Nearly nine years back, I and a college friend named David Fischer started up a database software company called SharkByte.

It grew faster than we expected, and, in the process, he and I had to write lots and lots and lots of RFP’s for potential clients. These pitch documents are mind-numbing to write for the first few, and then get progressively worse from there. So for each one, we’d try to invent a new buzzword.

Inevitably, when we’d go in to pitch the client live, they’d quote back our invented word like it was in common usage, happy to agree with our utterly meaningless, but highly technical-sounding, assessment.

Over time, a few of those invented buzzwords became favorites, appearing in long successive strings of RFPs and other documents. At the top of the heap was ‘core technology fulcrum’ (as in “we believe the software interface will allow you to leverage your company’s core technology fulcrum.”), which never failed to land the deal, and which I still occasionally use.

Yesterday, however, David emailed along this informational gem:

Newman,

Was reading the 2003 edition of A Random Walk Down Wall Street and what do I see on page 61 but the phrase “core technology fulcrum” mentioned as a nonsense phrase invented in the 60s conglomerate craze.

Clearly genius is destined to repeat itself.

Indeed.