4 ms·

Memoranda (a contrast of Jobs's and Ballmer's styles)

24 points by mariorz 18y ago

raganwald 18y ago
[Ballmer's] mockery of Google’s search as “a white page with 10 blue links” indicates that he has no idea why Google has been so successful. I’d wager that if anyone is ever going to gain on Google in search, it will be by presenting even more focused results — less clutter, fewer distractions, more emphasis on making the results easily scanned. Hmmm, reminds me of something Paul was saying the other day about ideas he'd like to fund...
- aneesh 18y ago
  Take a look at Kosmix.com Ignoring relevance for a sec, which display of results looks better? Kosmix by a mile. I think that's what Ballmer means when he says he wants to move beyond 10 blue links. Amidst the aura of "FAIL", one nice thing Cuil had was that you didn't really need to scroll down to see all the results. There's room to beat Google in displaying results better, and that's what Kosmix, PG, and Ballmer are all trying to do, each in their own way. I don't think the company that beats Google will do it by "out-Googling" them.
  - cypress-hill 18y ago
    you have to be kidding me. kosmix is so bad i won't even say its shit. it would have to locate some amount of good and like triple it before i would even call it shit. kosmix has recruiters carpet bombing all the bay area tech companies scrounguing for talent....i'm sure they work very hard from keeping potential recruits from actually looking at the site your obvious astroturf reveals you as an employee. pathetic.
  - prospero 18y ago
    The home page linked me to http://www.kosmix.com/topic/In-N-Out http://www.kosmix.com/topic/In-N-Out as a sample search. Is that really superior? If I were in middle school, doing a research paper on In-N-Out, I could see the appeal. It seems fairly humming with information. Certainly it feels like it could fill a poster board. Mostly, it seems to be trying to anticipate my next search related to In-N-Out. Did I really mean "In-N-Out videos"? Did I mean "where's the nearest In-N-Out"? Did I mean "what does 'animal style' actually mean?" But really, if I had wanted any of those things, wouldn't I have used those as my search terms? As it stands, I find the page a little confusing; I don't know where to look amidst all that second-guessing.
    - cypress-hill 18y ago
      blah, even that link is just an obvious mashup. people were doing this three years ago
gaborcselle 18y ago
There's a big difference between the two memos. Jobs' email is "guys, we messed up, let's learn from it". Ballmer's email is to fire up the troops. I think the different purposes of the two memos explain the difference in styles. It's not a function of the two's personalities.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
hhm 18y ago
"which means Microsoft had more revenue and nearly twice the net profit of Apple and Google combined" Wow, I thought Google was having more profit than Microsoft already. Why is everyone pointing Microsoft as dead and Google as the leader then? At least it's not the case yet.
- allenbrunson 18y ago
  nobody is saying microsoft is dead. but their peak is almost certainly behind them. they've already lost their leadership role, and their actions as of late have convinced most of us that they have nowhere to go but down. they are well on their way to duplicating ibm's progression into a profitable but not terribly newsworthy tech company.
- theoneill 18y ago
  The second derivative.

24 points by mariorz 18y ago

[Ballmer's] mockery of Google’s search as “a white page with 10 blue links” indicates that he has no idea why Google has been so successful. I’d wager that if anyone is ever going to gain on Google in search, it will be by presenting even more focused results — less clutter, fewer distractions, more emphasis on making the results easily scanned. Hmmm, reminds me of something Paul was saying the other day about ideas he'd like to fund...

aneesh 18y ago
Take a look at Kosmix.com Ignoring relevance for a sec, which display of results looks better? Kosmix by a mile. I think that's what Ballmer means when he says he wants to move beyond 10 blue links. Amidst the aura of "FAIL", one nice thing Cuil had was that you didn't really need to scroll down to see all the results. There's room to beat Google in displaying results better, and that's what Kosmix, PG, and Ballmer are all trying to do, each in their own way. I don't think the company that beats Google will do it by "out-Googling" them.
- cypress-hill 18y ago
  you have to be kidding me. kosmix is so bad i won't even say its shit. it would have to locate some amount of good and like triple it before i would even call it shit. kosmix has recruiters carpet bombing all the bay area tech companies scrounguing for talent....i'm sure they work very hard from keeping potential recruits from actually looking at the site your obvious astroturf reveals you as an employee. pathetic.
- prospero 18y ago
  The home page linked me to http://www.kosmix.com/topic/In-N-Out http://www.kosmix.com/topic/In-N-Out as a sample search. Is that really superior? If I were in middle school, doing a research paper on In-N-Out, I could see the appeal. It seems fairly humming with information. Certainly it feels like it could fill a poster board. Mostly, it seems to be trying to anticipate my next search related to In-N-Out. Did I really mean "In-N-Out videos"? Did I mean "where's the nearest In-N-Out"? Did I mean "what does 'animal style' actually mean?" But really, if I had wanted any of those things, wouldn't I have used those as my search terms? As it stands, I find the page a little confusing; I don't know where to look amidst all that second-guessing.
  - cypress-hill 18y ago
    blah, even that link is just an obvious mashup. people were doing this three years ago

gaborcselle 18y ago

There's a big difference between the two memos. Jobs' email is "guys, we messed up, let's learn from it". Ballmer's email is to fire up the troops. I think the different purposes of the two memos explain the difference in styles. It's not a function of the two's personalities.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

hhm 18y ago

"which means Microsoft had more revenue and nearly twice the net profit of Apple and Google combined" Wow, I thought Google was having more profit than Microsoft already. Why is everyone pointing Microsoft as dead and Google as the leader then? At least it's not the case yet.

allenbrunson 18y ago
nobody is saying microsoft is dead. but their peak is almost certainly behind them. they've already lost their leadership role, and their actions as of late have convinced most of us that they have nowhere to go but down. they are well on their way to duplicating ibm's progression into a profitable but not terribly newsworthy tech company.
theoneill 18y ago
The second derivative.