4 ms·
For those who may not know Philip. I worked with Philip shortly back at MSFT. He was one of my favorite people and had all the right core values one would ever
by sriramk 15y ago
For those who may not know Philip.
I worked with Philip shortly back at MSFT. He was one of my favorite people and had all the right core values one would ever want. Someone who got stuff done and cared about it. I thought losing him to FB was a terrible loss for MSFT (he went on to do the FB/Skype integration almost single-handedly). He is not just another disgruntled employee, he is someone MSFT needs to listen to.
No comment on the stuff on Bing. Or Yahoo :).
- michaelochurch 15y agoI don't think he's going to succeed at changing the culture he intends to criticize. The people who wage these stupid political wars don't care that people of conscience hate them. If anything, it energizes them to be hated by the decent among us. Something I found myself unprepared for is the bad-decision-as-an-assertion-of-power pattern. It literally was not until age 27 that I realized (despite seeing this behavior several times first-hand) how common it is, in business, for people in charge to make intentionally bad decisions for the sake of (a) asserting power, and (b) testing others' loyalty. I guess one could say I was too naive and hyper-rational to believe such a thing to be possible-- except in the movies. I wish I had a solution. For the record, people who say "Startups!" don't know what they're talking about. Startups can be great, but office politics can get just as ugly in small companies.
- cpeterso 15y agoI have a friend who used to work at Apple. He jokes (I hope) that Steve Jobs pronounced (Mac OS X 10.2) "Jaguar" as jag-wire as a "prestige hypercorrection" to test the loyalty of his followers. If someone adopted his hypercorrected pronunciation, then he knows they are a sycophant. Though I'm not sure if that means the person should be trusted or ignored..
- StrawberryFrog 15y agoFun fact (possibly irrelevant, probably even true) an early example of that pattern is the river Thames that flows through London. It used to be pronounced like it's written, starting with a "Th". Then King George I took the throne in 1714. He was German, but from then onwards, the way that he said it (i.e. "Tems") was the right way. And still is. http://www.lbc.co.uk/why-is-the-river-thames-so-called-7258 http://www.lbc.co.uk/why-is-the-river-thames-so-called-7258 It says something about power that people still want to be treated like kings - whatever they do is automatically the right way for the courtiers and sycophants to copy. And it says something about Steve Jobs that he would play on that on purpose.
- hello_moto 15y agoSometime that's what leaders do: they test the water to see if people still consider that they are their leaders. If the result is positive, they'll continue to do what they do. Otherwise, either they become paranoid (most leaders are) or they change their game plan a little bit.
- sid6376 15y agoHe also wrote a great exit mail when leaving MS. http://worldofsu.com/philipsu/?page_id=193 http://worldofsu.com/philipsu/?page_id=193 .
- JustAGeek 15y agoThank you very much for linking to this email, some great pieces of advice in it!
- justanotheratom 15y agoFound this gem in the exit mail, which contrasts with the theme of the current blog post. Then again, maybe he has more clarity now than a year ago. "Stay away from people who always have a conspiracy theory involving twisted office politics, unfulfilled Machiavellian ambitions, and unspoken agendas."