There is a bloodbath going on on Peachtree Street today. Earthlink (my former employer) is laying off almost 50% of its workforce. While I expect some of those jobs will be outsourced or offshored, or both (they are different), that is mostly irrelevant to my point.

Since 2000 when Earthlink and Mindspring merged, there was no one with vision at the helm. Anyone who followed the Internet industry knew that dial-up was gonna die and high-speed would be necessary to use the future internet. However Earthlink never managed to build a coherent business model. They attempted to do VOIP 3 years after Vonage became a household word. The poured millions into selling $500 phones so spoiled rich kids could myspace in class. And their Muni-Wifi project went so bad they fired the EVP responsible for that business unit.

As a free-market capitalist I’m glad to see Earthlink die. There are still (maybe?) many talented good people working there, and releasing them into the wild means that their talents will actually be put to good use.