January 26, 2023· 47 min

Why Corporate America Still Runs on Ancient Software That Breaks

Patrick McKenzie

Orality

Model

73%

Oral-dominant (speeches, podcasts, storytelling)

Speaker Breakdown

HostTracy Alloway(1,570 words)

M:28%

HostJoe Weisenthal(1,857 words)

M:29%

GuestPatrick McKenzie(5,307 words)

M:27%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic27%

literally, completely, absolutely

Engagement54%

you, our, your

Memory Aids100%

listen, now, like

Repetition100%

like (284x), software (77x), know (68x)

Parallelism84%

And I'm Tracy Alloway...., And it was absolutely glorious..., So the thing was, I was down i...

Sound Patterns53%

52 question(s), alliteration: "markets move", alliteration: "barclays brief"

Formulaic Phrases2%

i mean

Literate Indicators

Hedging7%

quite, relatively, rather

Passive Voice10%

are insulated, are used, been caused

Abstract Nouns19%

investment, recommendation, disruption

Subordination9%

because, while, although

Sentence Length52%

Avg: 18.1 words/sentence

Word Complexity49%

investment, analyze, anticipate

Academic Markers0%

Impersonal Style46%

528 personal pronouns found

Descriptive Style96%

literally, completely, hardly

Description

Southwest Airlines had a disastrous holiday season, thanks in part to a software bug that left crews out of place and grounded thousands of flights. But Southwest isn't alone in having software in the headlines lately. The New York Stock Exchange recently had a software error that caused weird pricing on stocks and the FAA had its own computer issue that grounded planes earlier this month. So what's the deal with corporate software? Why do these crashes happen? And why does the user experience typically leave something to be desired? On this episode of the podcast we speak with Patrick McKenzie, an expert on engineering and infrastructure, who writes the Bits About Money newsletter and recently left payments company Stripe after six years. We talked about the challenges of keeping any software system alive after years of upgrades and updates, the distribution of tech talent across industries, and whether non-tech companies can close the gap with Silicon Valley. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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