In this episode, Andy and Eric dive deep into one of tech’s ugliest trends, the ULTRA-Corporatization of once-great vendors all for the sake of excessive profit at the expense of the company and customers. From Intel’s fall from grace to Dell’s support horror stories and VMware’s Broadcom-induced meltdown, the guys unpack how innovation-driven companies lose their soul chasing shareholder dollars.
They trace the full "life-cycle" of this process, from scrappy startup to bloated monopoly and look at how these same behaviors are infecting SaaS and the MSP world. Along the way, expect a few spicy rants about Microsoft’s licensing labyrinth, ARM vs. x86, 47-day certificate rotations, and why SysAdmins now spend more time managing vendors than managing servers.
If you’ve ever screamed at an E5 SKU, cursed a firmware update, or watched your favorite tech brand go corporate zombie, this one’s for you.
Episode Resources
- SysAdmin Weekly Companion Newsletter
Referenced in this episode:
- WSUS Remote Code Execution Patch (CVE-2025-59287)
- What Is Cloud Native? (Episode 25)