8 ms·

Why former employees say Microsoft can't innovate

58 points by felixmar 17y ago

hga 17y ago
Very good, detailed high level overview of how Microsoft's management structure, style and bloat makes it currently unlikely to innovate well. One simple and concrete thing that struck me was how the distance from the top to the trenches has severely increased as of late. The old metric of "no more than 5 levels" is being wildly violated by a factor of a bit more than 2. Also high level overview on who was RIFFed in last year's surprise layoffs (hint, not much in the way of middle management). Bottom line: What PG pointed out a while ago continues to the true and there's no signs that will change.
- ilamont 17y ago
  But is the distance from the top to the bottom surprising? Microsoft in 2010 is a much more complex animal than it was in 1996. IE, Xbox, Azure, Windows Mobile, Bing, etc. didn't exist back then, or were in the early stages of development. With more products and more interconnection between product groups, there is bound to be an increase in managers and layers because the existing management can't scale to take on all of these new tasks.
  - hga 17y ago
    I'm not addressing your point, I'm only saying that harsh experience shows that an organization gets grossly disfunctional as you increase the number of layers from 5. My answer to your point would be that it's the job of the CEO and board to structure the company so that it's as close to the ideal as possible. In the case of Microsoft, one approach would be to force less coordination on some of these separate units. As it is, they pay a terrific "architecture tax" by having to use and support (and generally only use and support) Microsoft products. If it turns out they must do that to keep the core of Windows, Office and server products viable, well, that suggests they shouldn't get into the businesses that can't be usefully built on top of the core in the first place, and get out once they realize that.
    - ilamont 17y ago
      I agree that in Microsoft's case, less coordination on some of these separate units would really help. I've read elsewhere that getting buy-in from different departments/product groups has led to some seriously delayed or disfunctional products. But regarding one of your other statements, I am not so sure: Harsh experience shows that an organization gets grossly disfunctional as you increase the number of layers from 5. What about other organizations like Wal-Mart or the Navy? Surely there are more than five layers from door greeter or new recruit to CEO or 4-star admiral, yet the organizations are able to function and carry out their missions. Or are software companies different?
      - henrikschroder 17y ago
        One obvious difference is that in the military, there is only one career advancement path, where each level trains you in the skill-set needed for the next. In software development, being a good programmer doesn't make you a good project manager, which in turn doesn't make you a good middle manager, which in turn doesn't make you good at making the business decisions of the management group.
        hga 17y ago
        And the emphasis on this in successful military establishments is very strong: if a superior officer becomes unable to carry out his duties in a battle a subordinate is expected to immediately step up and take command. Companies have the luxury of being able to do this in time frames not measured in minutes and seconds. The US officer corps post-WWII also (in theory) defeats the Peter Principle by an "up or out" rule. If you do not advance in rank and responsibilities within set time frames, you are retired (which of course has its own problems). I suppose the Microsoft "long at level" concept is related to this ... but I don't think it works in this field for some of the very reasons you noted.
      - hga 17y ago
        I don't know about Wal-Mart (but I'd expect their management structure to be lean in the Sam Walton era), but the DoD in the Vietnam period was where I first heard of this principle. And the US Army certainly didn't go a good job of carrying out their mission then (the US Navy hasn't been put to the test since WWII ... and one might say they haven't been doing a bang up job of policing the sea lanes as of late (South China Sea, off the Horn of Africa)). I don't think most companies are different, at least when it comes to the non-rote stuff. I.e. in a fast food restaurant the people are the bottom are supposed to be following a "book". With the exception of navies, I don't think that works in warfare (I make this exception since most of the lower people have clear missions like "keep the ship afloat" and "fire this gun"; that doesn't work for infantry, armor or tactical air (might work in part for artillery)). It most certainly applies for software firms, e.g. the IBM Chief Programmer Team concept has been shown not to work in practice.
josefresco 17y ago
Maybe it's them who can't innovate .. any maybe that's why they're former employees.
- noarchy 17y ago
  I would hope that they left in order to be able to innovate, if the working environment was really that suffocating.
va_coder 17y ago
Microsoft, the company, is "long at level"
larsberg 17y ago
Interviewing only the disgruntled and fired is just as one-sided as business books that determine rules of success by only interviewing people who made it rich. What's the opposite of survivor bias? Just to give the other side as somebody who worked there for a while and retired pretty successful, driving big changes isn't trivial but it isn't hard either. As an individual with an idea, you don't have to do ROI, fill out complicated budgeting forms, etc. Just make it work and then convince your managers -- all of whom are techies! -- that it's a good idea and you're willing to spend the time to make it happen. But I did see a lot of people fail with their "great idea" when they didn't want to be the one to build and ship it. Nobody there is going to do your work for you.
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  Can you give example of innovations that bubbled from the bottom like that and that were shipped?
  - plinkplonk 17y ago
    Not sure if F# and Linq were innovations that "bubbled up" but I think they are innovative products that transitioned well from MS Research to shipping products. (Due Disclosure: I don't use any MS products and haven't in years)
  - DrJokepu 17y ago
    The group of technological innovations that made Windows 3.0 vastly superior to OS/2 did bubble from the bottom. The Microsoft management was focusing on OS/2 at that time. http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2005/02/02/365635.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2005/02/02/36563...
    - jimbokun 17y ago
      That was a while ago.
  - JamieEi 17y ago
    OneNote is a good example: http://blogs.msdn.com/chris_pratley/archive/2004/01/30/onenote-genesis.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/chris_pratley/archive/2004/01/30/oneno... You could argue that OneNote wasn't truly a bottom-up creation because Chris Pratley was already a pretty senior guy at MS when he started working on it.
mixmax 17y ago
Incentives don't work. This has been documented over and over again, and it's truly puzzling that large corporations don't learn from it. Here's a quick and light article on the subject: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html Here's a video lecture on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdkQwQQWX9Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdkQwQQWX9Q And here's the classical Harvard business review article that originally proposed it: http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/web/product_detail.seam;jsessionid=F70EF90E20FF356FBD77BC18BC48618D?R=93506-PDF-ENG&conversationId=382686&E=59880 http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/web/product_detail.seam;jsessi...
- gaius 17y ago
  Incentives don't work. Given the choice of doing exactly the same work for company A that believes that and company B that pays bonuses anyway, what sane person wouldn't go for B? That's not puzzling at all.
  - jimbokun 17y ago
    You still can deliver bonuses to an entire team, group, or entire company, that are not dependent on individual performance.
    - eru 17y ago
      Or just increase the base salary.
  - mixmax 17y ago
    Research on the subject seems to contradict you. There are several problems - Incentives are very hard to get right. If your bonus is tied to sales you inflate sales and don't care about margins. If your bonus is tied to margins you oversell and someone else suffers in aftersales support. If your bonus is tied to stockprice you do what you can to inflate the stockprice, hoping everything won't come crashing down before you receive your bonus. And so on. - When it comes to it very few people are driven by money. They'll say they are but in reality they aren't. Would you knowingly sell something expensive to an old lady who can't afford it that she doesn't need in order to make a sell and get your bonus? Most people wouldn't. - Incentives drive you to only care about the incentive for which you're awarded. If you're in one department and can make $10 knowing that another department will lose $100 that's what you'll do. Besides very few choices in life, if any, are as black and white as you put them.
zitterbewegung 17y ago
The real question is does microsoft need to innovate? The business philosophy seems to be more reactive than innovative and it has worked out for a great deal of time.
- ilamont 17y ago
  If it wants to compete and stay relevant to its customers, yes. The Office/Windows quasimonopoly has eroded a lot in the last five years, and they need new and better products to keep current customers and attract new ones.
  - saetaes 17y ago
    Has it really, or only in perception? Some proof of this would be nice. Last I saw, neither Apple or Linux have really made a huge dent in the consumer and business desktop space. Sure, they are more viable options than in 2005, but it still seems that most consumers are going for Windows, and businesses still buy Windows + Office.
    - gamble 17y ago
      Not on the desktop - but definitely on the server. The public Internet pretty much runs on Linux today, whereas Microsoft servers are all but confined to corporate IT departments. Imagine how much more money Microsoft would be making if the millions of web servers out there each ran a copy of Windows.
- jsz0 17y ago
  I think that works for a while but it catches up with you eventually. Once you miss enough next big things you just aren't prepared to react anymore.
  - mbreese 17y ago
    Case in point: The Internet. Microsoft has been reacting to that since 1995 and still hasn't gotten good at it. Given the ungodly amounts of money that they have put behind MSN/Live Search/Bing, you'd think that they'd have more mindshare than they do. This is a case where Microsoft was trying to react to the situation on the ground, rather than create the situation on the ground (like a Google). Another case would be digital music. After using partners to create MP3 players (which is their traditional strategy), they switched over to making their own (Zune). They just kept reacting to the iPod and iTunes Store. This meant they were playing by Apple's rules in the market, not creating the market.
yanowitz 17y ago
I'm not a grammar Nazi, but this headline (which is from the actual article) is actually misleading. This is not an article about the the motivations for criticisms by former Microsoft employees but is instead an article about those criticisms. It should be entitled, "Former employees say why Microsoft can't innovate."
ilamont 17y ago
Can someone define "middle management" at a giant software company like Microsoft? Does it only mean people with direct reports, or does it also include people with no direct reports but significant product/business responsibilities as well?
acg 17y ago
The more that I read the more I feel that perhaps Microsoft might have faired better--- and we'd all have better technology--- if they were indeed broken up after the antitrust investigations. Doesn't the best technology come from well funded small companies?
- eru 17y ago
  Does it? Any data?
city41 17y ago
The criticism against the commitments isn't entirely fair. They are just guidelines. I found myself suddenly thrown into an entirely different product and doing entirely different things from what I expected, and when I returned to my commitments I realized I didn't meet many of them. My manager still gave me an "exceed" because he was still able to see that I performed and contributed well to my team and MS. And as for reporting to many people, I didn't experience that either. I had one manager, and was 6 away from Ballmer. My manager, skip level, and skip skip level were all in the same hallway as me and very accessible. My manager truly worked his butt off to ensure his employees were happy and headed where they wanted to head in their MS career (at least, as much as his power let him).
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
raffi 17y ago
"When I started at MSFT in 1996, there were six people between me and [Microsoft cofounder] Bill Gates," Boris said. "In 2009, there were 13 people between me and [Microsoft CEO] Steve Ballmer." Fred said, "the number of managers between me and the CEO went from six to 10," during the last decade. Another long-time Microsoftie, whom I'll call Barry, saw his reports go from six to 12. --- Just to give perspective, when I was in the military it was probably 13 links between a two striper and the President
- bitwize 17y ago
  "And here's something else. I have eight different bosses right now." "Beg your pardon?" "Eight bosses." "Eight?" "Eight, Bob. So that means that, when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it."
- ajross 17y ago
  So for 90k employees, we have an average fanout of pow(9e4, 1/13) == 2.4 direct reports (assuming no duplication) per manager. Yikes.
tbgvi 17y ago
To me, Microsoft's dilemma is that they need to keep market share in their core products while at the same time be quick and innovative with new ones. Their corporate structure seems to be geared towards managing their complex, large projects like Windows and Office. With a vast project like Windows, it makes sense that they need teams devoted to certain specifics with middle managers. That structure keeps things focused on the goals coming from up top. Unfortunately since everyone is focused on their little piece of territory, innovative stuff is happening on the outside and they don't realize until its too late. Then when they realize something is a big idea they toss it into the same machine they have rolling for huge projects like Windows or Office. As HN readers know, resourceful startups can get a lot accomplished with a small team. If startups had a huge organizational structure with everyone at the top trying to get a piece of the action then nothing would get done. It would do Microsoft a lot of good to have an internal YC-like program that gives resources to small teams with a good product idea, and then leave them alone until they had something to demo. Edit: I read my last point and realized something - it sounds a lot like Google's 20% thing. Does Microsoft have anything like that already?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
redsymbol 17y ago
You know, I just realized that there has got to be a sample bias here. Almost by definition, ex-employees are more likely to have negative things to say about the company than those who have chosen to stay. Microsoft has been big enough, and for long enough, that no matter how great a place they are to work, many people would have had bad experiences - by bad luck and honest miscommunication, if nothing else - that caused them to leave. I'm not saying the article's points are not valid and true; as far as I know, they are. Just pointing out that if we're looking at what EX-employees are saying, we're looking at reality through a certain filter.
- codexon 17y ago
  And I would say that if you are looking at what CURRENT-employees are saying, you are looking at rose-colored glasses or people who are too afraid of reprisal.
  - redsymbol 17y ago
    Agreed, good point.
gamble 17y ago
I noticed a theme while reading reviews of tech companies on Glassdoor: people either complained that a company had too much bureaucracy and layers of management, or they complained there was no room for advancement.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  False dichotomy I think, but depressingly common thinking that really strikes at the core of the problem: in most corporations, advancement means management. In a company where advancing means going into management, you do end up with what you are describing: no room for advancement, or too much management. Thankfully there are companies out there where sticking to the technical track is a viable way to advance.
  - gamble 17y ago
    Even worse, many companies (Microsoft included, apparently) have an up-or-out mentality where you either graduate to management or are shown the door.

58 points by felixmar 17y ago

hga 17y ago

Very good, detailed high level overview of how Microsoft's management structure, style and bloat makes it currently unlikely to innovate well. One simple and concrete thing that struck me was how the distance from the top to the trenches has severely increased as of late. The old metric of "no more than 5 levels" is being wildly violated by a factor of a bit more than 2. Also high level overview on who was RIFFed in last year's surprise layoffs (hint, not much in the way of middle management). Bottom line: What PG pointed out a while ago continues to the true and there's no signs that will change.

ilamont 17y ago
But is the distance from the top to the bottom surprising? Microsoft in 2010 is a much more complex animal than it was in 1996. IE, Xbox, Azure, Windows Mobile, Bing, etc. didn't exist back then, or were in the early stages of development. With more products and more interconnection between product groups, there is bound to be an increase in managers and layers because the existing management can't scale to take on all of these new tasks.
- hga 17y ago
  I'm not addressing your point, I'm only saying that harsh experience shows that an organization gets grossly disfunctional as you increase the number of layers from 5. My answer to your point would be that it's the job of the CEO and board to structure the company so that it's as close to the ideal as possible. In the case of Microsoft, one approach would be to force less coordination on some of these separate units. As it is, they pay a terrific "architecture tax" by having to use and support (and generally only use and support) Microsoft products. If it turns out they must do that to keep the core of Windows, Office and server products viable, well, that suggests they shouldn't get into the businesses that can't be usefully built on top of the core in the first place, and get out once they realize that.
  - ilamont 17y ago
    I agree that in Microsoft's case, less coordination on some of these separate units would really help. I've read elsewhere that getting buy-in from different departments/product groups has led to some seriously delayed or disfunctional products. But regarding one of your other statements, I am not so sure: Harsh experience shows that an organization gets grossly disfunctional as you increase the number of layers from 5. What about other organizations like Wal-Mart or the Navy? Surely there are more than five layers from door greeter or new recruit to CEO or 4-star admiral, yet the organizations are able to function and carry out their missions. Or are software companies different?
    - henrikschroder 17y ago
      One obvious difference is that in the military, there is only one career advancement path, where each level trains you in the skill-set needed for the next. In software development, being a good programmer doesn't make you a good project manager, which in turn doesn't make you a good middle manager, which in turn doesn't make you good at making the business decisions of the management group.
      - hga 17y ago
        And the emphasis on this in successful military establishments is very strong: if a superior officer becomes unable to carry out his duties in a battle a subordinate is expected to immediately step up and take command. Companies have the luxury of being able to do this in time frames not measured in minutes and seconds. The US officer corps post-WWII also (in theory) defeats the Peter Principle by an "up or out" rule. If you do not advance in rank and responsibilities within set time frames, you are retired (which of course has its own problems). I suppose the Microsoft "long at level" concept is related to this ... but I don't think it works in this field for some of the very reasons you noted.
    - hga 17y ago
      I don't know about Wal-Mart (but I'd expect their management structure to be lean in the Sam Walton era), but the DoD in the Vietnam period was where I first heard of this principle. And the US Army certainly didn't go a good job of carrying out their mission then (the US Navy hasn't been put to the test since WWII ... and one might say they haven't been doing a bang up job of policing the sea lanes as of late (South China Sea, off the Horn of Africa)). I don't think most companies are different, at least when it comes to the non-rote stuff. I.e. in a fast food restaurant the people are the bottom are supposed to be following a "book". With the exception of navies, I don't think that works in warfare (I make this exception since most of the lower people have clear missions like "keep the ship afloat" and "fire this gun"; that doesn't work for infantry, armor or tactical air (might work in part for artillery)). It most certainly applies for software firms, e.g. the IBM Chief Programmer Team concept has been shown not to work in practice.

josefresco 17y ago

Maybe it's them who can't innovate .. any maybe that's why they're former employees.

noarchy 17y ago
I would hope that they left in order to be able to innovate, if the working environment was really that suffocating.

va_coder 17y ago

Microsoft, the company, is "long at level"

larsberg 17y ago

Interviewing only the disgruntled and fired is just as one-sided as business books that determine rules of success by only interviewing people who made it rich. What's the opposite of survivor bias? Just to give the other side as somebody who worked there for a while and retired pretty successful, driving big changes isn't trivial but it isn't hard either. As an individual with an idea, you don't have to do ROI, fill out complicated budgeting forms, etc. Just make it work and then convince your managers -- all of whom are techies! -- that it's a good idea and you're willing to spend the time to make it happen. But I did see a lot of people fail with their "great idea" when they didn't want to be the one to build and ship it. Nobody there is going to do your work for you.

MikeCapone 17y ago
Can you give example of innovations that bubbled from the bottom like that and that were shipped?
- plinkplonk 17y ago
  Not sure if F# and Linq were innovations that "bubbled up" but I think they are innovative products that transitioned well from MS Research to shipping products. (Due Disclosure: I don't use any MS products and haven't in years)
- DrJokepu 17y ago
  The group of technological innovations that made Windows 3.0 vastly superior to OS/2 did bubble from the bottom. The Microsoft management was focusing on OS/2 at that time. http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2005/02/02/365635.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2005/02/02/36563...
  - jimbokun 17y ago
    That was a while ago.
- JamieEi 17y ago
  OneNote is a good example: http://blogs.msdn.com/chris_pratley/archive/2004/01/30/onenote-genesis.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/chris_pratley/archive/2004/01/30/oneno... You could argue that OneNote wasn't truly a bottom-up creation because Chris Pratley was already a pretty senior guy at MS when he started working on it.

mixmax 17y ago

Incentives don't work. This has been documented over and over again, and it's truly puzzling that large corporations don't learn from it. Here's a quick and light article on the subject: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html Here's a video lecture on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdkQwQQWX9Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdkQwQQWX9Q And here's the classical Harvard business review article that originally proposed it: http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/web/product_detail.seam;jsessionid=F70EF90E20FF356FBD77BC18BC48618D?R=93506-PDF-ENG&conversationId=382686&E=59880 http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/web/product_detail.seam;jsessi...

gaius 17y ago
Incentives don't work. Given the choice of doing exactly the same work for company A that believes that and company B that pays bonuses anyway, what sane person wouldn't go for B? That's not puzzling at all.
- jimbokun 17y ago
  You still can deliver bonuses to an entire team, group, or entire company, that are not dependent on individual performance.
  - eru 17y ago
    Or just increase the base salary.
- mixmax 17y ago
  Research on the subject seems to contradict you. There are several problems - Incentives are very hard to get right. If your bonus is tied to sales you inflate sales and don't care about margins. If your bonus is tied to margins you oversell and someone else suffers in aftersales support. If your bonus is tied to stockprice you do what you can to inflate the stockprice, hoping everything won't come crashing down before you receive your bonus. And so on. - When it comes to it very few people are driven by money. They'll say they are but in reality they aren't. Would you knowingly sell something expensive to an old lady who can't afford it that she doesn't need in order to make a sell and get your bonus? Most people wouldn't. - Incentives drive you to only care about the incentive for which you're awarded. If you're in one department and can make $10 knowing that another department will lose $100 that's what you'll do. Besides very few choices in life, if any, are as black and white as you put them.

zitterbewegung 17y ago

The real question is does microsoft need to innovate? The business philosophy seems to be more reactive than innovative and it has worked out for a great deal of time.

ilamont 17y ago
If it wants to compete and stay relevant to its customers, yes. The Office/Windows quasimonopoly has eroded a lot in the last five years, and they need new and better products to keep current customers and attract new ones.
- saetaes 17y ago
  Has it really, or only in perception? Some proof of this would be nice. Last I saw, neither Apple or Linux have really made a huge dent in the consumer and business desktop space. Sure, they are more viable options than in 2005, but it still seems that most consumers are going for Windows, and businesses still buy Windows + Office.
  - gamble 17y ago
    Not on the desktop - but definitely on the server. The public Internet pretty much runs on Linux today, whereas Microsoft servers are all but confined to corporate IT departments. Imagine how much more money Microsoft would be making if the millions of web servers out there each ran a copy of Windows.
jsz0 17y ago
I think that works for a while but it catches up with you eventually. Once you miss enough next big things you just aren't prepared to react anymore.
- mbreese 17y ago
  Case in point: The Internet. Microsoft has been reacting to that since 1995 and still hasn't gotten good at it. Given the ungodly amounts of money that they have put behind MSN/Live Search/Bing, you'd think that they'd have more mindshare than they do. This is a case where Microsoft was trying to react to the situation on the ground, rather than create the situation on the ground (like a Google). Another case would be digital music. After using partners to create MP3 players (which is their traditional strategy), they switched over to making their own (Zune). They just kept reacting to the iPod and iTunes Store. This meant they were playing by Apple's rules in the market, not creating the market.

yanowitz 17y ago

I'm not a grammar Nazi, but this headline (which is from the actual article) is actually misleading. This is not an article about the the motivations for criticisms by former Microsoft employees but is instead an article about those criticisms. It should be entitled, "Former employees say why Microsoft can't innovate."

ilamont 17y ago

Can someone define "middle management" at a giant software company like Microsoft? Does it only mean people with direct reports, or does it also include people with no direct reports but significant product/business responsibilities as well?

acg 17y ago

The more that I read the more I feel that perhaps Microsoft might have faired better--- and we'd all have better technology--- if they were indeed broken up after the antitrust investigations. Doesn't the best technology come from well funded small companies?

eru 17y ago
Does it? Any data?

city41 17y ago

The criticism against the commitments isn't entirely fair. They are just guidelines. I found myself suddenly thrown into an entirely different product and doing entirely different things from what I expected, and when I returned to my commitments I realized I didn't meet many of them. My manager still gave me an "exceed" because he was still able to see that I performed and contributed well to my team and MS. And as for reporting to many people, I didn't experience that either. I had one manager, and was 6 away from Ballmer. My manager, skip level, and skip skip level were all in the same hallway as me and very accessible. My manager truly worked his butt off to ensure his employees were happy and headed where they wanted to head in their MS career (at least, as much as his power let him).

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

raffi 17y ago

"When I started at MSFT in 1996, there were six people between me and [Microsoft cofounder] Bill Gates," Boris said. "In 2009, there were 13 people between me and [Microsoft CEO] Steve Ballmer." Fred said, "the number of managers between me and the CEO went from six to 10," during the last decade. Another long-time Microsoftie, whom I'll call Barry, saw his reports go from six to 12. --- Just to give perspective, when I was in the military it was probably 13 links between a two striper and the President

bitwize 17y ago
"And here's something else. I have eight different bosses right now." "Beg your pardon?" "Eight bosses." "Eight?" "Eight, Bob. So that means that, when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it."
ajross 17y ago
So for 90k employees, we have an average fanout of pow(9e4, 1/13) == 2.4 direct reports (assuming no duplication) per manager. Yikes.

tbgvi 17y ago

To me, Microsoft's dilemma is that they need to keep market share in their core products while at the same time be quick and innovative with new ones. Their corporate structure seems to be geared towards managing their complex, large projects like Windows and Office. With a vast project like Windows, it makes sense that they need teams devoted to certain specifics with middle managers. That structure keeps things focused on the goals coming from up top. Unfortunately since everyone is focused on their little piece of territory, innovative stuff is happening on the outside and they don't realize until its too late. Then when they realize something is a big idea they toss it into the same machine they have rolling for huge projects like Windows or Office. As HN readers know, resourceful startups can get a lot accomplished with a small team. If startups had a huge organizational structure with everyone at the top trying to get a piece of the action then nothing would get done. It would do Microsoft a lot of good to have an internal YC-like program that gives resources to small teams with a good product idea, and then leave them alone until they had something to demo. Edit: I read my last point and realized something - it sounds a lot like Google's 20% thing. Does Microsoft have anything like that already?

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

redsymbol 17y ago

You know, I just realized that there has got to be a sample bias here. Almost by definition, ex-employees are more likely to have negative things to say about the company than those who have chosen to stay. Microsoft has been big enough, and for long enough, that no matter how great a place they are to work, many people would have had bad experiences - by bad luck and honest miscommunication, if nothing else - that caused them to leave. I'm not saying the article's points are not valid and true; as far as I know, they are. Just pointing out that if we're looking at what EX-employees are saying, we're looking at reality through a certain filter.

codexon 17y ago
And I would say that if you are looking at what CURRENT-employees are saying, you are looking at rose-colored glasses or people who are too afraid of reprisal.
- redsymbol 17y ago
  Agreed, good point.

gamble 17y ago

I noticed a theme while reading reviews of tech companies on Glassdoor: people either complained that a company had too much bureaucracy and layers of management, or they complained there was no room for advancement.

potatolicious 17y ago
False dichotomy I think, but depressingly common thinking that really strikes at the core of the problem: in most corporations, advancement means management. In a company where advancing means going into management, you do end up with what you are describing: no room for advancement, or too much management. Thankfully there are companies out there where sticking to the technical track is a viable way to advance.
- gamble 17y ago
  Even worse, many companies (Microsoft included, apparently) have an up-or-out mentality where you either graduate to management or are shown the door.