Ebook: The Autodesk File: Bits of History, Words of Experience

How to begin to tell the story of Autodesk? The company was so unusual in its origin, so unconventional in its growth, and so eventful has been the road that started with a small group of programmers sitting around talking about building a company and has led, so far, to a multinational company which is the undisputed leader in its market, that it's tempting just to shrug your shoulders and say “you had to be there”.

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Notes to the fourth edition.

In a way, all the earlier editions of The Autodesk File were incomplete. They chronicled the exhilarating and frequently exasperating experience of starting a company from nothing and seeing it grow into a leader of an industry it helped to create, but, written in the midst of ongoing runaway success, gave the impression that continued success was merely a matter of doing the same things as before, that entrepreneurship and leadership of an industry were one and the same. Indeed, in 1989, when the third edition of The Autodesk File (the New Riders “Purple Paper Eater” book) appeared, many people at Autodesk, myself included, did believe these things.

How naive we were.

I originally began assembling this edition to commemorate Autodesk's tenth anniversary. I guess it's only appropriate, given the history you're about to read, that the tenth anniversary edition of The Autodesk File show up two years late and much, much larger than originally anticipated. The book has just about doubled in size from the 1988 edition, but then the company is twice as old today and a great many things have happened since then. A great, great many things…. Legally, corporations are people, but in reality they're very different from you and me. They don't get wrinkles in their brows from worrying, ulcers from stress, or go bald from ripping their corporate hair out in frustration. They age and become set in their ways, but rejuvenation is as close as the next person they hire, given the wisdom to listen and the courage to change. This is a story of birth, growth, maturity, aging, and rejuvenation. All of it is a story of change. The story remains incomplete. I hope it will remain forever incomplete, for the last word of the final chapter of a complete history must chronicle the end of this venture born with such hope in 1982. Corporations aren't people; with wisdom and courage, and yes the luck to find the right people at the right time, immortality can be theirs. Let us hope that is Autodesk's destiny, and strive to make it so.