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Broken incentives, clueless trend-following leaders. For the last year or so all orders from leadership have been "build more AI, show AI usage" even above thi

Broken incentives, clueless trend-following leaders. For the last year or so all orders from leadership have been "build more AI, show AI usage" even above things like stability and reliability. There was no recognition from leadership over what use cases worked or not, and they appeared to believe their own hype. To complement this, there is near to no long-term accountability for upper leadership for failure, so even as features underperform and strategy turns out to be a flop, they will continue to make millions a year, having layoffs every 6 months, and then acting surprised pikachu when morale is down and top engineers are looking to the door, since salary is barely competitive even if you are a top performer getting special stock awards.

markus_zhang 9mo ago
Thanks for sharing. How long have these leaders stayed in MSFT? Were they strong engineers or PMs?
- throwawayms4 9mo ago
  This is a hard question since there are a few patterns I've seen. Often they're long-term microsoft, more often PM than engineering, sometimes external. But I suspect that's not the dominating consistency, with a similar statement to technical skill. People who get to a high level here get there for the same incentives I mentioned above. They are risk averse, political, cowtow to their leadership, and know how to play the game.
  - markus_zhang 9mo ago
    Thanks for sharing. Guess the 80s-90s hungry MSFT was long gone?
al_borland 9mo ago
From what I remember, Microsoft almost missed the Internet, then Gates turned the whole company to focus on it until they dominate in that space. They have since lost this dominance to Google, to the point of using Chromium for their own browser. When Mobile came along, Microsoft completely missed. Ballmer laughed at the iPhone when it was released and didn’t take it seriously. By the time they started trying to make moves it was too little, too late. Mobile has shifted how people use computers and other than have a few apps and enterprise management, Microsoft is largely absent. How much of this push behind AI is a desperate attempt not to miss another transformative shifts in the industry?
- twelvedogs 9mo ago
  They didn't miss the internet they actively tried to stifle it
- throwawayms4 9mo ago
  I suspect there's some truth in that, but I suspect it's very banal. Current leadership does not have the "political leeway" nor technical conviction or strategic insight to buck trends on instinct as past leadership did, and thus will err hard on trend following, especially given the foaming at the mouth the investing and thought leader population was doing around AI over the last few years.
- ThrowawayB7 9mo ago
  > "They have since lost this dominance to Google" A lot of which had to do with being under a consent decree. > "When Mobile came along, Microsoft completely missed." By "missed" you mean that MS was at the top of the mobile phone heap after defeating Palm Computing when the iPhone came out and swept Windows Mobile, Palm, Research In Motion and everyone else away.
  - _heimdall 9mo ago
    I expect the GP was referring to missing the boat in responding to the iPhone after it swept away Windows Mobile. Microsoft was late to respond, eventually bought Danger and released the Kin phone before cancelling it within weeks, and only released Windows Phone in 2010 a solid 3 years after the iPhone release. Windows Phone was actually pretty nice to use, but they were already too late to the scene and didn't have a chance to steal ground from iPhone or android who already had solid app ecosystems.
    - ThrowawayB7 9mo ago
      That still isn't missing the boat. The pivot to the improved UI in Windows Mobile 6.5, the last of the old school Windows CE based releases, and skins by OEMs like HTC was IIRC in response to the iPhone's successful UI innovations. And let's not forget that Google specifically interfered with access to their services on Windows Phone to hamstring it.
farseer 9mo ago
>>since salary is barely competitive even if you are a top performer getting special stock awards People sitting outside FANG/NAMAMA still drool over those barely competitive salaries you speak of.
- throwawayms4 9mo ago
  My reason for saying that was not to say the employees are not well-paid in an absolute sense. It's that the reality is that caliber of employee has options, and Microsoft does not work to retain them, which results in undesirable (from the company's perspective) attrition.

markus_zhang 9mo ago

Thanks for sharing. How long have these leaders stayed in MSFT? Were they strong engineers or PMs?

throwawayms4 9mo ago
This is a hard question since there are a few patterns I've seen. Often they're long-term microsoft, more often PM than engineering, sometimes external. But I suspect that's not the dominating consistency, with a similar statement to technical skill. People who get to a high level here get there for the same incentives I mentioned above. They are risk averse, political, cowtow to their leadership, and know how to play the game.
- markus_zhang 9mo ago
  Thanks for sharing. Guess the 80s-90s hungry MSFT was long gone?

al_borland 9mo ago

From what I remember, Microsoft almost missed the Internet, then Gates turned the whole company to focus on it until they dominate in that space. They have since lost this dominance to Google, to the point of using Chromium for their own browser. When Mobile came along, Microsoft completely missed. Ballmer laughed at the iPhone when it was released and didn’t take it seriously. By the time they started trying to make moves it was too little, too late. Mobile has shifted how people use computers and other than have a few apps and enterprise management, Microsoft is largely absent. How much of this push behind AI is a desperate attempt not to miss another transformative shifts in the industry?

twelvedogs 9mo ago
They didn't miss the internet they actively tried to stifle it
throwawayms4 9mo ago
I suspect there's some truth in that, but I suspect it's very banal. Current leadership does not have the "political leeway" nor technical conviction or strategic insight to buck trends on instinct as past leadership did, and thus will err hard on trend following, especially given the foaming at the mouth the investing and thought leader population was doing around AI over the last few years.
ThrowawayB7 9mo ago
> "They have since lost this dominance to Google" A lot of which had to do with being under a consent decree. > "When Mobile came along, Microsoft completely missed." By "missed" you mean that MS was at the top of the mobile phone heap after defeating Palm Computing when the iPhone came out and swept Windows Mobile, Palm, Research In Motion and everyone else away.
- _heimdall 9mo ago
  I expect the GP was referring to missing the boat in responding to the iPhone after it swept away Windows Mobile. Microsoft was late to respond, eventually bought Danger and released the Kin phone before cancelling it within weeks, and only released Windows Phone in 2010 a solid 3 years after the iPhone release. Windows Phone was actually pretty nice to use, but they were already too late to the scene and didn't have a chance to steal ground from iPhone or android who already had solid app ecosystems.
  - ThrowawayB7 9mo ago
    That still isn't missing the boat. The pivot to the improved UI in Windows Mobile 6.5, the last of the old school Windows CE based releases, and skins by OEMs like HTC was IIRC in response to the iPhone's successful UI innovations. And let's not forget that Google specifically interfered with access to their services on Windows Phone to hamstring it.

farseer 9mo ago

>>since salary is barely competitive even if you are a top performer getting special stock awards People sitting outside FANG/NAMAMA still drool over those barely competitive salaries you speak of.

throwawayms4 9mo ago
My reason for saying that was not to say the employees are not well-paid in an absolute sense. It's that the reality is that caliber of employee has options, and Microsoft does not work to retain them, which results in undesirable (from the company's perspective) attrition.