1bn buying Instagram, $2bn on Oculus and $19bn on WhatsApp.The reason why Facebook, with 10,000 employees, is worth more than Walmart, with 2 million, is technology. It is a tech company. It has carved out a position in its field so dominant that it was able to spend $1bn buying Instagram, $2bn on Oculus and $19bn on WhatsApp.
For The Apprentice to have relevance to the billionaire aspirations of its participants, the most realistic challenge to set them would be to take down Facebook. To design, implement and manage a strategy to create an alternative social media network; force regulators to dismantle Facebook or open up its markets; or indeed invent – through sheer innovative brilliance – a new technology that turns Facebook into the new MySpace.For The Apprentice to have relevance to the billionaire aspirations of its participants, the most realistic challenge to set them would be to take down Facebook. To design, implement and manage a strategy to create an alternative social media network; force regulators to dismantle Facebook or open up its markets; or indeed invent – through sheer innovative brilliance – a new technology that turns Facebook into the new MySpace.
Instead, the series begins with the hopefuls trying to sell fish fingers, door-to-door, from a tray.Instead, the series begins with the hopefuls trying to sell fish fingers, door-to-door, from a tray.
Looking and sounding like a prat is exactly the opposite of what drives market shareLooking and sounding like a prat is exactly the opposite of what drives market share
You could argue the skills that Alan Sugar is trying to inculcate are further down the value chain. In the depths of the giant tech empires – Apple, Google, Facebook and their ilk – are thousands of people who started out as junior sales managers or marketing specialists.You could argue the skills that Alan Sugar is trying to inculcate are further down the value chain. In the depths of the giant tech empires – Apple, Google, Facebook and their ilk – are thousands of people who started out as junior sales managers or marketing specialists.
The problem is, apart from generic management and negotiation skills, tech business people have to understand the technology roadmap. Not just of their own company and its rivals, but of the massive ecosystem of tech businesses that most viewers of The Apprentice have never heard of.The problem is, apart from generic management and negotiation skills, tech business people have to understand the technology roadmap. Not just of their own company and its rivals, but of the massive ecosystem of tech businesses that most viewers of The Apprentice have never heard of.
If you work for Apple’s iPhone business, you have to understand where mobile networks make their money, what drives revenue and what doesn’t. You have to wake up every day knowing that everybody can eat everybody else’s lunch, and that “innovate or die” does not mean thinking of a cheesy name for a team, but thinking of ways to recruit and retain artificial intelligence graduates from the top universities. It is one of the great ironies of popular culture that, at the very moment a new industrial revolution based on networks started, dinosaurs from the century of hierarchy and control were given charge of the most popular business TV franchise on earth.If you work for Apple’s iPhone business, you have to understand where mobile networks make their money, what drives revenue and what doesn’t. You have to wake up every day knowing that everybody can eat everybody else’s lunch, and that “innovate or die” does not mean thinking of a cheesy name for a team, but thinking of ways to recruit and retain artificial intelligence graduates from the top universities. It is one of the great ironies of popular culture that, at the very moment a new industrial revolution based on networks started, dinosaurs from the century of hierarchy and control were given charge of the most popular business TV franchise on earth.
The point about industrial revolutions is that they make the hierarchies and illusions of the old society obsolete – and so quickly that, while the first-movers can become billionaires, those who misread the new technology can be serial failures.The point about industrial revolutions is that they make the hierarchies and illusions of the old society obsolete – and so quickly that, while the first-movers can become billionaires, those who misread the new technology can be serial failures.
Sugar launched the Amstrad computer as a low-cost alternative to the IBM and Mac versions, on the assumption that computers would only ever be used as word processors. It made money, but was a dead end. He launched a gaming console that bombed in the face of Nintendo, an early “personal digital assistant” complete with stylus, which also bombed, and a hybrid email-plus-telephone device which disappeared without trace.Sugar launched the Amstrad computer as a low-cost alternative to the IBM and Mac versions, on the assumption that computers would only ever be used as word processors. It made money, but was a dead end. He launched a gaming console that bombed in the face of Nintendo, an early “personal digital assistant” complete with stylus, which also bombed, and a hybrid email-plus-telephone device which disappeared without trace.
Sugar was a decent, if controversial, owner of Tottenham Hotspur, just as Karren Brady, his co-star, has managed to run two mid-table football clubs and wingman Claude Littner worked for Sugar both at Amstrad and Spurs.Sugar was a decent, if controversial, owner of Tottenham Hotspur, just as Karren Brady, his co-star, has managed to run two mid-table football clubs and wingman Claude Littner worked for Sugar both at Amstrad and Spurs.
If you choose to operate in the analogue business world, where all costs are squeezed and where the sharp suit and confident manner matter more than problem solving, that’s fine. We need plumbers, nail salon owners and, indeed, blonde divas of all genders from across lower management to learn how to work in teams.If you choose to operate in the analogue business world, where all costs are squeezed and where the sharp suit and confident manner matter more than problem solving, that’s fine. We need plumbers, nail salon owners and, indeed, blonde divas of all genders from across lower management to learn how to work in teams.
But that’s not the world that is emerging.But that’s not the world that is emerging.
If I could get my hands on the apprentices, I would first teach them to write code. Next, to attend a hacker convention, where their suits and abrasive manner would be ridiculed until both were abandoned. Next, to a hedge fund, where they would be asked to design an algorithm for arbitraging various commodities markets. Next, to a customer-centred business or charity, where they would learn that looking and sounding like a prat is exactly the opposite of what drives market share.If I could get my hands on the apprentices, I would first teach them to write code. Next, to attend a hacker convention, where their suits and abrasive manner would be ridiculed until both were abandoned. Next, to a hedge fund, where they would be asked to design an algorithm for arbitraging various commodities markets. Next, to a customer-centred business or charity, where they would learn that looking and sounding like a prat is exactly the opposite of what drives market share.
And I would make the jeopardy real. On being sacked, you would get to trundle your suitcase into a Job Centre Plus, where – after a short lecture about flexible labour markets – Iain Duncan Smith’s people would set you to work cleaning drains for minimum wage. Forever.And I would make the jeopardy real. On being sacked, you would get to trundle your suitcase into a Job Centre Plus, where – after a short lecture about flexible labour markets – Iain Duncan Smith’s people would set you to work cleaning drains for minimum wage. Forever.
Because the lionisation of pinstriped hubris and the stigmatisation of economic failure go together. Benefit porn and “hapless aspirational fool” shows have become the mirror television holds up to society. Both seem utterly distorted.Because the lionisation of pinstriped hubris and the stigmatisation of economic failure go together. Benefit porn and “hapless aspirational fool” shows have become the mirror television holds up to society. Both seem utterly distorted.
• Paul Mason is economics editor of Channel 4 News. @paulmasonnews• Paul Mason is economics editor of Channel 4 News. @paulmasonnews