I think the "hired him to shut him up" thing is a bit of a myth. From the horses mouth: http://youtu.be/o1DskPD-Ngc?t=2m21s http://youtu.be/o1DskPD-Ngc?t=2m21s

I think the "hired him to shut him up" thing is a bit of a myth. From the horses mouth: http://youtu.be/o1DskPD-Ngc?t=2m21s http://youtu.be/o1DskPD-Ngc?t=2m21s . Having said that, he was quite vocal at the time, and I personally think that he may have been a large part of the huge Vista -> Win7 improvements, although have no evidence to support this. The timing just seems about right.