Blog

Felix Dennis, a money-making machine, and not a very nice person

Well, "not a nice person" is Felix's description of himself, endorsed on today's "Desert Island Discs" BBC radio programme. I'm going to do something I very rarely do: I'm going to disagree with Felix. Every time I do that, I know I'm going to make a prat of myself.

Felix Dennis: the man who nearly got me lynched at an Apple User Group meeting in New York, two decades ago, is actually a nice guy.

He was the publisher who broke out of poster mags about Bruce Lee and (later) Samantha Fox, into personal computers, buying a strange, insignificant magazine called Personal Computer World from Angelo Zgorelec, and turning it into a news-stand success - and, in the process, giving me a platform onto which I could build a career as a writer. I wrote the "Newsprint" column for that magazine, with Felix at my elbow; and subsequently, he gave me the job of Editor At Large for MicroScope, and then columnist for MacUser.

The thing is, Felix is actually right, because he's describing himself as dangerous. He's saying "I'm not a nice person" because for some reason, even after all these years, he thinks that if you make money, you deprive someone else of it.

What's interesting is not the question of whether he's right, or not, but the fact that he thinks this isn't nice.

First, let's get to the man (not the celebrity of the "Oz Trial" days, but the wealthy guy). Felix is one of the nicest guys I know. I can dig out all sorts of examples, but you can find many, even if you feel you want to ignore the (true) stories about how he believed his underground publishing days were changing the world and the (also true) fact that he still thinks they did. Let me tell you a little story about a day-to-day relationship with him.

It was shortly after we started MicroScope, and the editorial staff were "working" with cups of coffee and banter, and Felix came in. "Do you know Derek?" he asked.

"You mean, the kid who works on the motor-cycle magazine downstairs?" asked my colleague, Ian. "Yes. I think he'll make a great production Editor," said Felix. "But we need to sort out something. I take it you people are OK with the idea of working with a gay man?"

We were fine with the idea, Derek joined the office, and rapidly became central to the direction of that (and other) magazines. But I can't think of any other boss I've ever had who would have gone to the trouble of making sure that all those paths were smoothed over before we walked down them. Heck, I don't know what he'd have done if we'd said "No, we aren't!" - but I can guess that he'd have solved the problem creatively, because that's what he usually did.

He's quite right: "If there's a money-making scheme I can see, don't stand in my way." Don't. He referred to himself as a money making machine. That's right, too; as I said recently, there was nothing accidental about Felix's wealth.

Another story: There was a magazine called Personal Computer News once. There isn't, today.

The story... well, it's hard to imagine many of the things that Felix did actually happening; but the story of PCN is particularly hard to believe, even for me - and I was there!

What he did was to perceive that PCN, as planned, was a serious threat to the success of one of his own titles. The rival publisher was positioning the magazine, a weekly, as a trade newspaper. Felix already had a trade newspaper, a fortnightly. To match it would have required him to double the frequency of publication at a time when he didn't have the resources to do so.

So instead, what did he do? Simply, he went to the publisher of the new title, and persuaded them to let him act as publishing director, saying that he could save him from making an expensive mistake. He got the job, and the salary attached to it, on a consultancy basis. (Did he give up being MD of his own publishing company? No!)

In his office at the rival publisher, Felix re-cast the PCN focus as a news-stand, consumer title (so, no longer a threat to his own title). Then he fired all the newly-hired staff - a LOT of people! - and hired new staff, provoking a hugely expensive strike at the rival publisher (and, incidentally, acquiring some skilled writers and editors from amongst those who lost their jobs).

And then he went back to his own company, and watched his own title flourish, while the new PCN struggled feebly for two costly years or so, before flopping onto the pavement like a stale fish.

Dangerous? I'll say. Nice guy? Well... maybe! - you'd need to understand that a magazine the size of PCN as originally conceived stood no chance at all of surviving as a trade mag in the world of that time. It would have tanked anyway, destroying Microscope first. Maybe, it was all for the best?

But yes, when he says: "Don't stand in my way!" that's good advice.

Oh, and the lynch mob. This is pure ego-pumping on my part, but heck, it's my blog: Felix sold PCW to that same publisher, and launched MacUser - first in the UK, and then in the US. I visited my old friend Steve Levy in New York about a year after the MacUser launch there, and he suggested a trip to the Mac User Group meeting, where an Apple senior VP was due to speak. "Should be fun; he'll get roasted!"

We showed up, and Steve, well known in those circles (author of "Hackers") introduced me to a couple of friends. Instant hostility from a body of people. "You're Guy Kewney? THE Guy Kewney? who writes for PCW and MacUser in the UK?" - they loomed over me, menacingly.

I admitted it.

"We are so fed up with hearing about you!" they shouted. "Every time we do something, Felix says: 'That's not how Guy Kewney would do it.' Or 'What Guy Kewney would do would be far more aggressive' or 'I remember once when Guy was at a Press Conference...' - it's always like that!"

I think I managed to convince them it was a case of mistaken identity. And then fortunately, the Apple exec did show up, and the mob rage switched to him. Poor chap; never knew what hit him...

The other thing I disagree with Felix about is whether people can make a lot of money by accident (other than the accident of being born Paris Hilton). I think they can. I'll admit, it's rare; and I'll admit, they tend to lose it all equally quickly! - but I knew quite a few of the founders of "Accidental Empires" and sometimes, it was just a lottery. But that's another story, for another day.

And is he, on the evidence of poetry like A Glass Half Full , a good poet? Well, yes. Actually, he is...