If it came down to putting food on the table for my wife and six kids, I would do whatever I had to do — laying bricks, whatever. But, as a rule, I find large organizations to be stifling. I really believe that all of the innovative invention and thinking in the business comes from start-ups, not entrenched companies. Plus, I have serious doubts about the 20 Year Man thing — it is a myth.

I would rather sink or swim based on my own abilities. And I also encourage that ethic in those who work with me. I have no employees. My lab guys own their lab. My partners are LLCs like me.

Can’t comment on the goings on inside ESG. Out of my depth there. Seems to me though that when you are in the business of “recontextualizing” the truth to serve your clients, you are building a culture of ethical “flexibility” from top to bottom. If I were running such an outfit, it would come as no surprise when my “trusted” folks leave to seek more lucrative work with my clients.

Howie Goldstein sent me a couple of books not long ago about the so-called “integrity advantage” — a principle I adhere to religiously. We recently performed a bunch of tests on behalf of a vendor whose stuff we could not make work as advertised to save our lives. Rather than move forward with the project, publish a bogus report, etc., we cancelled the deal and ate the costs that we had incurred in doing all the testing and break/fix. I would rather do that than to publish bogus results requested by the vendor who commissioned the work. My NAME is on the report and that is all I have.

Food for thought: How much influence do you think Asaro had in ginning up the Dell/Equallogic deal?

How pissed is Steve D that one of his most visable analysts was pumping up the deal and then left to go work for them? Apparently ESG doesn’t have a problem with conflicts of interest.

How pissed do you think the other iSCSI vendors are?

Bottom line: Asaro threw ESG and Steve D under the bus hard with this move. Asaro is a very nice guy personally, but this was a move that took some balls (and a few knives in the back).

ESG gets a black eye because vendors really can’t trust them. End-users have never known who ESG was so this won’t have an impact on them.