9 ms·
Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power
- chris_wot 14y agoThere does seem to be a lot of own goals going on at Microsoft at the moment. But then again, some of the "talent" that has left is still making those own-goals. Stephen Elop went to Nokia, and instead of using the one thing that I believe could have competed in the market - Maemo and then Meego - was dropped in favour of Microsoft's operating system. That's an own goal, if ever I've seen one. So IMO, it's not really just Balmer who is at fault here, there seems to have been quite a lot of problems with even the executives leaving the company.
- glass- 14y ago> instead of using the one thing that I believe could have competed in the market - Maemo and then Meego I owned an N900 and I liked it, because it had a full terminal and could run a Debian desktop on it if I really wanted to, but normal people don't care about any of that. If Nokia had stuck with Maemo and Meego they would be in the same position as they are now, except their "ecosystem" would have less apps, less Microsoft-marketing dollars behind it, and Nokia wouldn't be getting $250 million cheques from Microsoft every quarter.
- nonamegiven 14y agoElop: It's pretty common for a manager who made a splash at X with A to move to Y and impose A.
- chollida1 14y ago> Stephen Elop went to Nokia, and instead of using the one thing that I believe could have competed in the market - Maemo and then Meego - was dropped in favour of Microsoft's operating system. That's an own goal, if ever I've seen one. SO because the new CEO adopts an OS that you don't agree with, that's automatically an "own goal"? Remember the board and top execs at Nokia all were 100% behind the Windows phone switch, otherwise they would have brought in an exec who had a different strategy.
- outside1234 14y agoi was with you until you didn't say Android. they really should have picked Android and done what Samsung has done.
- Tyrant505 14y agoM$ is a festering money hub of individuals with indy goals reeking to create beyond the bounds.
- chris_wot 14y agoYou know, that would make a brilliant Haiku... Microsoft A festering money hub individuals with indy goals reeking to create beyond bounds Of course, I could be rubbish at Haikus.
- mynameishere 14y agoGoddammit. I accidentally pressed the uparrow on this noise and there's no way of undoing it. Damn that is a big flaw in this software.
- h2s 14y agoCareful now! You wouldn't want to get caught thinking bad thoughts about HN and get hellbanned to the cornfield! Happy thoughts!
- dragansah 14y agoThat site is awful. Almost all links are broken.
- dmk23 14y agoI am not sure why this is considered news. Guess just because this guy went on the record to state the obvious? Every large company develops internal politics with various degrees of harm to itself and its performance. If the business is led by a non-founder, non-technical, non-performing CEO it is a given that he will always feel like an insecure usurper/impostor more concerned about protecting their job from rivals than actually leading. This is yet another data point in support of Andressen Horowitz's thesis about backing founding CEOs. I might add that's also a strike against promoting a head of sales to CEO.
- biot 14y ago> I am not sure why this is considered news. In what I'm sure is purely coincidence, the former exec speaking out against Ballmer has a book coming out today on this very topic.
- chris_wot 14y agoThis is not just some sort of non-innovative company well know for it's vicious internal fighting like EMC. This is Microsoft, an extremely important and, yes, innovative company. I think that this really is news - peeling back the covers to see the mess going on at Microsoft seems to my mind quite interesting.
- tluyben2 14y agoYou can find/replace Microsoft with Oracle and many other companies though. Oracle is led by one of the founders and in many ways it's even a bigger mess there.
- pbateman 14y agoIt's news because Joachim Kempin has got a book to sell and he or his publishers have hired sufficient PR talent to make it news.
- transitionality 14y agoThere was a lot of speculation as to the reasons for Sinofsky's departure a few months back. For me, at least, this item provides a likely explanation from someone who was in a position to know.
- f055 14y agoBallmer probably knows it's his last executive position he'll ever get in this industry. So he's squeezing as much out of it as he can. Or he's just a fanboy of the "old Microsoft."
- pbateman 14y agoHis net worth is $15.7 billion[1] so I doubt he's concerned about "squeezing as much out of it as he can". [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer
- f055 14y agoGood point, but on the other hand rich people have a weird habit of trying to get even richer. I'm not saying it's wrong btw.
- ianstallings 14y agoIt's the same drive that everyone has, to progress in their life. They see the money as a way to count up all their successes. Not an unheard of algorithm. Not my personal one but not unusual.
- sek 14y agoBallmer is so rich and so old, he couldn't event spend it if he wanted to. This is really unlikely. Have you seen his office, it's not about the money. It's an ego thing. Edit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20121009/us-executive-compensation-microsoft/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20121009/us-executi...
- laumars 14y ago> it's not about the money. It's an ego thing. The two things are not always mutually exclusive. Society generally associates money with success. Thus money is the benchmark for ones ego. Not just with CEOs as either. I often read online comments from warring zealots who proclaim "I get paid a i to do this stuff!", as if it somehow validates their claims.
- emeidi 14y agoNever happened before in any other company.
- meaty 14y agoProbably throws chairs at them... To be serious, this is normal in most corporates. It starts when you let the MBA* with the personality disorder in, you're fucked. I've watched three companies fall at the hands of such people. * This is not true of all MBAs, but I seem to see a trend where there are more borderline psychopaths.
- panacea 14y agoWhat's in a title? Imagine if you could come out of a computer science or design course with "Master of...[domain]" appended to your name. The grandiouse title giving should probably be reigned in.
- NickPollard 14y agoYou don't need to imagine; just look at any MSc or MEng.
- meaty 14y agoThe MBA seems to attract a certain type of person, which is my point. I'm an MEng myself but I don't see that type of person around the whole engineering scene.
- peteretep 14y agoI'm on my way to being a MASTER OF SCIENCE for my computer degree... Doctor Strange better look out...
- bhousel 14y agoSteve Ballmer does not have an MBA.
- meaty 14y agoI should have made the more generic point "MBA types" (high business, executives etc). Not specifically MBAs.
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- mossplix 14y agoCEOs hardly matter in big corporations . I don't see hiring a 35-40 yr old CEO moving Microsoft in a new direction.
- mossplix 14y agohttp://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannirodriguez/2012/08/15/do-ceos-matter-anymore/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannirodriguez/2012/08/15/do-... http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/20/magazines/fortune/stats_CEO_reading.fortune/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/20/magazines/fortune/stats_CEO_... for the down votters
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoIs Microsoft the last big company? They had to grow to that size to handle the marketing and distribution globally - their most obvious successor is Google who operate at a similar reach but something like 1/10 of people It might be an inevitability - or it might be that giant companies are just of their time and giant will now be in the thousands not the hundreds of thousands Anyway it's not news.
- stonemetal 14y agoMicrosoft is much more diversified than Google. If Google becomes as diversified as MS then there is a good chance they will catch up on head count.
- rpm4321 14y agoInterestingly enough, Larry Page is on record recently talking about the possibility of Google scaling up to a million employees: http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Larry-Page-Wants-To-Hire-A-Million-People-GOOG-4205230.php http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Lar...
- chris_wot 14y ago... and thus causing massive destabilization in whole economies. No thanks! Think about it. If a corporation employs 1 million employees, and that company fails, then the economy will most definitely take a hit. On top of this, that company would hold far too much power and could use the power of the number of people working for it to force governments into doing things that it wouldn't do for the greater good. It happens already now with big business, but just imagine what it would be like with a million employee business!
- WhaleBiologist 14y agoBanks got retarded amounts of taxpayer money because of "too big to fail"
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- alisnic 14y agoI may be wrong, but I always had the impression on Ballmer as a weird (in a bad sense weird) and inadequate guy. I also usually give credit to him for all ”WTF MS?” moments.
- guitarhacks 14y agoI think this is hillarious, Ballmers best moments. http://youtu.be/e8M6S8EKbnU http://youtu.be/e8M6S8EKbnU
- maked00 14y agoWell duh. Find one CEO of any Fortune 500 company who does not.
- tubbo 14y agoWho the fuck respects Steve Ballmer? What has he ever done that was the least bit respectable in his life?
- hzay 14y agoThis article is a piece of uninteresting, content-free, gossipy garbage and I'm not sure why it was voted to the front page. This guy doesn't like Ballmer and he writes a book about it and that's news?
- brudgers 14y agoEvery call for Ballmer's ouster ignores two important points. He is the second largest shareholder. His college buddy is the largest. No analyst has clout with the shareholders. Nobody inside does either. What I see in Sinofsky's departure is a clear signal that the type of politics which this article assumes to be the proper way of creating succession is being deprecated within Microsoft. What I mean is that the argument is premised upon the idea that rivalries at the executive level should be acceptable. Just because that is the way most public corporations work, doesn't mean it ought to be the way. Gates and Ballmer have been running Microsoft for thirty years. They've got real long term interest in creating a sustainable culture.
- chuckmans3 14y ago> Every call for Ballmer's ouster ignores two important points. He is the second largest shareholder. His college buddy is the largest. This is an important point. These types of articles imply that he's running the company as an ego trip instead of a heavily-invested individual shareholder. Very key to keep in mind.
- brudgers 14y agoHe was given founder's equity despite not being a founder because he was brought onboard to run the business side of the business.
- rbanffy 14y ago> He is the second largest shareholder. His college buddy is the largest. Being a college buddy of one of the founders hardly qualifies someone to run a multibillion dollar company.
- mseebach 14y agoIt also doesn't disqualify someone. At the end of the day, it's the shareholders decision.
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- nanook 14y agoIn a parallel universe: Gates returns, fires Ballmer and turns MS around. Reality: He's probably happier solving much bigger problems in the world. But still, it sucks to see someone drive his company to the ground. Has Ballmer ever done anything right for Microsoft? I can't think of anything.
- technoslut 14y agoHe's kept the ship afloat and is good at maximizing profits from MS's traditional businesses. The problem is that Ballmer isn't the person you need in a transitional phase for a company.
- bad_user 14y agoGates was that guy. Remember when they haven't shipped a web browser in Windows 95 and then they turned around and produced a kickass browser that killed Netscape Navigator? Or how MS Word took marketshare from WordPerfect like taking candy from a baby? Or how Win 95 won against IBM's OS/2, even though OS/2 was also binary compatible with DOS and Win3.11?
- technoslut 14y agoGates used to be that guy. He doesn't care anymore. He's involved in something greater than even what MS was. Under current conditions, I'm not even sure that Gates could even do what he once did but he would drive a shot into the company and the perception of it. There's no question Gates was as much of a skilled tactician more than a coder (which he was great at when he did it) but, while I'm sure he still loves MS, he is a man in the real world looking for a cause to drive him. MS is in the past. I can't blame him. A good woman changes you and that's what Melinda did.
- yuhong 14y agoAh, the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco: http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2012/12/about-ms-os2-20-fiasco-px00307-and-dr.html http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2012/12/about-ms-os2-20-fiasco-...
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- codingthebeach 14y agoMS revenues have grown by 45 billion dollars under Ballmer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer). Without Ballmer .NET would not have existed and the XBox would not exist as it exists today. I have no great love for the guy but I've yet to read a convincing argument for his ouster. Just priggish former executives badmouthing the company that lifted them into the 1%.
- gdilla 14y agoimho, the biggest reason for his ouster was that he had no internet strategy - his plan A was buying Yahoo. No innovation, no imagination, no results.
- jmspring 14y agoWeb strategy? Like media? Does a technology company need to have a content/media component -- which Yahoo basically is. Azure is a decent extension to the MS development ecosystem. Xbox and Xbox Live seem to be doing well -- I don't use either. Bing, while not Google, has it's fans. Where MSFT was late to the game is in their approach to the post-PC era. WinCE/WinMo were "ok" at the time, then the iPhone came along. Win8, Surface, WP8 are all relatively new - do I expect the same success as, say, XP or the like? Not really, but that path is still playing out for them.
- gdilla 14y agoI meant Search and their media holdings. Not cloud services. Sorry for not clarifying.
- stormen 14y agoMicrosoft has lost; there's no getting back the head start they once had. It's not like Windows 8 is going to set the record straight and grow Microsoft to 10x the size of Apple and Google combined, like it once was. In part, this is because of their utterly flawed understanding of internet and the way humans (not businesses) work. Steve Ballmer is a joke of a CEO; a loud, screaming monkey that thought the iPhone was "cute". The guy is a moron.
- George_ns 14y ago"They don't need this guy on stage with this fierce, aggressive look" ...yeah i bet Paul Allen would second that.
- TheLarch 14y agoKempin is of dubious character: <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_trip_illegally/> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_tri...;
- TheLarch 14y agoWhoops broken linky: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_trip_illegally/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_tri...