As a woman who worked at MSFT through the Ballmer era, I have to agree with this whole article. It really nailed it.
Especially this part near the end where I never felt it would get better:<p>"But my former female colleagues who reviewed this document in advance of its publication are unconvinced. None of them report feeling emboldened by the new Microsoft. They continue to withhold reports of discriminatory management practices. They relate stories of reports of abuse going unpunished and continue to fear reprisals for speaking out. In fact, multiple reviewers noted, independently, the irony that the only reason I am comfortable enough to speak out is that I am a “50-year old white dude” and, thus, girded against reprisal from the body politic. So they remain silent when, in fact, they are among the voices Microsoft needs to hear the most. Apparently, Microsoft has dipped only a single toe in the river that flows to the future."
>The Microsoft of the 2000s, under Steve Ballmer, was almost exactly the opposite (of gates).<p>>Bruised and battered by the consent decree handed down by the DoJ for the very same ambition that brought it to dominance, Ballmer’s Microsoft was sales-forward and CAUTIOUS.<p>>It was... nervously clutching its pearls at the approach of Google in its rearview mirror<p>People bash Steve Ballmer for missing Search, Social Networking, Smart phones, Tablets and one other thing. They claim he had his head far up his rear end to see the competiton. He's called a buffoon and other names but ignore the fact that...<p>Microsoft was Caged. Had it's wings clipped. Had a huge target on its back. In case you did't know, any complaint by say Google in its early days and Microsoft would have been broken up!<p>This is the real reason behind's Ballmer's failure.<p>Gates hated politics, kept Washington at arms length and that cost them. In fact, if Gates had lobbied just a little bit, there would have been no case at all.<p>And that's why Google's lobbying like crazy cos it's life actually depends on it.
I'm not so sure the problem with Microsoft was its toxic culture. So many of the key points in that article you could say ring true of Apple. Steve Jobs relished in the fact that people feared him. He literally built an entire company of yes men, right down to the chefs in the kitchen. It meant, when his strategy was right, the company did well. However, when it was wrong, it also hurt the whole company.<p>Tim Cook is the opposite of that in every way. He delegates, he wants efficiency, he is much more conservative in where the products go. Yet the culture of yes still exists.<p>The answer to all of these big corporations is just we need different theories of management and apply them across the board. Fire those unwilling to play along and grow a culture of collaboration.
An interesting article, which I think accurately describes my brief time at Microsoft during the Ballmer era (our startup was acquired after the bubble burst).<p>But his definition of "made men" seems very vague and very convenient. The people who Nadella appointed to higher positions were almost entirely people who had been at Microsoft for many years. Why are some "made men" and some are not? The definition seems primarily about whether or not the author liked them personally.
This was my experience of Ballmer-era Microsoft management hires at my previous company. They were the perfect combination of narcissism, manipulativeness, toxicity, and above all else, idiocy. They did a lot of damage, probably irrevocably. They were know-nothing bullies who liked to yell if you ever questioned them, completely convinced of their own superiority. I've heard a lot of similar stories about these people at other companies. It's a shame what people like this get away with.
I worked at Microsoft during the Gates/Ballmer era and my recollection is that the culture was toxic and definitely needed to change. But AFAIK this was a common thing about companies even in SV at the time. I knew contemporaries at companies like Cisco and SGI who complained about exactly the same sort of behavior (Know-it-all assholes who would berate anyone they thought was inferior, self above company, etc.).<p>Interesting read anyway.
Says the made-man who stood in the way...<p>Seriously though, these sort of transitions take time, and people always underestimate just how much time. This is a huge cultural transition and you can't just fire all of the made-men one morning and usher in the new leaders to take there place. There is a real transition that has to happen on multiple levels and rushing it risks putting people in place that aren't yet up to speed.<p>I'm honestly surprised at just how fast it happening. And it is happening -- and quickly.
I entered and left MS during the Ballmer era. I liked my co-workers and my immediate manager was awesome, but I didn't see the company making the right moves to get web right, and they seemed to afraid to even mention the name "Google". I never would have predicted the Nadella turn-around.
I see all of these things as reasons to invest in Microsoft long term. As the author states: "Microsoft is killing it. Revenue is up. Stock is up. Industry stature is up. The places where Microsoft finds itself thriving all have one thing in common: key made-men were pushed aside for better people."<p>The fact that there are so many terrible managers still hanging around is like sludge in a jet engine. Once cleaned out (and that seems the direction they're moving), the company will hopefully skyrocket even further.
> The unsurprising result is that Windows continues its tradition of boring...<p>Come on, I understand the criticisms of botched updates, but Microsoft under Satya has been anything but boring - the incredible push towards open source is something many thought could never happen!<p>WSL and the upcoming WSL2 are likewise anything but boring - Linux! In Windows!
Is every MS employee now writing these "my career at microsoft) pieces? Looking for clicks for their blogs ? Seems like a recurring phenom. Topic X features on the front page of hacker news and then everyone imitates it probably just trying to get clicks.
This quote was laughable:<p>"At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use. They stand as a bulwark against the data mongering and user exploitation that Google and Facebook see as the future of humanity."<p>Microsoft has <i>always</i> made its money by creating, maintaining, extending and exercising monopoly power. I don't have a reference for this, but as I recall, after the antitrust verdict, Microsoft "offered" to give schools free copies of Windows as part of its "punishment". I guess that really hurt them to have schools sending out all documents in Microsoft Office format. Only the latest versions of course, so that it created incompatibilities with every parent's version of Office, forcing everyone to upgrade if they wanted to read a note from their kids' teachers.<p>Since the Pentagon recently bought $10B in Microsoft products, I hope they consider that having a sole supplier is a national security issue, and force Microsoft to at least release an open spec of all Office document formats, and force them to update this spec at the same time product updates occur, if not months before.<p>It may be too late even for that since Office is now running in a Microsoft cloud. Maybe the Pentagon just bought $10B of Microsoft cloud services. In that case, the format doesn't even matter any more, because every document is born, lives, and dies on a Microsoft server somewhere.<p>Sure glad they aren't doing that "data mongering" thing.
> At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use.<p>Call me skeptical, but there's not a whole lot of products I willfully pay Microsoft for. Most of them I pay for with a strong feeling of resentment that I have simply no other choice, since there are no competitors to the market or the lock in is too strong.
This part feels like it applies to every tech company I've ever worked at, especially in the context of all the high profile "repeat sex offender is quietly escorted out of the building with a payout" scandals at big SV tech firms in the last decade:<p>"Treating the culpables as untouchable sends a message to the current offenders that these behaviors are in bounds and those who practice them suffer no lingering effects. It does nothing to stop the fiscal regularity of companywide memos condemning ongoing sexism, racism and bullying. It does nothing to stop the revolving door of the majority of new college hires leaving the moment their signing bonuses become permanent. It does nothing to stop the cycle of sucking up to those in power in an effort to gain power for oneself."
Reminds me a bit of the story of Charles de Gaulle. A war hero, a powerful man of his time that overstayed his welcome when the world changed around him.
Having been a MSFT watcher through all three eras, I have to say I've been especially impressed with Satya Nadella.<p>I really thought the age of the web would spell Microsoft's downfall. I couldn't see past the desktop. But Satya found the cloud and brought back the mojo. Excellent move.
I really love this line at the end of the article: "At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use." I wish more tech companies embodied this ethos!
I would be curious to see Gates’ take in his maturity. In fact I visualize a more curious and playful Microsoft as Gates himself pushing it that way behind the scenes.
>> At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use. They stand as a bulwark against the data mongering and user exploitation that Google and Facebook see as the future of humanity.<p>This statement is so true, its golden.