01.11.10
Quote of the Day: “Microsoft is Eaten up with Middle-to-upper Management Cliques”
Paul Allen, photo by msprague
Summary: A little glimpse at how Microsoft operates within its management ranks
THE NOW-DEFUNCT Seattle P-I features this essay about the Seahawks, an establishment which has Paul Allen ownership just like many others including CNET. Here’s a punchline:
What Tool Do You Use To Screw Out a Mora Bolt? Apparently it’s a Microsoft Wrench.
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But what MOST former Microsoft former employees have said is that MS is eaten up with middle-to-upper management cliques. They have Dueling Groupthink run rampant there, all the time. So, Allen puts First & Goal in place as his umbrella organization for the stadium and team. So far, so good.
The comments are interesting too. Worth remembering is the following old story about Paul Allen (written by Robert X. Cringely in 2006). It shows what type of people are running Microsoft today, as the very top of the company is still the same.
There are hundreds of Microsoft millionaires (and even a few Microsoft billionaires) in the suburbs of Seattle. For the most part, these are people who no longer work for Microsoft, but still own company shares. They worked very hard for years and are now reaping the rewards of that work combined with their good luck. Most of them are proud of their careers, but a few are secretly ashamed. Climb high enough in the organization, and it becomes clear that Microsoft’s success has not always been based on legal or ethical behavior. The company is, after all, a convicted monopolist, and the exercise of those monopoly powers wasn’t just through a Gates or a Ballmer, but also through dozens of top managers, at least some of whom had to have known that what they were doing was wrong. These are smart people, but also people trapped by their own success. Some are in denial, some are just quiet. Nobody wants to risk what they have accumulated by talking about it. You would think great wealth would be freeing, but it isn’t always. Sometimes it is a trap.
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During one of those last long nights working to deliver DOS 2.0 in early 1983, I am told that Paul Allen heard Gates and Ballmer discussing his health and talking about how to get his Microsoft shares back if Allen were to die.
Maybe that’s just the sort of fiduciary discussion board members have to have, but it didn?t go over well with Paul Allen, who never returned to Microsoft, and over the next eight years, made huge efforts to secure his wealth from the fate of Microsoft.
Here is a friend of Ballmer and Gates potentially dying and what do they do about it? Discuss who gets his money. The management at Microsoft is very inhumane/sociopath to this date. █
“I’m going to f—ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to f—ing kill Google.”
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
