Information Letter 13 was distributed concurrent with the announcement that I was relinquishing the presidency of Autodesk and turning the office over to Al Green. This letter tried to convey the incremental nature of the transition and to focus people on the challenges that lay ahead.
by John Walker
Revision 7 -- November 5, 1986
``...we have tried the utmost of our friends, Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe: The enemy increaseth every day; We, at the height, are ready to decline. There is a tide in the affairs of men Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and miseries. On such a full sea we are now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.''Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, Act IV, Scene 3
What a long, strange trip it's been.
It occurs to me that more than half of the people who work for Autodesk have never had the experience of having one of the these rambling Information Letters plop into their mailbox. For those of you reading your first Information Letter, I'll just say that these Letters were the primary means of communication in the early days when we were trying to get the company together. For the first year, we actually only all got together about once a month, so the Letters served to pass information around economically and force us to put on paper, in specific form, what might be only a mumble in a meeting or on the phone.
It's been a long time since the last Information Letter, and since our recent management reorganisation might leave some people wondering just what is going on around here, I thought I'd put electrons to silicon and bring everybody up to date. Please don't attach any significance to the number Thirteen; that's just the next one in the series.
Editor: John Walker