6 ms·

A VC friend of mine characterized these kinds of answers nicely: incredible, profound bullshit that no one seems to know how to cut through. On a level specifi

A VC friend of mine characterized these kinds of answers nicely: incredible, profound bullshit that no one seems to know how to cut through. On a level specific to Microsoft, their biggest threat is how agreeable and self-deprecating everything they do is now. Corporate cultures thrive on hierarchy, and yet their employees are pretty comfortable admitting to their friends that Windows and Azure are crap. The quiet trie flippers at Google, Amazon, Facebook, Oracle and Apple never speak ill of the product. Those people go and hunt leakers. Nobody at Microsoft wants to hunt leakers anymore. That bloodthirsty lust for dollars is what made it possible for a whole generation of middle managers to hit the country club in the first place. So what does it say that the us-versus-them mentality is gone? The CEO should be going out and saying, "Come work for us. Look how much nicer we are. Trie flippers might score better on their programming quizes, but they're insufferable." Instead he's talking, in coded language, about expanding to serve the Chinese government, which is impossible in an organization that believes in personal freedoms and positive life outcomes. On a meta-level, what do we do with all the CEOs who are essentially beneficiaries of our increasingly correlated bull runs? Has it really boiled down to, "Since non-mineral and utility revenues are correlated at huge market cap companies, you're a good CEO as long as your likable?"

Qworg 8y ago
The mentality is still there, but years of polish has made it hard to detect by outsiders. I wouldn't for a moment attribute any of MSFT's moves to goodwill. They were bareknuckled and bloody for years - they got slapped by regulators for it and it was forced under the surface.
- rayvy 8y ago
  Not sure why this was downvoted to grey
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
gnu8 8y ago
Microsoft deserves to go gentle into that good night because of all the damage they’ve done to the computing industry over the years, for example killing Be and Netscape with monopolist tactics and creating a terminally insecure software monoculture of the lowest common denominator of Windows and IE, that we’re still recovering from today. (Google is repeating the lesson today - Android is the Windows 98 of mobile). I’m glad to see them disappear and it drives me crazy to talk to all of these people who think Office 365 and Azure are sex on a stick. They’ve either forgotten the past or they don’t care. Microsoft deserves to die.
- yaseer 8y ago
  I am not a big Microsoft fan, having not used Windows or any MS products in about 16 years, until VS Code came along. But this kind of black and white thinking is just at odds with reality. Nothing is wholly good or bad, and so to with Microsoft. They were part of a small group of companies that pioneered Desktop computing. They did so with forceful business tactics, but they changed the world nonetheless, and really did help place a computer in every home. Ths history books will remember their contributions as well as their sins.
- ggambetta 8y ago
  > They’ve either forgotten the past or they don’t care. Or they're too young to know or remember! Working with recent grads, I've discovered that for most of them Bill Gates has always been this grey-haired, well-natured philanthropist. They can't believe it when I tell them of how universally reviled Microsoft was, and I feel like Grandpa Simpson talking about onions in his belt :(
  - kazinator 8y ago
    I speak here perhaps not only for myself but others: although Microsoft had been reviled, and still is, somehow Gates escaped that personally. I've never felt that I dislike Bill Gates. There had been a smaller Microsoft before the rise of MS-DOS and Windows. Microsoft was a vendor of BASIC interpreters that were integrated into some 8 bit microcomputers, which I used. The Apple II's "Applesoft" basic was derived from Microsoft's work. Its name is a portmanteau of Apple and Microsoft, a kind of touchstone that highlights a complex history of cooperation and rivalry between the two.
tomnipotent 8y ago
> and yet their employees are pretty comfortable admitting to their friends that Windows and Azure are crap You make a whole lot of claims with absolutely zero evidence to back it up.
- VRay 8y ago
  I take it you don't know anyone who works at MSFT?
  - tomnipotent 8y ago
    Folks at every business I know eventually talk crap or otherwise grumble. Whoop de do. There's very little signal in that, especially for a business like Microsoft where everyone is an armchair analyst and can't go five minutes without mentioning "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" because they think it makes them sound smart.
  - bradford 8y ago
    I work at MSFT. There's a difference between being critical of a product in an effort to improve it, and classifying the product as 'crap'. My opinion, and I think most msft employees would share it, fall into the former, and not the latter. There's a lot to be proud of in both Windows and Azure, even with full recognition that they aren't perfect.
    - CamperBob2 8y ago
      I don't buy it. MSFT employees go home to their extended families during the holidays just like many of the rest of us do. There, just like the rest of us, they will be expected to maintain their non-technical relatives' Windows PCs, or at least explain why said computers are so badly hosed. They are doing a terrible job on Windows and they have to know it, if only at a subconscious level.
    - grumpydba 8y ago
      What about bing then ?
- deleted 8y ago
faramarz 8y ago
Bill and the board deserve credit for bringing in Satya to captain the ship and steer it. The ship is still afloat, with a captain able and willing to navigate it into new territories. That's really what they're doing and I think that in itself is a re-invention and worth remarking about. Now, you can give them shit for the design of their ship, failures, practices, etc.. and rightfully so, but they are definitley re-defining their business in real-time, in my opinion. I'd love to hear if any of that resonates as I haven't worked at Google or the other companies you listed to get a scope of the culture. edit: steer
- markrages 8y ago
  steer
SatvikBeri 8y ago
Satya became CEO in February 2014. Since then, Microsoft's stock has significantly outperformed Google and Apple, and slightly outperformed Facebook. While it significantly underperformed each of those in the years before. So it's not just the bull market.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  The stock rise was a function of changing analyst ratios - not changing fundamentals. Ballmer grew the company like a machine during his tenure. Satya has been iffy, in fact, without 2018 numbers, quite unstable in fact. It's just that that 2018 numbers were good enough to bring everything back to nice growth. Without a lot of movement in P/E ratios, both CEO's would have really been doing about the same. Basically, the stock was held back for whatever reason during Ballmer years, even as sales were growing well. Then when Satya took over the ratios changed and the stock flipped up like an elastic. Satya's a good guy and the right choice but I don't think he's done anything quite fundamentally important yet relative to Ballmer.
dtrailin 8y ago
People at Amazon and Oracle complain all the time, you should talk to them. I think honesty is far more important than pretending everything is great when isn't. If this is the case then you are part of a cult. I think you'll also seen a wide variety of opinions on Windows and Azure, mostly related to the individual products at Microsoft. Having worked there I know quite a few people that were big fans of the NT Kernel, C#, .net, and Azure services like Storage and App Insights. People will also acknowledge the bad parts, which is critical if one wants to improve.

Qworg 8y ago

The mentality is still there, but years of polish has made it hard to detect by outsiders. I wouldn't for a moment attribute any of MSFT's moves to goodwill. They were bareknuckled and bloody for years - they got slapped by regulators for it and it was forced under the surface.

rayvy 8y ago
Not sure why this was downvoted to grey

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

gnu8 8y ago

Microsoft deserves to go gentle into that good night because of all the damage they’ve done to the computing industry over the years, for example killing Be and Netscape with monopolist tactics and creating a terminally insecure software monoculture of the lowest common denominator of Windows and IE, that we’re still recovering from today. (Google is repeating the lesson today - Android is the Windows 98 of mobile). I’m glad to see them disappear and it drives me crazy to talk to all of these people who think Office 365 and Azure are sex on a stick. They’ve either forgotten the past or they don’t care. Microsoft deserves to die.

yaseer 8y ago
I am not a big Microsoft fan, having not used Windows or any MS products in about 16 years, until VS Code came along. But this kind of black and white thinking is just at odds with reality. Nothing is wholly good or bad, and so to with Microsoft. They were part of a small group of companies that pioneered Desktop computing. They did so with forceful business tactics, but they changed the world nonetheless, and really did help place a computer in every home. Ths history books will remember their contributions as well as their sins.
ggambetta 8y ago
> They’ve either forgotten the past or they don’t care. Or they're too young to know or remember! Working with recent grads, I've discovered that for most of them Bill Gates has always been this grey-haired, well-natured philanthropist. They can't believe it when I tell them of how universally reviled Microsoft was, and I feel like Grandpa Simpson talking about onions in his belt :(
- kazinator 8y ago
  I speak here perhaps not only for myself but others: although Microsoft had been reviled, and still is, somehow Gates escaped that personally. I've never felt that I dislike Bill Gates. There had been a smaller Microsoft before the rise of MS-DOS and Windows. Microsoft was a vendor of BASIC interpreters that were integrated into some 8 bit microcomputers, which I used. The Apple II's "Applesoft" basic was derived from Microsoft's work. Its name is a portmanteau of Apple and Microsoft, a kind of touchstone that highlights a complex history of cooperation and rivalry between the two.

tomnipotent 8y ago

> and yet their employees are pretty comfortable admitting to their friends that Windows and Azure are crap You make a whole lot of claims with absolutely zero evidence to back it up.

VRay 8y ago
I take it you don't know anyone who works at MSFT?
- tomnipotent 8y ago
  Folks at every business I know eventually talk crap or otherwise grumble. Whoop de do. There's very little signal in that, especially for a business like Microsoft where everyone is an armchair analyst and can't go five minutes without mentioning "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" because they think it makes them sound smart.
- bradford 8y ago
  I work at MSFT. There's a difference between being critical of a product in an effort to improve it, and classifying the product as 'crap'. My opinion, and I think most msft employees would share it, fall into the former, and not the latter. There's a lot to be proud of in both Windows and Azure, even with full recognition that they aren't perfect.
  - CamperBob2 8y ago
    I don't buy it. MSFT employees go home to their extended families during the holidays just like many of the rest of us do. There, just like the rest of us, they will be expected to maintain their non-technical relatives' Windows PCs, or at least explain why said computers are so badly hosed. They are doing a terrible job on Windows and they have to know it, if only at a subconscious level.
  - grumpydba 8y ago
    What about bing then ?
deleted 8y ago

faramarz 8y ago

Bill and the board deserve credit for bringing in Satya to captain the ship and steer it. The ship is still afloat, with a captain able and willing to navigate it into new territories. That's really what they're doing and I think that in itself is a re-invention and worth remarking about. Now, you can give them shit for the design of their ship, failures, practices, etc.. and rightfully so, but they are definitley re-defining their business in real-time, in my opinion. I'd love to hear if any of that resonates as I haven't worked at Google or the other companies you listed to get a scope of the culture. edit: steer

markrages 8y ago
steer

SatvikBeri 8y ago

Satya became CEO in February 2014. Since then, Microsoft's stock has significantly outperformed Google and Apple, and slightly outperformed Facebook. While it significantly underperformed each of those in the years before. So it's not just the bull market.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
The stock rise was a function of changing analyst ratios - not changing fundamentals. Ballmer grew the company like a machine during his tenure. Satya has been iffy, in fact, without 2018 numbers, quite unstable in fact. It's just that that 2018 numbers were good enough to bring everything back to nice growth. Without a lot of movement in P/E ratios, both CEO's would have really been doing about the same. Basically, the stock was held back for whatever reason during Ballmer years, even as sales were growing well. Then when Satya took over the ratios changed and the stock flipped up like an elastic. Satya's a good guy and the right choice but I don't think he's done anything quite fundamentally important yet relative to Ballmer.

dtrailin 8y ago

People at Amazon and Oracle complain all the time, you should talk to them. I think honesty is far more important than pretending everything is great when isn't. If this is the case then you are part of a cult. I think you'll also seen a wide variety of opinions on Windows and Azure, mostly related to the individual products at Microsoft. Having worked there I know quite a few people that were big fans of the NT Kernel, C#, .net, and Azure services like Storage and App Insights. People will also acknowledge the bad parts, which is critical if one wants to improve.