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Resignation letter from Microsoft Employee

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Re: Resignation letter from Microsoft Employee

#111

Post by korch »

So this guy sounds like some office granny scolding the interns over trifles of etiquette. He summed up his 12 years of working at Microsoft with a bunch of smarmy anecdotes typical of office gossip & politics. Not a single mention about software or technology in general. No penetrating insights about the industry, products, the future.

I wonder about Microsoft's financial future if this is what their corporate culture has been reduced to. Everyone is so high on themselves and on playing Soap Opera over in Redmond that nothing truly new gets shipped.

Re: Resignation letter from Microsoft Employee

#112

Post by moonwalker »

endtime wrote: post #31
raganwald wrote: post #20

Turns out that there’s a strong correlation between a student’s grade and their assessment of the professor’s abilities. Very interesting. I don’t listen too carefully when a poor performer tells me how awful their previous manager was. Wait, what? Are we confusing correlation with causation here? Let's say, for example, that a manager tends to give female employees poor ratings (or whatever BigCo calls a grade). Do…

>Turns out that there’s a strong correlation between a student’s grade and their assessment of the professor’s abilities. One possible explanation is that the student's evaluation of the prof is based on how well he understands the course material (since the prof's job is to induce that understanding) - which, of course, also impacts the student's grade.

>Turns out that there’s a strong correlation between a student’s grade and their assessment of the professor’s abilities.

In my experience with classmates, it initially might also look like this correlation is true, however I think the hypothesis is a bit more involved.

In one case, one class was taught with quite easy grading policies and many people ended up getting good grades - yet the smart students were unhappy with the professor and lack of challenge. In another cases, I've seen quite difficult abstract math classes and smart students would complain about the teacher as well - because of personal incompatibility - the teacher's style just didn't click with the student. And also, many times weak students would express a lot of respect and positive rating of a professor even though the teaching was over the top of their heads.

Yet obviously there were the lazy/less smart types who would just reduce the challenge to complaining about the prof - yet they are probably likely to complain about people in different situations (i.e. job)

Re: Resignation letter from Microsoft Employee

#114

Post by cjy »

ximeng wrote: post #4
wccrawford wrote: post #2

I didn't read the whole thing... After I realized how stuck on himself he was, I just skimmed it. Do quirky people really brag about how quirky they are? Do they write essays and call them farewell letters? I've never yet met a fun person who goes around telling people how much fun they are.

I read the whole thing, and thought it was valuable. For example, little snippets like: "Turns out that there’s a strong correlation between a student’s grade and their assessment of the professor’s abilities." were new ideas to me. I guess some of this comes from the management and leadership books he's read. I didn't think he talks particularly much about himself or how quirky he is either. Also interesting that th…

A while back I did a lit review on the correlation between grades and teacher evaluations. I remember being surprised at how little of a correlation economists found between the two variables. Based on my memory, things like teacher personality, teacher nationality, grade variance, and class size matter a lot. Didn't pg have an essay about how "Turns out" is a euphemism for I'm too lazy to provide evidence?

Re: Resignation letter from Microsoft Employee

#115

Post by code_duck »

dminor wrote: post #65
codexon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then how do we categorize a startup if not by age (Facebook is already 5 years old) and size (hundreds of employees, billions in stock)?

If you have more money privately invested than money earned, you're probably a startup. If you're searching for a repeatable, scalable business model, you're probably a startup.

Or, your business might be a failure, yet past the point of being a startup. Clearly Facebook does not qualify as a failure, but they are not a startup in my estimation. They're an established business.

Re: Resignation letter from Microsoft Employee

#116

Post by code_duck »

Retric wrote: post #49
pvg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty arbitrary and Facebook is a late-stage startup but hundreds of employees, sky-high valuation and five years of age are not unheard of and still within 'startup' range, to me. Mushy factors include things like culture, innovation, risk. I'd say 'run by founder' also adds startup points.

I would suggest stock value more than 50x peak profit probably works. A 5 year old billion dollar company that is never made more than 1 million a year is probably still a startup. A 3 year old 10 million dollar company that made 500k last year is probably not.

So, the business is a 'startup' until it makes it?

Re: Resignation letter from Microsoft Employee

#117

Post by Retric »

code_duck wrote: post #116
Retric wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suggest stock value more than 50x peak profit probably works. A 5 year old billion dollar company that is never made more than 1 million a year is probably still a startup. A 3 year old 10 million dollar company that made 500k last year is probably not.

So, the business is a 'startup' until it makes it?

Only if it's valued more than past revenues would suggest. IMO, Tesla Motors is still a startup Google is not. What separates them has more to do with the stability that comes from profit than it does an IPO or company culture.
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