My favorite story about Wayne Ratliff is what happened to Ashton-Tate after George Tate had a sudden heart attack and died. They hired a hot shot software marketing guy called Ed Esber.
George Tate realized he wasn't a software developer and cut Ratliff and his team wide slack although he'd make suggestions sometimes based on his learnings with customers.
Ed Esber was a bit more arrogant and saw Ratliff and his crew as nothing more than mere employees. Esber famously told Wayne Ratliff that he was no more important to the company than the people loading the trucks! Ratliff quit and started a competitor. It was the beginning of the end for Ashton-Tate.
Ratliff created a new product that competed with dBase. In many ways it was a superior product but he couldn't market his way out of a paper bag. Meanwhile another competitor out of Perrysburg, Ohio had much more success in the dBase market and was later acquired by Microsoft.
George Tate realized he wasn't a software developer and cut Ratliff and his team wide slack although he'd make suggestions sometimes based on his learnings with customers.
Ed Esber was a bit more arrogant and saw Ratliff and his crew as nothing more than mere employees. Esber famously told Wayne Ratliff that he was no more important to the company than the people loading the trucks! Ratliff quit and started a competitor. It was the beginning of the end for Ashton-Tate.
Ratliff created a new product that competed with dBase. In many ways it was a superior product but he couldn't market his way out of a paper bag. Meanwhile another competitor out of Perrysburg, Ohio had much more success in the dBase market and was later acquired by Microsoft.