At least from what I hear, Microsoft was huge enough that tribalism was already a thing even with a CEO there, going as far back as the Gates era. The slowdown

At least from what I hear, Microsoft was huge enough that tribalism was already a thing even with a CEO there, going as far back as the Gates era. The slowdown in growth in the '00s that shrank the reward pool and the dog-eat-dog mentality fostered by their vicious stack ranking system just made the tribalism and cronyism there worse.