8 ms·
> "There was a meeting in a small conference room with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. And Steve never, I don't think, ever thought it was a good idea. There's a
by abvdasker 6y ago
> "There was a meeting in a small conference room with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. And Steve never, I don't think, ever thought it was a good idea. There's a story I've told where I was standing in line in the cafeteria with Kevin, and Steve Ballmer snuck up behind us and yelled in my ear, making me throw my food: 'YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE ALL OUR MONEY!'”
Steve Ballmer might be the funniest dude ever to run a tech company. Every story with him is absolutely golden.
- lokar 6y agoFunny or cringe inducing?
- cptskippy 6y agoThe former because of the later.
- phaedryx 6y agoI would hate to work for someone like that.
- op00to 6y agoDepends on how much I got paid.
- flavmartins 6y agoNo, it doesn’t. You like the pay but hate the person. Many of us have been there before. You eventually get fed up and have to move on.
- KMag 6y agoI used to think I would do pretty much anything I didn't find immoral for a million dollars per year. An abusive boss for 80+ hours per week changed my mind. When I quit my third job, my boss told me "Karl, I know you hate me now, but in a couple years, you'll be making a million dollars a year and love me." My response "Even if I believed you, I wouldn't do this job for a million dollars".
- ErikAugust 6y agoLet me guess: You wouldn’t have ended up making a million dollars a year.
- KMag 6y agoMaybe I would have. We were trading interest rate and foreign exchange derivatives in 2006. 2008 / 2009 would have been very volatile. We were generally long volatility, but sometimes we had some legs on some trades that would make significant losses in extreme volatility. It's hard to say. It's possible our 4-person desk could have made 100 million and my boss would have thrown a few my way. It's also possible the desk would have folded. I still think I made the right choice by leaving. You have to live your life, and unless you really love your job, 80+ hours per week in the office is not living your life. Also, I left that macro quant job by calling up Google and asking if they'd re-open the job offer I turned down 4 months earlier. It certainly helped that I had good backup jobs available.
- RobRivera 6y agohaving been employed by an asshole in a previous life, a good enough paycheck makes it manageable. Not saying its healthy tho; I think somepeople have simply mastered the 'embrace the suck' mentality when it comes to toxicity...they call that 'resilience'
- StavrosK 6y agoI now realize how lucky I am to have worked with great people. The worst job I had was just boring.
- redler 6y agoIf the money is exceptional, the longer you stick it out, the more freedom you have to leave at a time of your choosing to pursue your next adventure.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoAnd the more emotional and mental scars you'll have. And the more time you'll need to wait patiently for them to heal.
- nirui 6y agoNot just the paycheck. If your boss is mean and stupid all the time, you'll learn so little from them, the net work experience you got from the job become a negative. In my opinion, a good boss can be loud, but must also smart and willing to hear, learn and teach, which are essential if you want to increase productivity and get your team full of smart and idea generating people together. If you work for a mean and stupid boss, not only you'll work in hell, if the business failed due to their mistake, they'll probably put failure on their employees. Which is really bad if their false words got into the ears of your next recruiter. Life is short, if something is obviously bad, don't try it.
- CapitalistCartr 6y agoPerhaps the funniest dude ever to ruin a tech company.
- rantwasp 6y agonah. I think Balmer did wonders for Ms. It’s really easy to blame the guy but I think it’s important to look at the context (of when he took over, what he actually did) also, he is the only CEO I routinely saw at the “corporate gym” in Redmond before the pandemic struck. No bodyguards, no nothings. Like a regular dude going to the gym, hanging out in the sauna/jacuzzi. He had a super positive attitude towards the staff and other people that would strike up a conversation. While I did not the to have the image of a naked Ballmer burned into my retinas, I do appreciate that he did not let all that wealth go to his head.
- nailer 6y agoWhen he started Microsoft had the most popular OS, web browser and mobile OS. A decade later they lost all three and their market cap barely moved.
- HenryKissinger 6y agoWindows remains the most popular operating system for computers by far, and that will never change.
- TylerE 6y agoI suppose that depends on how all gazillion AWS instances running Linux counts.
- rantwasp 6y agoAWS instances run Windows too. And MS makes money off those instances. Also, Azure runs Linux too. Microsoft is in the post-Windows phase and it's working on things that will keep it relevant long term
- bitwize 6y agoHe was played to an absolute T by John DiMaggio, the voice of Bender the robot, in Pirates of Silicon Valley.
- justapassenger 6y agoFunny to watch (if you’re into this type of humor). Horrible to work for.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y agoMichael Scott rules of management
- sharkweek 6y agoThe CONJOINED triangles of success!
- ackbar03 6y agoI don't think that's funny dude. The asshole with the bad ideas is in the ceo seat and he's your boss. I can't think of a less funnier employment situation. Kudos on him for having what it takes to actually bring it to life
- thanhhaimai 6y agoEh, I don't post often, but I have to reply this. Please don't normalize that behavior. It's not funny. That's like a bully. It's only acceptable for him to do that because of his position. Imagine a factory worker doing that to the CEO "just cause it's funny". That's the same with other funny-but-inappropriate behaviors we should discourage at work.
- npsomaratna 6y agoExactly. I cringed when I read that. I'd never treat one of my employees that way (or allow an employee of mine to treat a subordinate that way).
- warent 6y agoContext makes every difference here. I could very easily imagine some lower level employee doing this to a CEO and getting a laugh out of it. Context and relationship. EDIT: not that im saying Steve was in the right, who knows what their relationship was like
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- aparsons 6y agoSteve hated it. Bill hated what it turned out to be by 1999 (I left around then). Dave Cutler hated it. Eric Engstrom saw it more as a defensive strategy. Microsoft poured an incredible amount of talent and resources that would have gone towards the Web into Xbox.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoConsidering what MS did to the web with the resources that were left over, it's possible the web had a lucky escape. Meanwhile Xbox has been a product driver - a big mostly positive influence on Windows gaming and on other platforms.
- pjmlp 6y agoFrom I am standing, with the Web turned into what is basically ChromeOS, I am not so sure how lucky it was.
- matthewdgreen 6y agoLosing the web is forgivable in retrospect: the web is a very big place and MS still has a very respectable Internet business thanks to Azure. What they can't be forgiven for is their focus on winning the living room rather than investing in mobile. If PocketPC had followed the same consumer/developer-centric trajectory as XBox, I think the mobile world would look very different today.
- rasz 6y agoBallmer is real life Todd Packer from The Office https://theoffice.fandom.com/wiki/Todd_Packer https://theoffice.fandom.com/wiki/Todd_Packer