I recently spoke to someone who was part of Robert Maxwell‘s original gang at Pergamon Press.
Spent ~50 years in the publishing business — a journal mafia veteran and founding member, so to speak.
I thought he might have been reformed, and even if not, maybe I could learn something from him. Because after all, we have to do a lot of things that Maxwell had to do in his heyday.
Turns out, he believes that the science publishing industry is great, that Nature and Elsevier and all these magazines are doing good for the world, and that there’s no reason to disrupt what he thinks is a beautiful system.
“Charging so much money isn’t a big deal because universities had the budgets anyway.”
When I mentioned that less-endowed universities in “developing” regions like India don’t have that money and therefore can’t access the science, here’s what he had to say:
“Indian universities would have more money left over if they weren’t lining up the pockets of politicians.”
Say what you want to that argument (even if it were true).
Another notable opinion:
“Do you know how much Elsevier spent on building the ScienceDirect website in 1997? $150 MILLION. It might be bonkers today, but any judgments about them should be made while keeping that in perspective.”
(meaning: the market should pay a premium because Elsevier didn’t know that a basic pdf-sharing website shouldn’t cost hundreds of millions.)
Many other such moments of brilliance later, it culminated in him telling me over email that I should “recognise that I won’t be a disrupter,” and that if I want to do something useful, I should be building software for Elsevier as my customer to make their business more efficient or something.
And he was not polite when he said it.
Now look, as an entrepreneur I’m used to rejection and scepticism — I have a permanent bedroom-sharing relationship with both of these things.
But this time it felt different. It wasn’t scepticism, it was Goliath trying to stare down David and telling him to stay in his lane.
When I read that email, I was a little pissed, but I wasn’t upset — I had a powerful negative energy brewing within me. I sat back and allowed myself to soak in that energy.
He may have given me the greatest gift I needed at this time, the missing piece that might make the difference between us getting stomped by the big publishers versus being the conquering force that they should fear:
Bloodlust.
I’m done with the guy. In fact, I’m done with the whole pack of people who work for or support the big science publishers. I’m done giving them any benefit of doubt, to be reasonable, to keep an open mind.
But I’ve decided to not get “over” this episode. The negative energy is too powerful, and an addictive source of strength and focus.
The monarchs of the Joseon dynasty (Korea) are believed to have had a certain very simple and effective policy for centuries, which went something like this:
“Rule your subjects with forgiveness. Rule barbarians with the sword.”
Time to unsheath the sword.
