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Though, that's true of every single Microsoft-sized B2B-focused company I've ever encountered, as well as the one I once worked at. I honestly would not attrib
by bunderbunder 15d ago
Though, that's true of every single Microsoft-sized B2B-focused company I've ever encountered, as well as the one I once worked at.
I honestly would not attribute it to malice. I would attribute it to the scale of the company and the nature of the business they're in. A behemoth this size naturally has the "left hand doesn't know what the right one is doing" problem on an unfathomable scale simply because it's far too big for any one person to keep track of more than a small fraction of everything.
And then throw on top of it that they have a whole bunch of enterprise clients who can exert an incredible amount of pressure on individual decision makers. And there will never, ever be a Steve Jobs like figure who's willing to help them hold the line against that in the name of a sensible and coherent overall product vision because maintaining a sensible and coherent overall product vision does not generate positive ROI for this kind of company. Microsoft tried to have one several times during its "envious of Apple" days and every time the enterprise customers who actually supply their revenue responded by swatting them on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
- ghusto 15d agoBoth are true. At a certain point, choosing to do the bear minimum when you know it's going to hurt users _is_ malice.
- bunderbunder 15d agoIt really isn’t. Not necessarily. Sometimes it’s just doing what you need to do to keep your job. If you have ever worked in a maybe organization like this you might have done that kind of thing yourself. You might not even have realized it at the time because you were so caught up in keeping your head down and surviving the bureaucracy.