6 ms·

Steve Ballmer on Microsoft, his Twitter investment, and sports tech

46 points by morisy 11y ago

timrpeterson 11y ago
I like Ballmer, fascinating guy. He cares.
- JTon 11y ago
  I normally stand back, emotionally unaffected by executives and their pursuits. But that "Developers, Developers, Developers" video of Ballmer and the all the pointing and laughing makes me feel very sad. I get pangs every time I watch it :s. So to your comment, yes it's clear he cares
  - scholia 11y ago
    He was also extremely successful in some respects, ie he tripled Microsoft's turnover and doubled profits while clearing up the anti-trust mess and operating under the supervision of the US DoJ for a decade. He also started all the things that are happening now, including Azure, Office 365, Surface, and apps on iOS and Android. Yes, even putting stuff into open source. You could also write a long list of things Ballmer got wrong. However, that's true of all tech CEOs, including the various CEOs of IBM, HP, Dell and Sun, among others.
    - Maro 11y ago
      Agree, in business it's enough to be right some of the time: http://bytepawn.com/heisengames-business.html http://bytepawn.com/heisengames-business.html
  - snowwrestler 11y ago
    I think caring so much was part of his shortcoming as a leader of Microsoft. He loved the company so much, and values loyalty so much, that he permitted a bubble to form around Microsoft that insulated them from the world changing around them. By the time they woke up, it was too late; they had lost their dominant position in computing. It was clear that he thought that part of his role as CEO was to be the chief cheerleader for Microsoft. Hence the high-energy appearances at the annual meeting, the scoffing at competitors, the bombastic interviews, etc. What Microsoft probably needed more was a tough critic--someone who could impose upon the company a set of standards and demands that would keep them from becoming too complacent. That's how Bill Gates saw himself. He kept a Mac in his office while they were working on Windows just so he could torment his dev team with the comparison. Under Ballmer, Microsoft missed the rise of search, missed the rise of open source, missed the rise of social media, and missed the rise of mobile--despite having solid technology and marketshare early in each of those instances.
marktangotango 11y ago
>> "No, I'll make a bigger contribution in this phase of my life by being able to pick and choose, not being so manic, having time to step back, a little more time for what I'll call discernment rather than just activity." The last, and most telling quote in the article, in my estimation.
criddell 11y ago
On Twitter: > I look at that and say, "Hey, that's an exciting thing to get behind!" Because they can improve that product. I'm starting to wonder how they could improve the product. People that don't use it, seem to think it should be Facebook Jr. People that do use it generally are happy with it the way it is. I'm in the latter group and have a hard time thinking of ways that it can be greatly improved. If it were up to me, I'd go the platform route and re-open the API and commit to keeping it open. How has Twitter improved over the past, say, 3 years? I wish Ballmer had said more about it.
- Uhhrrr 11y ago
  RT'ing and quoting work better. That's about it. Things Twitter could be doing, besides your excellent suggestion of reopening the API: -Self-deleting tweets, for the Snapchat kids. -Better threading on conversations. Anything more than 2 people and it's a mess. -Thumbnails for any URL. Right now if you plop the URL of an image in, it just shows as a line of text. -Twitter is often used as RSS, so why not have a Google Reader-type viewer? -More transparency on bans and deverification. -Fix search. Sometimes its performance is embarrassing.
  - criddell 11y ago
    Those are all good ideas. The expiring tweets suggestion is an interesting one. I wouldn't have thought of that because frankly I don't get Snapchat.
dcole2929 11y ago
I really dig the idea of what he's doing in analyzing the role of government. Regardless of where you land on the political spectrum I'd say most people, at least here in the US, would agree that the government is pretty inefficient. While obviously governments are different than companies in some very fundamental ways I'd think something like a dashboard for government would be both really cool and useful. Despite being a democracy we're not very transparent. There has to be so many ways we can aggregate data in a useful manner both for public use and information and to help officials make better more representative decisions. As an aside I'd also love to see more people pursuing politics with a tech background.
- Touche 11y ago
  > Regardless of where you land on the political spectrum I'd say most people, at least here in the US, would agree that the government is pretty inefficient. I don't necessarily agree with that. Government is attempting to do an impossible thing, I have no expectation of efficiency.
- tn13 11y ago
  I do agree with your view that government in USA is pretty inefficient. Another problem with US government is that it is simply too large and has immense resources to waste on needless things. I don't remember who said it but the quote was "when government officials have to pick between two work they chose the least productive one (because it is easier)". I am a libertarian and I see that a lot of people make fun of Bernie Sander's free college but go to think of it US government has spend around $15B on war on drugs and around $74B on running prions a lot of this money can indeed go in into supporting education if it can not be returned to tax payers.
reality_czech 11y ago
There's a better interview here: http://www.somethingawful.com/comedy-goldmine/steve-ballmer-questions/ http://www.somethingawful.com/comedy-goldmine/steve-ballmer-...
VOYD 11y ago
Everything Steve touches turns to crap.
- dang 11y ago
  No personal attacks on HN, please.

46 points by morisy 11y ago

timrpeterson 11y ago

I like Ballmer, fascinating guy. He cares.

JTon 11y ago
I normally stand back, emotionally unaffected by executives and their pursuits. But that "Developers, Developers, Developers" video of Ballmer and the all the pointing and laughing makes me feel very sad. I get pangs every time I watch it :s. So to your comment, yes it's clear he cares
- scholia 11y ago
  He was also extremely successful in some respects, ie he tripled Microsoft's turnover and doubled profits while clearing up the anti-trust mess and operating under the supervision of the US DoJ for a decade. He also started all the things that are happening now, including Azure, Office 365, Surface, and apps on iOS and Android. Yes, even putting stuff into open source. You could also write a long list of things Ballmer got wrong. However, that's true of all tech CEOs, including the various CEOs of IBM, HP, Dell and Sun, among others.
  - Maro 11y ago
    Agree, in business it's enough to be right some of the time: http://bytepawn.com/heisengames-business.html http://bytepawn.com/heisengames-business.html
- snowwrestler 11y ago
  I think caring so much was part of his shortcoming as a leader of Microsoft. He loved the company so much, and values loyalty so much, that he permitted a bubble to form around Microsoft that insulated them from the world changing around them. By the time they woke up, it was too late; they had lost their dominant position in computing. It was clear that he thought that part of his role as CEO was to be the chief cheerleader for Microsoft. Hence the high-energy appearances at the annual meeting, the scoffing at competitors, the bombastic interviews, etc. What Microsoft probably needed more was a tough critic--someone who could impose upon the company a set of standards and demands that would keep them from becoming too complacent. That's how Bill Gates saw himself. He kept a Mac in his office while they were working on Windows just so he could torment his dev team with the comparison. Under Ballmer, Microsoft missed the rise of search, missed the rise of open source, missed the rise of social media, and missed the rise of mobile--despite having solid technology and marketshare early in each of those instances.

marktangotango 11y ago

>> "No, I'll make a bigger contribution in this phase of my life by being able to pick and choose, not being so manic, having time to step back, a little more time for what I'll call discernment rather than just activity." The last, and most telling quote in the article, in my estimation.

criddell 11y ago

On Twitter: > I look at that and say, "Hey, that's an exciting thing to get behind!" Because they can improve that product. I'm starting to wonder how they could improve the product. People that don't use it, seem to think it should be Facebook Jr. People that do use it generally are happy with it the way it is. I'm in the latter group and have a hard time thinking of ways that it can be greatly improved. If it were up to me, I'd go the platform route and re-open the API and commit to keeping it open. How has Twitter improved over the past, say, 3 years? I wish Ballmer had said more about it.

Uhhrrr 11y ago
RT'ing and quoting work better. That's about it. Things Twitter could be doing, besides your excellent suggestion of reopening the API: -Self-deleting tweets, for the Snapchat kids. -Better threading on conversations. Anything more than 2 people and it's a mess. -Thumbnails for any URL. Right now if you plop the URL of an image in, it just shows as a line of text. -Twitter is often used as RSS, so why not have a Google Reader-type viewer? -More transparency on bans and deverification. -Fix search. Sometimes its performance is embarrassing.
- criddell 11y ago
  Those are all good ideas. The expiring tweets suggestion is an interesting one. I wouldn't have thought of that because frankly I don't get Snapchat.

dcole2929 11y ago

I really dig the idea of what he's doing in analyzing the role of government. Regardless of where you land on the political spectrum I'd say most people, at least here in the US, would agree that the government is pretty inefficient. While obviously governments are different than companies in some very fundamental ways I'd think something like a dashboard for government would be both really cool and useful. Despite being a democracy we're not very transparent. There has to be so many ways we can aggregate data in a useful manner both for public use and information and to help officials make better more representative decisions. As an aside I'd also love to see more people pursuing politics with a tech background.

Touche 11y ago
> Regardless of where you land on the political spectrum I'd say most people, at least here in the US, would agree that the government is pretty inefficient. I don't necessarily agree with that. Government is attempting to do an impossible thing, I have no expectation of efficiency.
tn13 11y ago
I do agree with your view that government in USA is pretty inefficient. Another problem with US government is that it is simply too large and has immense resources to waste on needless things. I don't remember who said it but the quote was "when government officials have to pick between two work they chose the least productive one (because it is easier)". I am a libertarian and I see that a lot of people make fun of Bernie Sander's free college but go to think of it US government has spend around $15B on war on drugs and around $74B on running prions a lot of this money can indeed go in into supporting education if it can not be returned to tax payers.

reality_czech 11y ago

There's a better interview here: http://www.somethingawful.com/comedy-goldmine/steve-ballmer-questions/ http://www.somethingawful.com/comedy-goldmine/steve-ballmer-...

VOYD 11y ago

Everything Steve touches turns to crap.

dang 11y ago
No personal attacks on HN, please.