Interviewing only the disgruntled and fired is just as one-sided as business books that determine rules of success by only interviewing people who made it rich. What's the opposite of survivor bias?<p>Just to give the other side as somebody who worked there for a while and retired pretty successful, driving big changes isn't trivial but it isn't hard either. As an individual with an idea, you don't have to do ROI, fill out complicated budgeting forms, etc. Just make it work and then convince your managers -- all of whom are techies! -- that it's a good idea and you're willing to spend the time to make it happen. But I did see a lot of people fail with their "great idea" when they didn't want to be the one to build and ship it. Nobody there is going to do your work for you.
The real question is does microsoft need to innovate? The business philosophy seems to be more reactive than innovative and it has worked out for a great deal of time.
Incentives don't work. This has been documented over and over again, and it's truly puzzling that large corporations don't learn from it.<p>Here's a quick and light article on the subject: <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html</a><p>Here's a video lecture on the subject: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdkQwQQWX9Q" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdkQwQQWX9Q</a><p>And here's the classical Harvard business review article that originally proposed it: <a href="http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/web/product_detail.seam;jsessionid=F70EF90E20FF356FBD77BC18BC48618D?R=93506-PDF-ENG&conversationId=382686&E=59880" rel="nofollow">http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/web/product_detail.seam;jsessi...</a>
Very good, detailed <i>high level</i> overview of how Microsoft's management structure, style and bloat makes it currently unlikely to innovate well.<p>One simple and concrete thing that struck me was how the distance from the top to the trenches has severely increased as of late. The old metric of "no more than 5 levels" is being wildly violated by a factor of a bit more than 2.<p>Also high level overview on who was RIFFed in last year's surprise layoffs (hint, not much in the way of middle management).<p>Bottom line: What PG pointed out a while ago continues to the true and there's no signs that will change.
The criticism against the commitments isn't entirely fair. They are just guidelines. I found myself suddenly thrown into an entirely different product and doing entirely different things from what I expected, and when I returned to my commitments I realized I didn't meet many of them. My manager still gave me an "exceed" because he was still able to see that I performed and contributed well to my team and MS.<p>And as for reporting to many people, I didn't experience that either. I had one manager, and was 6 away from Ballmer. My manager, skip level, and skip skip level were all in the same hallway as me and very accessible. My manager truly worked his butt off to ensure his employees were happy and headed where they wanted to head in their MS career (at least, as much as his power let him).
"When I started at MSFT in 1996, there were six people between me and [Microsoft cofounder] Bill Gates," Boris said. "In 2009, there were 13 people between me and [Microsoft CEO] Steve Ballmer." Fred said, "the number of managers between me and the CEO went from six to 10," during the last decade. Another long-time Microsoftie, whom I'll call Barry, saw his reports go from six to 12.
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Just to give perspective, when I was in the military it was probably 13 links between a two striper and the President
The more that I read the more I feel that perhaps Microsoft might have faired better--- and we'd all have better technology--- if they were indeed broken up after the antitrust investigations.<p>Doesn't the best technology come from well funded small companies?
I'm not a grammar Nazi, but this headline (which is from the actual article) is actually misleading. This is not an article about the the motivations for criticisms by former Microsoft employees but is instead an article about those criticisms. It should be entitled, "Former employees say why Microsoft can't innovate."
Can someone define "middle management" at a giant software company like Microsoft? Does it only mean people with direct reports, or does it also include people with no direct reports but significant product/business responsibilities as well?
To me, Microsoft's dilemma is that they need to keep market share in their core products while at the same time be quick and innovative with new ones.<p>Their corporate structure seems to be geared towards managing their complex, large projects like Windows and Office. With a vast project like Windows, it makes sense that they need teams devoted to certain specifics with middle managers. That structure keeps things focused on the goals coming from up top.<p>Unfortunately since everyone is focused on their little piece of territory, innovative stuff is happening on the outside and they don't realize until its too late. Then when they realize something is a big idea they toss it into the same machine they have rolling for huge projects like Windows or Office.<p>As HN readers know, resourceful startups can get a lot accomplished with a small team. If startups had a huge organizational structure with everyone at the top trying to get a piece of the action then nothing would get done.<p>It would do Microsoft a lot of good to have an internal YC-like program that gives resources to small teams with a good product idea, and then leave them alone until they had something to demo.<p>Edit: I read my last point and realized something - it sounds a lot like Google's 20% thing. Does Microsoft have anything like that already?
You know, I just realized that there has got to be a sample bias here. Almost by definition, ex-employees are more likely to have negative things to say about the company than those who have chosen to stay. Microsoft has been big enough, and for long enough, that no matter how great a place they are to work, many people would have had bad experiences - by bad luck and honest miscommunication, if nothing else - that caused them to leave.<p>I'm not saying the article's points are not valid and true; as far as I know, they are. Just pointing out that if we're looking at what EX-employees are saying, we're looking at reality through a certain filter.
I noticed a theme while reading reviews of tech companies on Glassdoor: people either complained that a company had too much bureaucracy and layers of management, or they complained there was no room for advancement.