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Believable but at the same time might be just marketing, especially the last part. Call me cynical.

by devoply 10y ago

brudgers 10y ago
The story is consistent with Joel Spolsy's first person account of Bill Gates: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-review/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-rev...
- djsumdog 10y ago
  Ugh, the guy who discourages people from working on side projects because of potential contract violations?
  - alangou 10y ago
    I would say that's a misreading of his intent - informing developers about the contract law governing their employment is to help people not get burned at a later date because they were iffy about the details of this or that clause. Of course, being informed about it may very well discourage some people from pursuing side projects. But then this comes down to whether you'd rather have developers continue with their side projects oblivious to the potential consequences of doing so.
djsumdog 10y ago
That's what I thought too. Especially since the story mentions the username "billg." Wait, so did he log out the support person and then log himself in before taking the call? I mean it's possible, but it's also possible it's just a nice story.
- spudlyo 10y ago
  "Okay, let me see if William is available." The product support engineer brings up the customer's service record and looks at the name of the support engineer who handled the earlier call: billg. Those details were fictionalized by the author. Everyone who wasn't actively on a call at the time new all about Bill's call, because we were all standing around my cube when it happened. Not long after the call was over our entire team knew all about the call, what the issue was, and how Bill handled it. If I recall it was about an obscure linker error message.
ksk 10y ago
Given past history, it is highly unlikely that Raymond Chen is lying. Neutrality is not the same as rationality.
spudlyo 10y ago
This actually happened. I wrote the account lower on that page attributed to 't-mikeha' which was my Microsoft username back in 1989. I also made the same comment here when this story originally appeared on HN years ago. My friend and fellow intern Tad fielded the return call from the guy who had the issue, and while I didn't speak to the customer myself, I believe Tad's account. It makes sense to me that Bill's answer wasn't quite correct, he did just essentially read the customer the first result from querying the error message on the Knowledge Base.

Believable but at the same time might be just marketing, especially the last part. Call me cynical.

by devoply 10y ago

Believable but at the same time might be just marketing, especially the last part. Call me cynical.

The story is consistent with Joel Spolsy's first person account of Bill Gates: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-review/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-rev...

djsumdog 10y ago
Ugh, the guy who discourages people from working on side projects because of potential contract violations?
- alangou 10y ago
  I would say that's a misreading of his intent - informing developers about the contract law governing their employment is to help people not get burned at a later date because they were iffy about the details of this or that clause. Of course, being informed about it may very well discourage some people from pursuing side projects. But then this comes down to whether you'd rather have developers continue with their side projects oblivious to the potential consequences of doing so.

djsumdog 10y ago

That's what I thought too. Especially since the story mentions the username "billg." Wait, so did he log out the support person and then log himself in before taking the call? I mean it's possible, but it's also possible it's just a nice story.

spudlyo 10y ago
"Okay, let me see if William is available." The product support engineer brings up the customer's service record and looks at the name of the support engineer who handled the earlier call: billg. Those details were fictionalized by the author. Everyone who wasn't actively on a call at the time new all about Bill's call, because we were all standing around my cube when it happened. Not long after the call was over our entire team knew all about the call, what the issue was, and how Bill handled it. If I recall it was about an obscure linker error message.

ksk 10y ago

Given past history, it is highly unlikely that Raymond Chen is lying. Neutrality is not the same as rationality.

spudlyo 10y ago

This actually happened. I wrote the account lower on that page attributed to 't-mikeha' which was my Microsoft username back in 1989. I also made the same comment here when this story originally appeared on HN years ago. My friend and fellow intern Tad fielded the return call from the guy who had the issue, and while I didn't speak to the customer myself, I believe Tad's account. It makes sense to me that Bill's answer wasn't quite correct, he did just essentially read the customer the first result from querying the error message on the Knowledge Base.