3 ms·

Truly a legendary man for finding himself in the right place at the right time.

by rwmj 1y ago

jedberg 1y ago
That's honestly a bit dismissive. You might not like him because he's loud and "not an engineer", but you gotta give him credit for tripling their revenue under his watch.
- jama211 1y ago
  Not the person you just spoke to, and I don’t have any skin in this game, but technically speaking we don’t know if it tripled because of him or despite him, right? The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, but who knows where exactly.
  - rwmj 1y ago
    Or if another CEO could have done better. While Microsoft was a mature company at the time, it's still part of a very high growth industry. He was CEO for 14 years, so just tripling the revenue (and that's in nominal terms, not counting inflation) isn't exactly spectacular.
    - ThrowawayR2 1y ago
      Well, there's the CEOs of IBM, Sun, Yahoo, HP, DEC, Compaq, AOL, Palm Computing, and other formerly high flying competitors to compare against. I'm sure people could suggest a few others. Whatever else might be said about him, he didn't crater Microsoft while on the job.
      - jama211 1y ago
        That is true, objectively he didn’t fuck it up I suppose
        HaZeust 1y ago
        Nay-sayers will justify their low-cost, unfounded pre-conceived notions to the death, I swear.
  - DoesntMatter22 1y ago
    Okay but we do know it did triple under him which in general is pretty good.
    - jama211 1y ago
      Fair
  - twoodfin 1y ago
    If you take the time to listen to this excellent interview, you will definitely be able to form your own opinion.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bitwize 1y ago
He's legendary for being Bill's bulldog, and aggressively convincing people to buy Bill's solutions. Whether he was qualified to lead a technical organization like Microsoft on his own, as Bill's successor? Ehhhhh... maybe? You know that "used car salesman" persona that he had in that internal Windows 1.0 video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgJS2tQPGKQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgJS2tQPGKQ)? That's kind of his business strategy -- sell, sell, sell, push, push, push. Don't let potential clients say "no" to Microsoft products. And when you're an aggressive company like Microsoft, you want that in an exec -- but not necessarily a CEO who's in charge of managing the technical developments also. So I think he was really competent and essential to Microsoft's success, even if he didn't make such a good CEO. (Fun fact: I used to think that the character Palmer from Final Fantasy VII, a member of Shinra Company's executive leadership, was a parody of Steve Ballmer himself based on his name, appearance, and goofy mannerisms. I'm no longer convinced this is the case, but it's a pretty funny coincidence.)

Truly a legendary man for finding himself in the right place at the right time.

by rwmj 1y ago

Truly a legendary man for finding himself in the right place at the right time.

That's honestly a bit dismissive. You might not like him because he's loud and "not an engineer", but you gotta give him credit for tripling their revenue under his watch.

jama211 1y ago
Not the person you just spoke to, and I don’t have any skin in this game, but technically speaking we don’t know if it tripled because of him or despite him, right? The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, but who knows where exactly.
- rwmj 1y ago
  Or if another CEO could have done better. While Microsoft was a mature company at the time, it's still part of a very high growth industry. He was CEO for 14 years, so just tripling the revenue (and that's in nominal terms, not counting inflation) isn't exactly spectacular.
  - ThrowawayR2 1y ago
    Well, there's the CEOs of IBM, Sun, Yahoo, HP, DEC, Compaq, AOL, Palm Computing, and other formerly high flying competitors to compare against. I'm sure people could suggest a few others. Whatever else might be said about him, he didn't crater Microsoft while on the job.
    - jama211 1y ago
      That is true, objectively he didn’t fuck it up I suppose
      - HaZeust 1y ago
        Nay-sayers will justify their low-cost, unfounded pre-conceived notions to the death, I swear.
- DoesntMatter22 1y ago
  Okay but we do know it did triple under him which in general is pretty good.
  - jama211 1y ago
    Fair
- twoodfin 1y ago
  If you take the time to listen to this excellent interview, you will definitely be able to form your own opinion.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

bitwize 1y ago

He's legendary for being Bill's bulldog, and aggressively convincing people to buy Bill's solutions. Whether he was qualified to lead a technical organization like Microsoft on his own, as Bill's successor? Ehhhhh... maybe? You know that "used car salesman" persona that he had in that internal Windows 1.0 video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgJS2tQPGKQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgJS2tQPGKQ)? That's kind of his business strategy -- sell, sell, sell, push, push, push. Don't let potential clients say "no" to Microsoft products. And when you're an aggressive company like Microsoft, you want that in an exec -- but not necessarily a CEO who's in charge of managing the technical developments also. So I think he was really competent and essential to Microsoft's success, even if he didn't make such a good CEO. (Fun fact: I used to think that the character Palmer from Final Fantasy VII, a member of Shinra Company's executive leadership, was a parody of Steve Ballmer himself based on his name, appearance, and goofy mannerisms. I'm no longer convinced this is the case, but it's a pretty funny coincidence.)