4 ms·

I'm perfectly happy with Microsoft, as an an enterprise solution provider, having no "culture" in their products. I don't want "Made with <heart emoji> at Red

I'm perfectly happy with Microsoft, as an an enterprise solution provider, having no "culture" in their products. I don't want "Made with <heart emoji> at Redmond", I want the equivalent of vanilla ice cream that just works. That said, ads in bing chat IS adding a flavour, and I don't like it, not one bit.

BoorishBears 4y ago
You're just misunderstanding the concept of culture here. "Culture" doesn't define a flavor, it's just having a consistent flavor driven by shared values at all levels of the company: If Microsoft had culture, that culture could be "we are always the plain vanilla ice cream for our customers" "Culture" is what keeps you from adding soy sauce to your vanilla ice cream that has managed to captivate the globe... just to make a few pennies. Which is what these ads are.
- lwhi 4y ago
  Culture is the recipe; the combination of attributes that makes it distinctive.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  I think in my mind it's loaded because of who the quote is coming from - I have a very clear idea of what "iCulture" means to me. It's not at all vanilla, though it does offer vanilla, but calls it "artisanal french vanilla". How you're describing it, "culture" sounds more like "values", which might be a better understanding.
  - PascLeRasc 4y ago
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNK4VKeoBM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNK4VKeoBM
- waboremo 4y ago
  A much more clear example. However and tying this into what Steve Jobs was saying, Microsoft's culture would not be "plain vanilla ice cream". It's lacking taste, so it would be a waffle cone topped with mayonnaise that looks like soft serve vanilla ice cream. They have no taste, they can't tell the difference and due to their massive moats people eat up anyways.
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    I agree they're not vanilla ice cream, but I do think Microsoft could be that vanilla provider if they actually worked to form a culture. These ads are a great example: So many teams did thing right to get "BingGPT" in everyone's minds. But then some tasteless exec looking to notch "monetized leading LLM driven search engine" on their belt got to ask some developers to get some ads into the thing and now they've dumped on all the hard work that came before that. If they had a proper culture ideally an exec like that would not work at MS, and even if they did they'd have hit resistance on so many levels. Developers would not want to work on it. Designers would push back, PMs would deprioritize. At the end of the day their short-sighted idea would have stayed just that: an idea.
    - waboremo 4y ago
      Fully in agreement, they're in all the necessary positions to do so.
mecsred 4y ago
Take a look at the modern software landscape, ads are the vanilla in your vanilla ice cream.
- xattt 4y ago
  Vanilla is comfort. Ads are more like the smell of old cigarette smoke and urine.
dustymcp 4y ago
Well they had to come at some point..
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  You'd think they'd wait until you no longer had to sign up to the service to use it. I suppose we should be appreciative of how forthcoming with the dickbaggery they are being here.
fnordpiglet 4y ago
I prefer made in nj, which is expressed as a series of cryptic two letter symbols and line noise looking stuff thrown between.
PascLeRasc 4y ago
You’re right about how the tabloid news in your taskbar just works, in that it’s always there and I’m not allowed to turn it off.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  I always hear people complain about this. I never see it. I use Windows 11 and I never see any ads. The closest I get to is if I search and bing pops up, but that's it. I also turned off all the extra crap, my taskbar and search menu are as bare-bones as possible. Edit: To clarify, I run Windows 11 Home.
  - qazxcvbnmlp 4y ago
    Yeah - a fresh windows 11 home install is pretty aggressive. But if you use the pro version or run a cleanup script it’s not bad.
  - Asmod4n 4y ago
    Its not a thing on windows 11 pro, only home it seams.
CuriouslyC 4y ago
Crappy road or poopies and cream?
electrondood 4y ago
When Bing Chat started sassing the user, that was like someone had swirled in a nice ribbon of diarrhea into the vanilla ice cream.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  It wouldn't be a Microsoft chatbot without it getting controversial.
- Tommstein 4y ago
  Bard does too. The other day I simply asked it whether it could search the Internet, and it gave me some asshole response about how it wasn't going to do my homework for me and some other stuff I don't remember. And no, homework had nothing to do with anything.

BoorishBears 4y ago

You're just misunderstanding the concept of culture here. "Culture" doesn't define a flavor, it's just having a consistent flavor driven by shared values at all levels of the company: If Microsoft had culture, that culture could be "we are always the plain vanilla ice cream for our customers" "Culture" is what keeps you from adding soy sauce to your vanilla ice cream that has managed to captivate the globe... just to make a few pennies. Which is what these ads are.

lwhi 4y ago
Culture is the recipe; the combination of attributes that makes it distinctive.
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
I think in my mind it's loaded because of who the quote is coming from - I have a very clear idea of what "iCulture" means to me. It's not at all vanilla, though it does offer vanilla, but calls it "artisanal french vanilla". How you're describing it, "culture" sounds more like "values", which might be a better understanding.
- PascLeRasc 4y ago
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNK4VKeoBM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNK4VKeoBM
waboremo 4y ago
A much more clear example. However and tying this into what Steve Jobs was saying, Microsoft's culture would not be "plain vanilla ice cream". It's lacking taste, so it would be a waffle cone topped with mayonnaise that looks like soft serve vanilla ice cream. They have no taste, they can't tell the difference and due to their massive moats people eat up anyways.
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  I agree they're not vanilla ice cream, but I do think Microsoft could be that vanilla provider if they actually worked to form a culture. These ads are a great example: So many teams did thing right to get "BingGPT" in everyone's minds. But then some tasteless exec looking to notch "monetized leading LLM driven search engine" on their belt got to ask some developers to get some ads into the thing and now they've dumped on all the hard work that came before that. If they had a proper culture ideally an exec like that would not work at MS, and even if they did they'd have hit resistance on so many levels. Developers would not want to work on it. Designers would push back, PMs would deprioritize. At the end of the day their short-sighted idea would have stayed just that: an idea.
  - waboremo 4y ago
    Fully in agreement, they're in all the necessary positions to do so.

mecsred 4y ago

Take a look at the modern software landscape, ads are the vanilla in your vanilla ice cream.

xattt 4y ago
Vanilla is comfort. Ads are more like the smell of old cigarette smoke and urine.

dustymcp 4y ago

Well they had to come at some point..

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
You'd think they'd wait until you no longer had to sign up to the service to use it. I suppose we should be appreciative of how forthcoming with the dickbaggery they are being here.

fnordpiglet 4y ago

I prefer made in nj, which is expressed as a series of cryptic two letter symbols and line noise looking stuff thrown between.

PascLeRasc 4y ago

You’re right about how the tabloid news in your taskbar just works, in that it’s always there and I’m not allowed to turn it off.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
I always hear people complain about this. I never see it. I use Windows 11 and I never see any ads. The closest I get to is if I search and bing pops up, but that's it. I also turned off all the extra crap, my taskbar and search menu are as bare-bones as possible. Edit: To clarify, I run Windows 11 Home.
- qazxcvbnmlp 4y ago
  Yeah - a fresh windows 11 home install is pretty aggressive. But if you use the pro version or run a cleanup script it’s not bad.
- Asmod4n 4y ago
  Its not a thing on windows 11 pro, only home it seams.

CuriouslyC 4y ago

Crappy road or poopies and cream?

electrondood 4y ago

When Bing Chat started sassing the user, that was like someone had swirled in a nice ribbon of diarrhea into the vanilla ice cream.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
It wouldn't be a Microsoft chatbot without it getting controversial.
Tommstein 4y ago
Bard does too. The other day I simply asked it whether it could search the Internet, and it gave me some asshole response about how it wasn't going to do my homework for me and some other stuff I don't remember. And no, homework had nothing to do with anything.