PDA

View Full Version : Former MS employee recalls Bill Gates' management style



Cheese Sandwich
May 7th, 2007, 02:01 AM
http://blog.tomevslin.com/2007/05/microsoft_memor.html



Microsoft Memories

Back when I was tomev at Microsoft (1992-1994), billg managed to a large degree by bullying. Even in conversation, btw, people at Microsoft were known by their email names. I didn’t report directly to billg; but, during much of the time I was there, I worked for mikemap (Mike Maples), who reported to billg, had responsibility for all the products, and was part of the boop. Boop stood for billg plus the office of the president (real presidents didn’t last very long there). The oop consisted of steveb (Steve Ballmer) and mikemap. Major decisions were sometimes made by the boop.

Microsoft was a fairly flat organization at that time although it already had 10,000 employees. That meant that I and the other product managers got to spend a fair amount of time either doing reviews for billg or, sometimes, bringing issues to the boop. Presenting to billg and surviving a presentation to billg were key success skills in the company. Billg rarely used postive feedback as a motivational tool; he found the stick more effective than the carrot although options, which were then skyrocketing, WERE a very effective carrot.

So you’re in there presenting your product plan to billg, steveb, and mikemap. Billg typically has his eyes closed and he’s rocking back and forth. He could be asleep; he could be thinking about something else; he could be listening intently to everything you’re saying. The trouble is all are possible and you don’t know which. Obviously, you have to present as if he were listening intently even though you know he isn’t looking at the PowerPoint slides you spent so much time on.

At some point in your presentation billg will say “that’s the dumbest ******* idea I’ve heard since I’ve been at Microsoft.” He looks like he means it. However, since you knew he was going to say this, you can’t really let it faze you. Moreover, you can’t afford to look fazed; remember: he’s a bully.

“What do you disagree with, Bill?” you ask as assertively as you can. He tells you. Maybe it’s the plan for user interface; maybe it’s the product positioning; maybe it’s the technical approach you’re taking to a problem or your evaluation of the enemy (competition). If you see that your dead wrong – you may be, he’s very smart – best to admit it immediately and move on. But, if he’s wrong – which is also often the case – then you CAN’T give in. You will be just as much blamed for doing the wrong thing because billg told you to as you will be if you did it all on your own. This is the moment of truth for a Microsoft manager.

“Bill,” you say, “I know you made a billion dollars yesterday; I know you’re on the cover of Fortune; I know you can probably code this whole application in Visual Basic over the weekend; but you’re wrong.” And you tell him why and how you know you’re right. You have to do this so you do.

You get no positive feedback. Billg looks at you coldly. “Go on,” he says. You do just that. You don’t go back and give more arguments for the point you made; you just continue. You’ve also just passed a big test – if you turn out to be right.

Some people flourished in this trial by fire atmosphere. In fact, that is exactly what billg was doing. As smart as he is, he had no way to know most of the time whether the person presenting to him was right or wrong (unless their logic was obviously confused in which case they deserved whatever happened to them). So he tested us. Since you knew you were likely to be tested on anything, you really did think long and hard about what you were doing and what you were presenting. You had to be really tough to bluff although it happened. And you worked doubly hard afterwards to make sure that what you just presented so confidently actually came to pass.

Two problems with this approach: one is that kinder and gentler people, who may be still be very smart, get stomach aches and other unpleasant symptoms when they gave to confront bullying. Microsoft lost out on some people who could have contributed but couldn’t take this kind of heat. Second problem is that the bullying gets emulated down the line. There was nothing quite as absurd as a newly-hired college graduate thinking he could be as smart or rich as billg if he could only manage to be as rude.

samjh
May 7th, 2007, 02:59 AM
Sounds pretty normal, considering that Bill Gates had his own business at the age of 14, and started MS at age 20 (then known as Micro-Soft). He was also one of the pioneers of the idea that software programmers should be paid for their work and demand copyright (which partly explains his strong stance on intellectual property rights), which made him unpopular with hackers.

People like that tend to be unusually strong, to the point that they might be perceived as bullies. But that is merely being a tough boss who demands nothing less than 100%. Bullying is a lot worse than getting a cold reception and having to argue your case.

jerrylamos
May 7th, 2007, 03:10 AM
Obviously Microsoft has done a lot for PC usage, however my view from spending my working career at IBM is just as obviously colored. IBM and Microsoft disputes were pretty hot and heavy at times. Right now, IBM is pushing Linux hard for it's large main frames penetration maybe 24%?? and going up.

I was very interested in a Time Magazine article on Bill Gates. It was generally favorable, however there seemed to be a strong tendency for Microsoft to crush competition just for the sake of crushing, not for any reasonable business purpose.

That's what I like about Linux, and Ubuntu in particular - the more copies the better, and the easier for the mass of users the better (Feisty being an exception here).

Cheers, Jerry:)

maniacmusician
May 7th, 2007, 04:00 AM
Obviously Microsoft has done a lot for PC usage, however my view from spending my working career at IBM is just as obviously colored. IBM and Microsoft disputes were pretty hot and heavy at times. Right now, IBM is pushing Linux hard for it's large main frames penetration maybe 24%?? and going up.

I was very interested in a Time Magazine article on Bill Gates. It was generally favorable, however there seemed to be a strong tendency for Microsoft to crush competition just for the sake of crushing, not for any reasonable business purpose.

That's what I like about Linux, and Ubuntu in particular - the more copies the better, and the easier for the mass of users the better (Feisty being an exception here).

Cheers, Jerry:)
Why would Feisty be an exception?

And yeah, IBM is pushing open source in general. However, they're a big corporation with lots of resources...I think they can contribute more than they are now. To my knowledge, they usually contribute about $200,000 a year to a couple of open source labs. I'm quoting this figure from memory...it's something I heard Albert Schneider of IBM (CEO of IBM Reasearch, if I remember correctly) say once at a meeting that I attended as part of their ITLA program.

200,000 dollars is all well and good, but there's other ways they could help open source. Either by investing more money in it (which they should do if they want to seriously use open source as a tool against Microsoft), or by integrating open source into their industry. A lot of hardware vendors and proprietary companies view open source as a plague that will ruin their business. They need to be shown that open source can actually be an advantage for them all. IBM is a perfect company to illustrate that point with.

So basically, kudos to IBM, but please, do some more.

H.E. Pennypacker
May 7th, 2007, 04:03 AM
I can make sense of what that person is describing. I guess, after a while of being at the head of a company, you no longer can be as nice as you'd like to be. You can't always begin sentences with "please," "thank you," and so on.

You may harden over time, and not take into consideration how you make others feel.

Don't take my words as the absolute truth, however. I've never worked in an office environment.