Is Viya the single biggest reason for SAS's downfall?
Agree by casting a thumbs up vote. Disagree by casting a thumbs down vote. Please...no pontification. Just let the numbers tell the story.
78 replies (most recent on top)
"Are you sure you understand all of the actual dynamics in play at his post-SAS gig?"
Enlighten us!!!
Are you sure you understand all of the actual dynamics in play at his post-SAS gig? Might their current CEO be a target the same criticism you inflict on Oliver? They’ve been on the edge of IPO for several years (still has not occurred), while managing to run off much of their best talent. Does this sound familiar? The company of which you speak is a niche player in a market that is significantly consolidating toward open source offerings, yet has some very innovative technology that can still provide value in a number of industry scenarios.
Oliver provided considerable Analytics/ML/AI talent that was helping them catch a tailwind beginning two to three years back. Now that ship has sailed and said company is down 5 points since Aug 2023 in these rankings: https://db-engines.com/en/ranking. There were several factors at play in Oliver’s and other’s exit. VC constraints and cost cutting desperation chief among them. The Silicon Valley shuffle never ends!
"Others have cited examples where he was apparently deficient in business situations. I have seen cases where this was not true, where he carried himself with outstanding bearing, benefiting an executive"
Oliver "benefited" only Oliver. His post SAS gig being so short term is the best indicator of his perceived market value. He rose beyond his level of competency at designing something the market clearly did not want. Cool? No. Clunker? Yes.
You Nailed it with the comment that JG saw a younger version of himself. Those who are not deep in the history of SAS, particularly business types who don’t understand the mindset of true R&D people, are not going to see this with the clarity that those who are have.
JG has seen many forms of intellectual chicanery, short term thinking, posers, etc., in his dealings with business people. He no doubt appreciated Oliver greatly for his no-BS directness, stoicism and the fact that he more than paid his dues coming up through the ranks of heavy duty software development in R&D. Anybody who worked with Oliver in that capacity knew him as a force to be reckoned with.
Long before Oliver’s rise to, preeminence the “SAS way” was firmly established as JG’s modus operandi and the company’s ultimate legacy. Oliver’s personal manner and growth trajectory was very congruent with this. Others have cited examples where he was apparently deficient in business situations. I have seen cases where this was not true, where he carried himself with outstanding bearing, benefiting an executive — at least when qualified by the “SAS way”.
“A more realistic course heading”, or a more realistic price.
"Any positive move SAS makes toward open source encourages customers to switch there from SAS."
Exactly. Potential buyers also know that all too well. The V9 declining revenue stream is the best bait for a potential buyer. But the stickler is a buyer has to buy everything just to get that. Hmmm...
Very few want to buy an entire grocery store just to obtain the snack aisle.
SAS will have to change to a more realistic course heading if they hope to sell before the founders die. Honestly, does anyone think that will happen?
In the forester he obviously saw a younger version of himself. He was previossly the one getting all excited about code and talking about it to people who had no interest, they're just the ones who write the checks.
No tears for the forester from me. Between SAS and his next gig he's financially set for life. Now he can indulge his nerdy ways because he isn't trying to work for a living like the rest of us.
"Way more interested in lecturing customers about Viya than listening to their concerns." @4zwo+1tPWcYil you are spot on!
I saw that first hand. He was so bad at reading the room.
I once watched him presenting to a small group of C-level executives and he hadn't tweaked his slides at all. He talked them through some code as their eyes glazed over!
And then during the Q&A, he got a question that he didn't like and didn't have a good response to, and he glared at the person asking the question, said nothing, and walked out of the room! We were left having to apologize on his behalf and make up bullsh-t excuses like he'd just got off a long haul flight and was sleep deprived!
He was unbelievably arrogant, didn't listen, had next to no business acumen, and from my own experience he was actually quite an unpleasant person who wasn't nice to be around.
What JG saw in him, is beyond me.
If Viya never happened would
- SAS revenues be significantly different today?
- SAS cash in bank be a bigger number?
Outside looking in, it is hard to see how Viya was worth the huge investment. Like a poor poker hand, it should have beeb folded long ago.
JG's biggest mistake was hiring an academic nerd lacking any speck of business sense. To run a business....geezus. Add a huge layer of arrogance on top of that. Way more interested in lecturing customers about Viya than listening to their concerns. What a great way to motivate customers. To leave SAS.
JG's second biggest mistake was too much patience with that person.
I feel sorry for the young minds at VT having to listen to his drivel. That has to be a bulimia inducing experience.
Evil is too strong a word for anyone at SAS; I should not have used it. I will say, though, that people were treated badly and unfairly, and some of the people who did it knew exactly what they were doing. The SAS culture allows toxic managers.
The toxics are greatly outnumbered by the sycophants and incompetents, along with a large minority of the skilled and competent. This mixed culture was adequate to maintain the existing revenue stream, until the rise of open source.
I don’t think it’s fair to criticize JG for the failure to “embrace” open source. I don’t see how FOSS can be “embraced” without threatening the existing revenue stream. Any positive move SAS makes toward open source encourages customers to switch there from SAS.
There were flaws in the vision, sure. Some investments were under-funded, and others never should have been made. But JG correctly identified open source as an existential threat. And he correctly tried to avoid it, by going where it’s not. He directed SAS to enter vertical enterprise markets, and high-performance computing with Viya.
Almost all those efforts failed. The toxics, sycophants and incompetents could not perform their jobs. And the buck stops at the top, because he chose those people. That’s the “single biggest reason” for the decline.
No one is saying he's evil. That's a stretch. Obviously he isn't.
But his hubris and not holding the people under him accountable is what tanked this company.
When you are the ultimate authority, you get the blame too, not just the kudos.
I don’t think JG had his “head in the sand” regarding open source — at least, not for more than its first few years.
Rather, he properly regarded it as a threat to revenues, and saw no way to embrace it without increasing that threat.
The only solution is to find new revenue streams where open source is not a threat. He correctly tried to take SAS into vertical markets, but almost all those efforts failed.
JG is certainly not evil; in fact he has been kinder and gentler to employees than almost any other CEO would be.
But he has a few subordinates who are evil; and many who are sycophants or incompetents.
These people cannot lead SAS back to growth. Prepare for the sale. It’s all that you can do.
I think it is fair to say that there was a certain arrogance from the top, that is a major factor in SAS's decline.
I recall one of JG's rare media interviews, where he was talking about the advantages of being privately owned, and said something to the effect of "I don't want some young Wall Street banker telling me how to run my business".
Yes, I can partly understand his sentiment when it comes to Wall Street's short term thinking to maximise returns to shareholders sometimes to the detriment of long term strategy, however that external accountability and oversight also has a very valuable role to play in ensuring companies are well governed.
In hindsight, I think JG's response to that interview question, tells us quite a lot. Perhaps describing his management style as "iron fist" is a little harsh, but "closed door" would certainly be appropriate.
@3myp+1tPWcYil Whoever posted that has probably never even been in a room with him.
"When you rule a company you founded with an iron fist and refuse to hear anything that doesn't line up with your existing thoughts or beliefs, it's only a matter of time before the whole house of cards comes crashing down."
Way too harsh. He certainly did not rule with an iron fist. The landscape changed and SAS didn't pivot like it should have ... but this narrative of Dr. G as some evil person is bogus.
At 81, the Big Guy is the oldest CEO of a private (software) company and the oldest of any technology company CEO, private or public, right?
It's hard to let go of the control of something you have for 48 years. It's very sad he has no heir apparent at the company that is competent and trustworthy enough to carry on his legacy and keep the company alive in the future.
At the end of the day there is only one person who is accountable for the disaster this company has become. He sits at the top of the company.
By willfully and stubbornly refusing to run the company like an actual business, he sounded its death knell about 10 years ago.
Head in sand over open source. Indulging whims when it came to new "products." Promoting internal candidates to higher and higher positions when what the company desperately needed was new blood and fresh or at least current perspectives. Moving on to the next shiny thing instead of fixing problems and shortcomings with existing products. The list is long.
When you rule a company you founded with an iron fist and refuse to hear anything that doesn't line up with your existing thoughts or beliefs, it's only a matter of time before the whole house of cards comes crashing down.
Hubris is what ki-led this company. It did not have to be this way, but here we are. Deathwatch started some time ago. It might drag out for a few years, sure. But anyone who isn't preparing for their next professional step is fooling themselves.
At some point, instead of "two trains", JG began asking for "One SAS".
Perhaps someone will tell us when and how this changed.
In fact, there was a joint ASRD/R&D cross-organizational attempt (a.k.a. “the battle of buildings S & R) at making Viya compatible with SAS9, complete with The Photographer’s proxies manifesting incompetence over various committees anointed for this effort. The whole thing turned into a ginormous cackling cluster fu-k of epic proportion. Afterwards, pretty sure Oliver influenced JG to follow the original plan of “different trains“.
The answer to your question is: because Viya was never intended to have feature parity with SAS9, the customer compared the cost of adopting the new platform (Viya) to the cost of adopting FOSS, and enough of them decided (and are deciding) that if they're going to spend the money to migrate from one platform to another anyway they might as well migrate to an open source solution and eliminate the cost of licensing.
SAS's missed opportunity was in regulated environments. People in those environments will pay a premium for someone to blame if there's a problem and an 800 number, and are willing to put up with long lead times to deploy if it means they have something to show to the regulator as proof of compliance. SAS cannot compete with FOSS in environments that don't have those external demands. SAS was chasing the long tail, trying (unsuccessfully) to "democratize" or "gamify" SAS without realizing that the mob is fickle and without loyalty.
@1ffp+1tPWcYil and @1zyz+1tPWcYil, thanks so much for your historical insights.
In other threads, it’s stated that JG insisted that Viya be backward-compatible with SAS, but that OG refused.
This convo has been had ad nauseam on earlier threads. Viya was growing 5 years ago and making inroads at large historical SAS sites. Enough SMEs (now retired OR making 2X somewhere else) were still around to advance Viya while whittling away at reasonable compatibility scenarios.
Viya was never scoped to be a drop-in replacement for SAS9.
How is that a real issue given that FOSS continues to eat so much of the traditional SAS analytical tool space AND the multi-tiered SAS9 Platform solutions were/are significantly “long in the tooth” (and were 5 years ago) to require a replacement that could never provide significant “drop-in”. compatibility?
Viya Is a “miss “for a lot of reasons, although not sure lack of seamless compatibility with SAS9 is high on that list.
“Viya was on a decent track 5 years ago…”
Really? You think so? I think it was doomed from the outset because it was intentionally designed NOT to be compatible with V9 so there was no upgrade path for customers and solutions.
"...a posh subterranean “design bunker” in R filled (courtesy the photographer) with inexperienced interns from NCSU, and no telling what else..."
Let me guess, most (all?) female and all easy on the eye behind the view finder while he spewed his endless baritonic pontifications as his over hanging copious well endowed belly jiggled like Jello with each labored breath. So sappy sappy sappy.
Surely, someone can use some weight loss motivational imagery. There you have ot! Might as well get it here for free. The laughter is a nice bonus.
"Is Viya the single biggest reason for SAS's downfall?"
Yes. Even the execs know it but they can't say it.
It's interesting how ICs continue to leave SAS by the hundreds (thousands?), yet no one in executive management has left for "greener pastures" since The Forester. Same bozos in marketing, R&D, CIS, etc parroting the same messages from 2019, and the market has clearly moved on.
They know Viya is a bust and have to maintain the facade. Ship has sailed for making any meaningful changes to the product strategy at this point, so they're simply holding on for the golden parachute when the company is sold.
It didn't take long to learn that too much truth will get you burned at SAS, and unlike the rest of us p-e ons, they actually have something to lose if they're bold enough to take a stand against the current direction.
"...Instead the money was squandered on things like overpaid well-heeled window dressing for Buildings A and C..."
There were some stunners in there. Building "see" (C) was aptly named. The pancakes tasted funny, though.
"...a posh subterranean “design bunker” in R filled (courtesy the photographer) with inexperienced interns from NCSU, and no telling what else..."
The (then) newly reformed Art Department (which is safe).
"Viya could have been more successful had SAS invested correctly in correct compensation (then) strong existing and very bright new engineering talent. Instead the money was squandered on things like overpaid well-heeled window dressing for Buildings A and C, a posh subterranean “design bunker” in R filled (courtesy the photographer) with inexperienced interns from NCSU, and no telling what else."
Right on!
For the 40-eleventh time … Viya is an architectural evolution of the SAS platform, that hosts a suite of products — NOT a single product failure.
There are many reasons for SAS’ decline and Viya plays a significant part. However, there is no doubt that SAS9 is dying and no amount of continuing incremental enhancements and patches to it will ultimately prevent SAS’ decline.
Viya could have been more successful had SAS invested correctly in correct compensation (then) strong existing and very bright new engineering talent. Instead the money was squandered on things like overpaid well-heeled window dressing for Buildings A and C, a posh subterranean “design bunker” in R filled (courtesy the photographer) with inexperienced interns from NCSU, and no telling what else.
Viya was on a decent track 5 years ago, still with time to make strategic improvements. That is now gone sadly.
"Instead, SAS got all caught up in the "big data" hype of 10 years ago, and put far too much focus on massive parallelism, which was solving a challenge that perhaps less than 5% of it's customers had a problem with."
So very spot on!
Agreed. Viya should have been a response two external factors that were major challenges for SAS:
- Rise of open source analytics.
- Shift to cloud computing.
It failed on both counts. It incorrectly assumed that users of open source, would have a need or desire to embed their open source code within a SAS program, and it didn't realise that customers expect more from cloud computing than just running their systems on public cloud infrastructure as if it were on-premise software.
Instead, SAS got all caught up in the "big data" hype of 10 years ago, and put far too much focus on massive parallelism, which was solving a challenge that perhaps less than 5% of it's customers had a problem with.
It all really boils down to the SAS leadership being very poor at listening to it's customers. I remember watching OS get into arguments with customers when they tried to provide honest feedback on Viya. That spoke volumes to me. He had his idea about what he was going to build, and that was that. No wonder he failed at business and is now back in academia.
What SAS product has taken longer to develop than Viya? What SAS product has had a greater monetary investment than Viya?
So much time and so much money for so little impact.
Another way to approach the OP’s concerns are as follows: From the inception of Viya (initially an evolution of VA+LASR) in 2013 …
- How many West Coast startups, founded by luminary technologists with world class product vision, receiving hundreds of millions in VC over many rounds and staffed with the best engineers on Earth have grown to achieve more than $100M in annual revenue? (Viya has significantly exceeded that for sure). For that matter how many are still in business or i’ve been sold at a fraction of their investment?
- How many silly products or related technology initiatives have FAANG companies invested collectively multiple billions of dollars in only to see them fail with corresponding layoffs of thousands of people since 2013?
- Across corporations and governments, worldwide, how many billions of dollars have been wasted on stupid, failed projects and overpriced analytical consultants, coding an open source languages under the guise of saving companies money?
Collectively, all of this makes expenditures to build Viya look like pretty small.
Multiple SAS threads here on this site have extensively documented the historical reasons why Viya was developed. These reasons directly correlate to the historical way that SAS has been managed, the pride (cheerlead for decades by JG himself) the company has in doing things “the SAS way“, and the evolution of high-performance computing that JG and Oliver co-pioneered going back 15 to 18 years ago. Oliver “got on that train” and drove it as far as he could — often outworking everyone around him. How many other executive influencers were making well reason arguments why SAS should not go in that direction? For my experience, they were mostly focused on travels, conferences and historical fiefdoms.
Most importantly, did SAS employ any non-homegrown, world class product management executive talent between 2008 and 2020 and were they empowered to set a direction corresponding realistically to where the market was going?
Ten to 15 years ago, JG was quoted as wanting to “not embrace, but ki-l R” and was perplexed as to why anyone would code serious analytics in Python given that was not a compiled language and the SAS data step is. He also mandated that the Data Step be implemented within server-side CAS. All sorts of conclusions can be drawn about the wisdom of expending development and documentation on that, instead of doing deep level open source integration that married CAS innovations more directly with the way people are actually doing analytics with Open Source.
What was never on the table, were any initiatives to abandon SAS proprietary innovation, and change course become a vital and robust part of the source analytics data management communities, contributing directly to Python, Spark, Kafka, etc. and reimagining a new business model based on those efforts.
So, some things to consider when asking questions about Viya being a primary contributor to the decline of SAS. One thing is for certain, the SAS V9 languages, technology and platform are not the future and really have not been for more than 10 years.
So much for no pontification. Some people just can’t help repeating themselves over and over.
Feel certain that Viya is a significant contribution to the declining of the V9 revenue. Without Viya, there would be less hand wringing and angst from the cash cow V9 customers.
Is Viya the biggest reason for the decline of SAS? Maybe, maybe not? But it certainly is the biggest reason for the decline that SAS had CONTROL over.
It is a cop out to blame a market induced problem(Open Source) when a self induced problem(Viya) is right under your nose.
"Open source is as big of a factor in the decline."
Debatable...
- If there was no Viya, it is easy speculation that SAS might not be any better off than presently. Certainly no worse off however because a ton of cash would not have been wasted on Viya. A sh-t ton. That cash could have been used for more lucrative investments. But it is gone now.
- Viya got JG's attention at the worst possible time. It prolonged evolutionary development at a time when the market place was marching to a revolutionary drum beat. This has been pointed out before. In that light, Viya was a negative distraction.
- OS repeatedly ignored customer demands. Logical demands. As well as some of JG's wise mandates. If the Forester had true value, then he would not be right back where he started as an academic. OS had gig after his SAS gig. His post SAS gig was a short term gig that apparently was not good enough. He was just a quick catch and release, not a keeper. Soon thereafter he flopped his way back to VT. Right back where he was pre SAS. Unfortunately, SAS Institute suffered the most from the Forester's two post academic gigs.
- If Viya was the real deal, there would be more buzz about buying SAS. Viya does not seem to be a value add. Instead it appears to be like a "gift" that keeps giving but not in a good way.
Open Source, Peter Principle, and Dunning-Kruger effect were the causes. Viya is an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Viya did not cause the decline, but accelerated it. The opportunity cost! So many other things we could have built.
Open source is as big of a factor in the decline.