Current MSFT employee... I can say that PMs often wield a lot of power over decision making than most people in the org, esp the customer-facing decisions. And

Current MSFT employee... I can say that PMs often wield a lot of power over decision making than most people in the org, esp the customer-facing decisions. And while it may not have been the PM in the lowest-rung of the chain, the parent comment perfectly applies to program managers in general, often in the middle management or higher up, both of which are often disconnected with real world, in spite of their claims to otherwise. PMs at Microsoft have enormous veto power, they cite data (or lack thereof! ;-)), direct customer interaction, conducted user studies, etc. which the dev team is usually lacking in. Of course this is only an anecdotal observation over the last 2 decades or so. Increase in $$$s in revenues is one of the best ways to get promoted, recognized and rewarded at Msft (and not only at MSFT, I suspect that's the case at most publicly traded companies, who only care to drive up the the bottom-line, no matter the means to achieve it, as long as it is (mostly) legal).