I was in the Borland Languages division as a test manager and staff metrics engineer until I was recruited away at the start of 1995. At that time we were begin

I was in the Borland Languages division as a test manager and staff metrics engineer until I was recruited away at the start of 1995. At that time we were beginning to struggle to compete with Microsoft. We had been winning for a long time because we were close-knit and highly motivated. We were scrappy competitors. The first real blow is that we moved into a new office complex that literally forced the team to sit separately instead on close to each other. That was a big hit on morale and productivity. Then Microsoft seemed to get its shit together and spend a lot of money on R&D. A lot more than they could have been getting in as revenue. Just after I left this forced Borland into an unsustainable cadence of delivery. Soon afterward Microsoft just started wildly hiring our best people. The thing is, for the period I worked at Borland, I instigated or participated in many of the innovations in process and testing that even today are coming as a surprise to people I teach… We had a fantastic team! Jothy Rosenberg, for instance, whom you can find on LinkedIn as founder of his Nth successful company, was my counterpart in development. He’s probably the most gifted technical leader I have encountered in my whole career.