I apologize if I'm mistaken (I'm sure if I was right somebody would have also noticed this by now), but isn't this a letter to the shareholders of the company, telling them they need to help out, even relocating to their office for a month, as their full-time employees are already overloaded with work, and the company may go bankrupt in months?
This is a huge difference because the link isn't to a typical story about leadership telling their employees they need to work harder. It's in fact a different type of letter--one that appears to have been sent to shareholders who are not employees--that I don't think any of us have seen before.
Yes, employees could be a subset of shareholders, but again I specifically believe this letter was sent to non-employee shareholders. Here are quotes illustrating why:
>> Dear Autodesk Shareholder,
>> This is the time to neglect your job.
>> This is the time to take that leave of absence from the foundry and work for Autodesk.
>> If you have skills as a programmer, use them...machines... will be provided.
>> If you have management skills, offer to take over AutoCAD project management tasks...
>> If your skills are in general management, finish our business plan...
>> Move to Mill Valley for a month (all expenses paid). Spend a week in the center of the cyclone at 150 Shoreline.
>> The full time people in this company are working at or beyond capacity. We need help, your help, or we will fail.
This is not a letter to the employees like the submission title misrepresents, and other posters seem to believe... This is clearly something way cooler. This is something that's been talked about in reference to choosing your investors wisely, but this is the first application of those intangibles that I ever remember reading about--a letter calling on your (non-employee) shareholders to use their skills and connections to fill in the missing pieces and grow the company, with the other alternative being insolvency.
Assuming autodesk favored investors with technological understanding and expertise, this demonstrates that having investors who can help you in ways other than with money is very important.
This is a huge difference because the link isn't to a typical story about leadership telling their employees they need to work harder. It's in fact a different type of letter--one that appears to have been sent to shareholders who are not employees--that I don't think any of us have seen before.