15 ms·

Reflections on My Career at Microsoft

300 points by CPAhem 7y ago

TheEndless 7y ago
sorry bill
kevingadd 7y ago
This part feels like it applies to every tech company I've ever worked at, especially in the context of all the high profile "repeat sex offender is quietly escorted out of the building with a payout" scandals at big SV tech firms in the last decade: "Treating the culpables as untouchable sends a message to the current offenders that these behaviors are in bounds and those who practice them suffer no lingering effects. It does nothing to stop the fiscal regularity of companywide memos condemning ongoing sexism, racism and bullying. It does nothing to stop the revolving door of the majority of new college hires leaving the moment their signing bonuses become permanent. It does nothing to stop the cycle of sucking up to those in power in an effort to gain power for oneself."
cbanek 7y ago
As a woman who worked at MSFT through the Ballmer era, I have to agree with this whole article. It really nailed it. Especially this part near the end where I never felt it would get better: "But my former female colleagues who reviewed this document in advance of its publication are unconvinced. None of them report feeling emboldened by the new Microsoft. They continue to withhold reports of discriminatory management practices. They relate stories of reports of abuse going unpunished and continue to fear reprisals for speaking out. In fact, multiple reviewers noted, independently, the irony that the only reason I am comfortable enough to speak out is that I am a “50-year old white dude” and, thus, girded against reprisal from the body politic. So they remain silent when, in fact, they are among the voices Microsoft needs to hear the most. Apparently, Microsoft has dipped only a single toe in the river that flows to the future."
- kylec 7y ago
  According to Satya Nadella, the system is "long term efficient", so it'll all work itself out eventually https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/10/microsoft-ceo-nadella-comments-social-media/17031569/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/10/microsoft-ceo...
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    Anyone can sell the future.
  - bjornsing 7y ago
    > "All HR systems are long term efficient, short term inefficient." That’s an amazingly stupid comment from an obviously very smart person (Nadella). I’m quite sure it’s not true for women who do not ask for raises, but in my experience it’s not true in general either. Most HR systems tend to produce, promote and reward a certain kind of behavior - and that behavior is seldom very value creating. Paraphrasing Nadella I’d rather say “All HR systems are short term inefficient, and most are long-term inefficient. Some are even outright ruinous, at least for the company and it’s shareholders, who (unlike employees) have no escape.”
- anon1m0us 7y ago
  How do you get your employer to hear you? I don't think these problems are isolated to women. I think women just don't understand that there's an "old boys club" that attacks other men too. I know lots of men who say the same things. Pitting employees against each other. The masters recruiting spies from among the ranks to report dissenting comments from the servants. Cutting back on coffee breaks. Not being allowed to report actual time worked because you're an exempt employee so your boss can say, "I'm not aware of any overtime being worked." Uh that's because you won't allow me to enter more than the minimum. This happens to more than just women. Instead of pitting one bullied group against another, bullied people need to rise up against a system that rewards bullies at the expense of the employees with integrity! Companies are losing SO much value from their greatest employees because they are afraid to be noticed. You do something great for your employer and everyone else says, "Show off." or "You're making the rest of us look bad." or "Overachiever". They force great employees to be mediocre. Even managers do the same thing. If you find a problem with your boss's code -- watch out! This is not a problem women experience. It's a problem people experience.
outside1234 7y ago
Says the made-man who stood in the way... Seriously though, these sort of transitions take time, and people always underestimate just how much time. This is a huge cultural transition and you can't just fire all of the made-men one morning and usher in the new leaders to take there place. There is a real transition that has to happen on multiple levels and rushing it risks putting people in place that aren't yet up to speed. I'm honestly surprised at just how fast it happening. And it is happening -- and quickly.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Shebanator 7y ago
An interesting article, which I think accurately describes my brief time at Microsoft during the Ballmer era (our startup was acquired after the bubble burst). But his definition of "made men" seems very vague and very convenient. The people who Nadella appointed to higher positions were almost entirely people who had been at Microsoft for many years. Why are some "made men" and some are not? The definition seems primarily about whether or not the author liked them personally.
- repolfx 7y ago
  Worse, it seems more about whether they're men at all. I got to the end and stopped reading. I thought this article was going to get into specifics of what these so called "made men" did wrong, it turned out to be a ra-ra feminist piece. I've learned the hard way these sorts of people often have very wrong and warped ideas of what makes people successful or unsuccessful so that was a disappointment. Not worth reading really.
  - hiei 7y ago
    He's not going to name names. Those lifers in MS probably know who he's talking about, he did name products as well. Those folks can infer. Ra-ra feminist piece? Think we're reading different things. What he said regarding women rings true.
  - damq 7y ago
    +1. I gave up reading halfway through after he complained about sexism for the tenth time without giving a single example. It seems like the author just wants to complain and doesn't really know anything about what makes a company successful. Not worth reading at all.
- com2kid 7y ago
  There used to be a program at Microsoft where employees who were "destined to do great things" would be pulled out, given special training, and then have their careers accelerated. On one hand, it is sort of a good idea if you can truly pick the "winners" (and some of the people who went through the program did amazing things!) but, well, in hindsight I think everyone reading this can see how internal biases would be reflected in who got picked for the program. I don't know too much about the program, and I don't even remember now what is was called, but engineers who'd been there longer would talk about it sometimes.
jimbob45 7y ago
"Toxic masculinity" - this is a perfectly skippable article guys.
- neonate 7y ago
  The article doesn't contain that phrase.
vezycash 7y ago
>The Microsoft of the 2000s, under Steve Ballmer, was almost exactly the opposite (of gates). >Bruised and battered by the consent decree handed down by the DoJ for the very same ambition that brought it to dominance, Ballmer’s Microsoft was sales-forward and CAUTIOUS. >It was... nervously clutching its pearls at the approach of Google in its rearview mirror People bash Steve Ballmer for missing Search, Social Networking, Smart phones, Tablets and one other thing. They claim he had his head far up his rear end to see the competiton. He's called a buffoon and other names but ignore the fact that... Microsoft was Caged. Had it's wings clipped. Had a huge target on its back. In case you did't know, any complaint by say Google in its early days and Microsoft would have been broken up! This is the real reason behind's Ballmer's failure. Gates hated politics, kept Washington at arms length and that cost them. In fact, if Gates had lobbied just a little bit, there would have been no case at all. And that's why Google's lobbying like crazy cos it's life actually depends on it.
- duaoebg 7y ago
  Ballmer is a buffoon. Even if we are to accept that MS was caged. I remember being at a launch party during an internship. Suddenly half the people ran out of the massive tent. I thought it must have been a fire, I ran out too, grabbed someone and asked why the mass exodus. Their reply was that Ballmer just went on stage. With that response I figured I have to see this. I went back in and recorded it. I was not disappointed, the performance was very cringe worthy. I do hope MS becomes a nice place for women to work, as a white guy I hated it so hopefully in the future they can do better.
  - vezycash 7y ago
    Well that "buffoon" trippled Microsoft's earnings and doubled profits. But let these new growth areas slide because of the antitrust suit. If the market judged Microsoft by its earnings, it's stock would have been up. The internet, mobile was the blockchain and AI of the era.
    - mc32 7y ago
      I can’t judge whether he was a good CEO or not, but, goodness, that dude lived the company. He was an exuberant uninhibited promoter. More than Evangelizer. The guy didn’t care what people said behind his back when he got all sweaty, nope, he was there to promote the company. A great cheerleader for the team.
jarjoura 7y ago
I'm not so sure the problem with Microsoft was its toxic culture. So many of the key points in that article you could say ring true of Apple. Steve Jobs relished in the fact that people feared him. He literally built an entire company of yes men, right down to the chefs in the kitchen. It meant, when his strategy was right, the company did well. However, when it was wrong, it also hurt the whole company. Tim Cook is the opposite of that in every way. He delegates, he wants efficiency, he is much more conservative in where the products go. Yet the culture of yes still exists. The answer to all of these big corporations is just we need different theories of management and apply them across the board. Fire those unwilling to play along and grow a culture of collaboration.
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  > Fire those unwilling to play along and grow a culture of collaboration Gosh that sounds like an oxymoron
  - jagged-chisel 7y ago
    > Grow a culture of collaboration by firing those unwilling to play along I can see a misreading of the original. This is my understanding.
    - phjesusthatguy3 7y ago
      The third word of that sentence is three letters too long.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - pc86 7y ago
    It means firing those who don't want collaboration - it's poorly worded by not necessarily oxymoronic.
- dwoozle 7y ago
  The Jobs model works when you have a Jobs, or Gates, or Musk, someone whose inherent talent is so strong that the organization can look to him for all decisions. But the strategy for running a company in the long term cannot assume such a pope. If you have Michael Jordan on your basketball team your strategy can be “give him the ball” — if you are just five ordinary guys you will need a philosophy.
didibus 7y ago
> At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use. Call me skeptical, but there's not a whole lot of products I willfully pay Microsoft for. Most of them I pay for with a strong feeling of resentment that I have simply no other choice, since there are no competitors to the market or the lock in is too strong.
- username90 7y ago
  Good point, I have never once felt "Wow, a new Microsoft product, can't wait to buy it!". Instead it is usually more like "Oh shit, a new Mirosoft product, I hope I wont be forced to buy it to stay compatible".
  - nickpeterson 7y ago
    It could be worse, you could be involved with Oracle and receive phone calls warning you that they could sue you.
  - Baeocystin 7y ago
    I've felt this about Microsoft hardware, for what it's worth. I really like their mice, keyboards, and the Surface line.
    - bcrosby95 7y ago
      Yeah, the Surface line was the first time since the original iPhone that I was actually excited about a piece of hardware.
      - singingboyo 7y ago
        Surface book was just the first time ever for me. (Original iPhone was before I cared) The original Surface Pro was decent, but generally slow and bulky. The first Surface Book, on the other hand, is still a great, versatile piece of hardware several years later. Of course, YMMV - a tablet alone doesn't cover everything for me, but for some people needing a keyboard/base for connections may not work out.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
LetsGoNow2 7y ago
> Those made-men (because they are exclusively of that gender) have each other’s backs. Save the virtue-signalling, we don't need another Carly Fiorina, Marissa Meyer or Elisabeth Holmes.
tpmx 7y ago
So.. I just posted something here and it was immediately (like within 30 seconds) flagged and buried. https://imgur.com/a/pBRO4nD https://imgur.com/a/pBRO4nD What does this say about about Microsoft people on HN? You may be sorta new employees, but the company you signed up for is not new. Microsoft set back the development of computing quite a bit during the 80s/90s/00s, before it became less relevant. You guys should study the behavior of Germany after WW2.
- brycesbeard 7y ago
  Perhaps it says that HN readers believe bill gates’ personal wealth has little relevance to the story?
  - tpmx 7y ago
    There is a clear connection.
- oneepic 7y ago
  I didn't flag it, but it's a weird jab at millennials.
  - tpmx 7y ago
    Have you seen the reactions to the billg AmA's on reddit? They love this guy. Obviously it's all super-engineered by some very crafty PR firm.
    - pc86 7y ago
      These nonsense comments smack of a personal agenda that is more concerned with hating him because he has money than anything to do with this article, which is the point of discussion here. Gates' Reddit AMA response and how much money he has is irrelevant in the context of an article about Nadella's leadership of a Microsoft nearly two decades after his departure.
      - 7y ago
mooneater 7y ago
I entered and left MS during the Ballmer era. I liked my co-workers and my immediate manager was awesome, but I didn't see the company making the right moves to get web right, and they seemed to afraid to even mention the name "Google". I never would have predicted the Nadella turn-around.
29athrowaway 7y ago
I think a motivation for neglecting the web was to encourage people to develop desktop apps, with Visual Studio, on Windows.
muststopmyths 7y ago
I worked at Microsoft during the Gates/Ballmer era and my recollection is that the culture was toxic and definitely needed to change. But AFAIK this was a common thing about companies even in SV at the time. I knew contemporaries at companies like Cisco and SGI who complained about exactly the same sort of behavior (Know-it-all assholes who would berate anyone they thought was inferior, self above company, etc.). Interesting read anyway.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
skizm 7y ago
I see all of these things as reasons to invest in Microsoft long term. As the author states: "Microsoft is killing it. Revenue is up. Stock is up. Industry stature is up. The places where Microsoft finds itself thriving all have one thing in common: key made-men were pushed aside for better people." The fact that there are so many terrible managers still hanging around is like sludge in a jet engine. Once cleaned out (and that seems the direction they're moving), the company will hopefully skyrocket even further.
d23 7y ago
This was my experience of Ballmer-era Microsoft management hires at my previous company. They were the perfect combination of narcissism, manipulativeness, toxicity, and above all else, idiocy. They did a lot of damage, probably irrevocably. They were know-nothing bullies who liked to yell if you ever questioned them, completely convinced of their own superiority. I've heard a lot of similar stories about these people at other companies. It's a shame what people like this get away with.
- std_throwaway 7y ago
  Usually you call them tools. They turn your screw at the command of their superior in whichever way they are told to. They provide great leverage for a weak upper management.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    So add misanthropy onto the list?
GordonS 7y ago
> The unsurprising result is that Windows continues its tradition of boring... Come on, I understand the criticisms of botched updates, but Microsoft under Satya has been anything but boring - the incredible push towards open source is something many thought could never happen! WSL and the upcoming WSL2 are likewise anything but boring - Linux! In Windows!
- wbl 7y ago
  Windows NT had personalities for decades. It's a very old capability.
  - tinus_hn 7y ago
    They were there from the beginning. Personalities are a feature only Microsoft can use though and it’s only now that they appear to be using it for something positive. It could be another embrace and extend attempt though.
gautamcgoel 7y ago
I really love this line at the end of the article: "At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use." I wish more tech companies embodied this ethos!
Havoc 7y ago
Think author may be confusing a Microsoft issue with broader issue. Type A personality management was all the rage back then
dogprez 7y ago
Reminds me a bit of the story of Charles de Gaulle. A war hero, a powerful man of his time that overstayed his welcome when the world changed around him.
RickJWagner 7y ago
Having been a MSFT watcher through all three eras, I have to say I've been especially impressed with Satya Nadella. I really thought the age of the web would spell Microsoft's downfall. I couldn't see past the desktop. But Satya found the cloud and brought back the mojo. Excellent move.
ensiferum 7y ago
Is every MS employee now writing these "my career at microsoft) pieces? Looking for clicks for their blogs ? Seems like a recurring phenom. Topic X features on the front page of hacker news and then everyone imitates it probably just trying to get clicks.
kerng 7y ago
>> At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use. They stand as a bulwark against the data mongering and user exploitation that Google and Facebook see as the future of humanity. This statement is so true, its golden.
dhruvkar 7y ago
https://outline.com/a3btTH https://outline.com/a3btTH
crb002 7y ago
I would be curious to see Gates’ take in his maturity. In fact I visualize a more curious and playful Microsoft as Gates himself pushing it that way behind the scenes.
prirun 7y ago
This quote was laughable: "At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use. They stand as a bulwark against the data mongering and user exploitation that Google and Facebook see as the future of humanity." Microsoft has always made its money by creating, maintaining, extending and exercising monopoly power. I don't have a reference for this, but as I recall, after the antitrust verdict, Microsoft "offered" to give schools free copies of Windows as part of its "punishment". I guess that really hurt them to have schools sending out all documents in Microsoft Office format. Only the latest versions of course, so that it created incompatibilities with every parent's version of Office, forcing everyone to upgrade if they wanted to read a note from their kids' teachers. Since the Pentagon recently bought $10B in Microsoft products, I hope they consider that having a sole supplier is a national security issue, and force Microsoft to at least release an open spec of all Office document formats, and force them to update this spec at the same time product updates occur, if not months before. It may be too late even for that since Office is now running in a Microsoft cloud. Maybe the Pentagon just bought $10B of Microsoft cloud services. In that case, the format doesn't even matter any more, because every document is born, lives, and dies on a Microsoft server somewhere. Sure glad they aren't doing that "data mongering" thing.

300 points by CPAhem 7y ago

sorry bill

This part feels like it applies to every tech company I've ever worked at, especially in the context of all the high profile "repeat sex offender is quietly escorted out of the building with a payout" scandals at big SV tech firms in the last decade: "Treating the culpables as untouchable sends a message to the current offenders that these behaviors are in bounds and those who practice them suffer no lingering effects. It does nothing to stop the fiscal regularity of companywide memos condemning ongoing sexism, racism and bullying. It does nothing to stop the revolving door of the majority of new college hires leaving the moment their signing bonuses become permanent. It does nothing to stop the cycle of sucking up to those in power in an effort to gain power for oneself."

cbanek 7y ago

As a woman who worked at MSFT through the Ballmer era, I have to agree with this whole article. It really nailed it. Especially this part near the end where I never felt it would get better: "But my former female colleagues who reviewed this document in advance of its publication are unconvinced. None of them report feeling emboldened by the new Microsoft. They continue to withhold reports of discriminatory management practices. They relate stories of reports of abuse going unpunished and continue to fear reprisals for speaking out. In fact, multiple reviewers noted, independently, the irony that the only reason I am comfortable enough to speak out is that I am a “50-year old white dude” and, thus, girded against reprisal from the body politic. So they remain silent when, in fact, they are among the voices Microsoft needs to hear the most. Apparently, Microsoft has dipped only a single toe in the river that flows to the future."

kylec 7y ago
According to Satya Nadella, the system is "long term efficient", so it'll all work itself out eventually https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/10/microsoft-ceo-nadella-comments-social-media/17031569/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/10/microsoft-ceo...
- BubRoss 7y ago
  Anyone can sell the future.
- bjornsing 7y ago
  > "All HR systems are long term efficient, short term inefficient." That’s an amazingly stupid comment from an obviously very smart person (Nadella). I’m quite sure it’s not true for women who do not ask for raises, but in my experience it’s not true in general either. Most HR systems tend to produce, promote and reward a certain kind of behavior - and that behavior is seldom very value creating. Paraphrasing Nadella I’d rather say “All HR systems are short term inefficient, and most are long-term inefficient. Some are even outright ruinous, at least for the company and it’s shareholders, who (unlike employees) have no escape.”
anon1m0us 7y ago
How do you get your employer to hear you? I don't think these problems are isolated to women. I think women just don't understand that there's an "old boys club" that attacks other men too. I know lots of men who say the same things. Pitting employees against each other. The masters recruiting spies from among the ranks to report dissenting comments from the servants. Cutting back on coffee breaks. Not being allowed to report actual time worked because you're an exempt employee so your boss can say, "I'm not aware of any overtime being worked." Uh that's because you won't allow me to enter more than the minimum. This happens to more than just women. Instead of pitting one bullied group against another, bullied people need to rise up against a system that rewards bullies at the expense of the employees with integrity! Companies are losing SO much value from their greatest employees because they are afraid to be noticed. You do something great for your employer and everyone else says, "Show off." or "You're making the rest of us look bad." or "Overachiever". They force great employees to be mediocre. Even managers do the same thing. If you find a problem with your boss's code -- watch out! This is not a problem women experience. It's a problem people experience.

outside1234 7y ago

Says the made-man who stood in the way... Seriously though, these sort of transitions take time, and people always underestimate just how much time. This is a huge cultural transition and you can't just fire all of the made-men one morning and usher in the new leaders to take there place. There is a real transition that has to happen on multiple levels and rushing it risks putting people in place that aren't yet up to speed. I'm honestly surprised at just how fast it happening. And it is happening -- and quickly.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Shebanator 7y ago

An interesting article, which I think accurately describes my brief time at Microsoft during the Ballmer era (our startup was acquired after the bubble burst). But his definition of "made men" seems very vague and very convenient. The people who Nadella appointed to higher positions were almost entirely people who had been at Microsoft for many years. Why are some "made men" and some are not? The definition seems primarily about whether or not the author liked them personally.

repolfx 7y ago
Worse, it seems more about whether they're men at all. I got to the end and stopped reading. I thought this article was going to get into specifics of what these so called "made men" did wrong, it turned out to be a ra-ra feminist piece. I've learned the hard way these sorts of people often have very wrong and warped ideas of what makes people successful or unsuccessful so that was a disappointment. Not worth reading really.
- hiei 7y ago
  He's not going to name names. Those lifers in MS probably know who he's talking about, he did name products as well. Those folks can infer. Ra-ra feminist piece? Think we're reading different things. What he said regarding women rings true.
- damq 7y ago
  +1. I gave up reading halfway through after he complained about sexism for the tenth time without giving a single example. It seems like the author just wants to complain and doesn't really know anything about what makes a company successful. Not worth reading at all.
com2kid 7y ago
There used to be a program at Microsoft where employees who were "destined to do great things" would be pulled out, given special training, and then have their careers accelerated. On one hand, it is sort of a good idea if you can truly pick the "winners" (and some of the people who went through the program did amazing things!) but, well, in hindsight I think everyone reading this can see how internal biases would be reflected in who got picked for the program. I don't know too much about the program, and I don't even remember now what is was called, but engineers who'd been there longer would talk about it sometimes.

jimbob45 7y ago

"Toxic masculinity" - this is a perfectly skippable article guys.

neonate 7y ago
The article doesn't contain that phrase.

vezycash 7y ago

>The Microsoft of the 2000s, under Steve Ballmer, was almost exactly the opposite (of gates). >Bruised and battered by the consent decree handed down by the DoJ for the very same ambition that brought it to dominance, Ballmer’s Microsoft was sales-forward and CAUTIOUS. >It was... nervously clutching its pearls at the approach of Google in its rearview mirror People bash Steve Ballmer for missing Search, Social Networking, Smart phones, Tablets and one other thing. They claim he had his head far up his rear end to see the competiton. He's called a buffoon and other names but ignore the fact that... Microsoft was Caged. Had it's wings clipped. Had a huge target on its back. In case you did't know, any complaint by say Google in its early days and Microsoft would have been broken up! This is the real reason behind's Ballmer's failure. Gates hated politics, kept Washington at arms length and that cost them. In fact, if Gates had lobbied just a little bit, there would have been no case at all. And that's why Google's lobbying like crazy cos it's life actually depends on it.

duaoebg 7y ago
Ballmer is a buffoon. Even if we are to accept that MS was caged. I remember being at a launch party during an internship. Suddenly half the people ran out of the massive tent. I thought it must have been a fire, I ran out too, grabbed someone and asked why the mass exodus. Their reply was that Ballmer just went on stage. With that response I figured I have to see this. I went back in and recorded it. I was not disappointed, the performance was very cringe worthy. I do hope MS becomes a nice place for women to work, as a white guy I hated it so hopefully in the future they can do better.
- vezycash 7y ago
  Well that "buffoon" trippled Microsoft's earnings and doubled profits. But let these new growth areas slide because of the antitrust suit. If the market judged Microsoft by its earnings, it's stock would have been up. The internet, mobile was the blockchain and AI of the era.
  - mc32 7y ago
    I can’t judge whether he was a good CEO or not, but, goodness, that dude lived the company. He was an exuberant uninhibited promoter. More than Evangelizer. The guy didn’t care what people said behind his back when he got all sweaty, nope, he was there to promote the company. A great cheerleader for the team.

jarjoura 7y ago

I'm not so sure the problem with Microsoft was its toxic culture. So many of the key points in that article you could say ring true of Apple. Steve Jobs relished in the fact that people feared him. He literally built an entire company of yes men, right down to the chefs in the kitchen. It meant, when his strategy was right, the company did well. However, when it was wrong, it also hurt the whole company. Tim Cook is the opposite of that in every way. He delegates, he wants efficiency, he is much more conservative in where the products go. Yet the culture of yes still exists. The answer to all of these big corporations is just we need different theories of management and apply them across the board. Fire those unwilling to play along and grow a culture of collaboration.

gwbas1c 7y ago
> Fire those unwilling to play along and grow a culture of collaboration Gosh that sounds like an oxymoron
- jagged-chisel 7y ago
  > Grow a culture of collaboration by firing those unwilling to play along I can see a misreading of the original. This is my understanding.
  - phjesusthatguy3 7y ago
    The third word of that sentence is three letters too long.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- pc86 7y ago
  It means firing those who don't want collaboration - it's poorly worded by not necessarily oxymoronic.
dwoozle 7y ago
The Jobs model works when you have a Jobs, or Gates, or Musk, someone whose inherent talent is so strong that the organization can look to him for all decisions. But the strategy for running a company in the long term cannot assume such a pope. If you have Michael Jordan on your basketball team your strategy can be “give him the ball” — if you are just five ordinary guys you will need a philosophy.

didibus 7y ago

> At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use. Call me skeptical, but there's not a whole lot of products I willfully pay Microsoft for. Most of them I pay for with a strong feeling of resentment that I have simply no other choice, since there are no competitors to the market or the lock in is too strong.

username90 7y ago
Good point, I have never once felt "Wow, a new Microsoft product, can't wait to buy it!". Instead it is usually more like "Oh shit, a new Mirosoft product, I hope I wont be forced to buy it to stay compatible".
- nickpeterson 7y ago
  It could be worse, you could be involved with Oracle and receive phone calls warning you that they could sue you.
- Baeocystin 7y ago
  I've felt this about Microsoft hardware, for what it's worth. I really like their mice, keyboards, and the Surface line.
  - bcrosby95 7y ago
    Yeah, the Surface line was the first time since the original iPhone that I was actually excited about a piece of hardware.
    - singingboyo 7y ago
      Surface book was just the first time ever for me. (Original iPhone was before I cared) The original Surface Pro was decent, but generally slow and bulky. The first Surface Book, on the other hand, is still a great, versatile piece of hardware several years later. Of course, YMMV - a tablet alone doesn't cover everything for me, but for some people needing a keyboard/base for connections may not work out.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

LetsGoNow2 7y ago

> Those made-men (because they are exclusively of that gender) have each other’s backs. Save the virtue-signalling, we don't need another Carly Fiorina, Marissa Meyer or Elisabeth Holmes.

tpmx 7y ago

So.. I just posted something here and it was immediately (like within 30 seconds) flagged and buried. https://imgur.com/a/pBRO4nD https://imgur.com/a/pBRO4nD What does this say about about Microsoft people on HN? You may be sorta new employees, but the company you signed up for is not new. Microsoft set back the development of computing quite a bit during the 80s/90s/00s, before it became less relevant. You guys should study the behavior of Germany after WW2.

brycesbeard 7y ago
Perhaps it says that HN readers believe bill gates’ personal wealth has little relevance to the story?
- tpmx 7y ago
  There is a clear connection.
oneepic 7y ago
I didn't flag it, but it's a weird jab at millennials.
- tpmx 7y ago
  Have you seen the reactions to the billg AmA's on reddit? They love this guy. Obviously it's all super-engineered by some very crafty PR firm.
  - pc86 7y ago
    These nonsense comments smack of a personal agenda that is more concerned with hating him because he has money than anything to do with this article, which is the point of discussion here. Gates' Reddit AMA response and how much money he has is irrelevant in the context of an article about Nadella's leadership of a Microsoft nearly two decades after his departure.
    - 7y ago

mooneater 7y ago

I entered and left MS during the Ballmer era. I liked my co-workers and my immediate manager was awesome, but I didn't see the company making the right moves to get web right, and they seemed to afraid to even mention the name "Google". I never would have predicted the Nadella turn-around.

29athrowaway 7y ago

I think a motivation for neglecting the web was to encourage people to develop desktop apps, with Visual Studio, on Windows.

muststopmyths 7y ago

I worked at Microsoft during the Gates/Ballmer era and my recollection is that the culture was toxic and definitely needed to change. But AFAIK this was a common thing about companies even in SV at the time. I knew contemporaries at companies like Cisco and SGI who complained about exactly the same sort of behavior (Know-it-all assholes who would berate anyone they thought was inferior, self above company, etc.). Interesting read anyway.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

skizm 7y ago

I see all of these things as reasons to invest in Microsoft long term. As the author states: "Microsoft is killing it. Revenue is up. Stock is up. Industry stature is up. The places where Microsoft finds itself thriving all have one thing in common: key made-men were pushed aside for better people." The fact that there are so many terrible managers still hanging around is like sludge in a jet engine. Once cleaned out (and that seems the direction they're moving), the company will hopefully skyrocket even further.

d23 7y ago

This was my experience of Ballmer-era Microsoft management hires at my previous company. They were the perfect combination of narcissism, manipulativeness, toxicity, and above all else, idiocy. They did a lot of damage, probably irrevocably. They were know-nothing bullies who liked to yell if you ever questioned them, completely convinced of their own superiority. I've heard a lot of similar stories about these people at other companies. It's a shame what people like this get away with.

std_throwaway 7y ago
Usually you call them tools. They turn your screw at the command of their superior in whichever way they are told to. They provide great leverage for a weak upper management.
- hinkley 7y ago
  So add misanthropy onto the list?

GordonS 7y ago

> The unsurprising result is that Windows continues its tradition of boring... Come on, I understand the criticisms of botched updates, but Microsoft under Satya has been anything but boring - the incredible push towards open source is something many thought could never happen! WSL and the upcoming WSL2 are likewise anything but boring - Linux! In Windows!

wbl 7y ago
Windows NT had personalities for decades. It's a very old capability.
- tinus_hn 7y ago
  They were there from the beginning. Personalities are a feature only Microsoft can use though and it’s only now that they appear to be using it for something positive. It could be another embrace and extend attempt though.

gautamcgoel 7y ago

I really love this line at the end of the article: "At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use." I wish more tech companies embodied this ethos!

Havoc 7y ago

Think author may be confusing a Microsoft issue with broader issue. Type A personality management was all the rage back then

dogprez 7y ago

Reminds me a bit of the story of Charles de Gaulle. A war hero, a powerful man of his time that overstayed his welcome when the world changed around him.

RickJWagner 7y ago

Having been a MSFT watcher through all three eras, I have to say I've been especially impressed with Satya Nadella. I really thought the age of the web would spell Microsoft's downfall. I couldn't see past the desktop. But Satya found the cloud and brought back the mojo. Excellent move.

ensiferum 7y ago

Is every MS employee now writing these "my career at microsoft) pieces? Looking for clicks for their blogs ? Seems like a recurring phenom. Topic X features on the front page of hacker news and then everyone imitates it probably just trying to get clicks.

kerng 7y ago

>> At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use. They stand as a bulwark against the data mongering and user exploitation that Google and Facebook see as the future of humanity. This statement is so true, its golden.

dhruvkar 7y ago

https://outline.com/a3btTH https://outline.com/a3btTH

crb002 7y ago

I would be curious to see Gates’ take in his maturity. In fact I visualize a more curious and playful Microsoft as Gates himself pushing it that way behind the scenes.

prirun 7y ago

This quote was laughable: "At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use. They stand as a bulwark against the data mongering and user exploitation that Google and Facebook see as the future of humanity." Microsoft has always made its money by creating, maintaining, extending and exercising monopoly power. I don't have a reference for this, but as I recall, after the antitrust verdict, Microsoft "offered" to give schools free copies of Windows as part of its "punishment". I guess that really hurt them to have schools sending out all documents in Microsoft Office format. Only the latest versions of course, so that it created incompatibilities with every parent's version of Office, forcing everyone to upgrade if they wanted to read a note from their kids' teachers. Since the Pentagon recently bought $10B in Microsoft products, I hope they consider that having a sole supplier is a national security issue, and force Microsoft to at least release an open spec of all Office document formats, and force them to update this spec at the same time product updates occur, if not months before. It may be too late even for that since Office is now running in a Microsoft cloud. Maybe the Pentagon just bought $10B of Microsoft cloud services. In that case, the format doesn't even matter any more, because every document is born, lives, and dies on a Microsoft server somewhere. Sure glad they aren't doing that "data mongering" thing.