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Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice

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Re: Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice

#11

Post by adventured »

arkitaip wrote: post #6

I totally see Microsoft ruining TikTok simply because of their corporate culture. Microsoft has had an astonishing history of destroying billions of dollars in value simply because they can't manage their products better. Internet Explorer, Bing and their mobile phones represent entire industries where Microsoft has been totally decimated despite enormous advantages in terms of resources and monopolies.

Your premise is very obviously false on the face of it: the notion that a company can own everything, always succeed, and generally dominate every major segment it enters.

Your criticism is that Microsoft isn't a $5+ trillion company, doesn't have five plus monopolies (desktop OS, mobile, browsers, search, and a few others that would go along with those positions including advertising), and basically isn't all knowing and all powerful.

What you're projecting is impossible of course. No company could ever accomplish all of those things. What you're holding up as a supposed indication of incompetence, is in fact unavoidable: failure will happen, you will not always win, your products will not always succeed, and most likely you will fail the majority of the time; it doesn't matter who you are, or how big you are.

Re: Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice

#12

Post by wwarner »

lingxiaoling wrote: post #5

could someone parse the analogy for me. Does he mean a deal like this will undo MS slowly over time?

From the Oxford English Dictionary [0]: "An award or honour which is likely to prove a disadvantage or source of problems to the recipient; the phrase is found originally in Shakespeare's Macbeth (1606), in a speech in which Macbeth flinches from the prospective murder of Duncan."

[0] https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20...

Re: Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice

#13

Post by typenil »

topkai22 wrote: post #3

They underlying interview is pretty amazing, mostly not about this subject: https://www.wired.com/story/bill-gates-on-covid-most-us-test...

"I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger]."

Disappointing to see that Bill Gates isn't concerned about the slippery slope of regulating encryption. It frankly sounds like he'd be on board with the EARN IT act.

As long as we're only undermining freedom for the children or to make sure there's no wrongthink going on, no problem.

Re: Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice

#14

Post by torbital »

blihp wrote: post #7
lingxiaoling wrote: post #5

could someone parse the analogy for me. Does he mean a deal like this will undo MS slowly over time?

Not necessarily undo MS, but rather that the deal looks attractive but may actually not be any good. In other words, it could end up being one of those deals where a few years down the road MS has to write the purchase price off as a loss.

Given the opportunity though, it still seems like a risk well worth it.

Businesses rarely (if ever) fail because of an acquisition gone wrong. But a acquisition gone right can have great returns.

If Instagram flopped when Facebook bought it, Facebook would still be doing just fine. But since it did go well.. yeah.

So I believe that it's still probably in the investor's best interest if MS does the deal even if it's only like a 35% chance that it isn't a complete failure.

Re: Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice

#15

Post by vikramkr »

arkitaip wrote: post #6

I totally see Microsoft ruining TikTok simply because of their corporate culture. Microsoft has had an astonishing history of destroying billions of dollars in value simply because they can't manage their products better. Internet Explorer, Bing and their mobile phones represent entire industries where Microsoft has been totally decimated despite enormous advantages in terms of resources and monopolies.

I wasnt aware that the bar for having a good corporate culture was to be so utterly successful at everything you try ever that you end up with a monopoly in every single sector you ever compete in and become the most successful company in human history. Somebody should tell Nadella that the new corporate culture he is building at Microsoft that has led to their enormous turnaround in share performance and public perception is all in vain and has failed because ballamer laughed at the iPhone once.

Re: Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice

#16

Post by throwaway324343 »

topkai22 wrote: post #4
Solstinox wrote: post #2

I guess Microsoft may drop ~$30 billion on this poisoned chalice out of goodwill.

I think Bill Gates is worried that assets acquired in a $30B deal may take inordinate amounts of time and attention from senior leadership, at the expense of the rest of a $1600 billion business.

He's chairman of the board. He can stop it if he wants to.

Re: Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice

#17

Post by foobiekr »

topkai22 wrote: post #4
Solstinox wrote: post #2

I guess Microsoft may drop ~$30 billion on this poisoned chalice out of goodwill.

I think Bill Gates is worried that assets acquired in a $30B deal may take inordinate amounts of time and attention from senior leadership, at the expense of the rest of a $1600 billion business.

I can totally see this happening.

This is the pathology of large business executives - once you have a mature business, it is boring, and pretty much anything else seems exciting, and so you focus on this new thing, and worse, start promoting it internally as a model for everything _that's actually successful_.

Due to my career wanderings, I've seen this a few times, and many times the hot new thing has been a mountain of technical debt that has spent the last few years doing everything possible to juice growth and spinning amazing stories to investors, the press, etc. They've been selected for telling a great story. The executives at OldCorp tend to have a natural immunity to the messaging and scheming of their interior ecosystem, but they are not used to these invasive species.

If this is what Gates is getting at, I think that's very astute of him.

Re: Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice

#18

Post by ethbro »

typenil wrote: post #13
topkai22 wrote: post #3

They underlying interview is pretty amazing, mostly not about this subject: https://www.wired.com/story/bill-gates-on-covid-most-us-test...

"I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger]." Disappointing to see that Bill Gates isn't concerned about the slippery slope of regulating encryption. It frankly sounds like he'd be on board with the EARN IT act. As long as we're only undermining freedom for the children or to make sure there's no…

His point is more nuanced than that, and oversimplified complex ideas virally spreading through social media is part of what he talks about.

"Q: As someone who has built your life on science and logic, I’m curious what you think when you see so many people signing onto this anti-science view of the world.

A: Well, strangely, I’m involved in almost everything that anti-science is fighting. I’m involved with climate change, GMOs, and vaccines. The irony is that it’s digital social media that allows this kind of titillating, oversimplistic explanation of, “OK, there’s just an evil person, and that explains all of this.” And when you have [posts] encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger].

Q: Well, you’re friends with Mark Zuckerberg. Have you talked to him about this?

After I said this publicly, he sent me mail. I like Mark, I think he’s got very good values, but he and I do disagree on the trade-offs involved there. The lies are so titillating you have to be able to see them and at least slow them down. Like that video where, what do they call her, the sperm woman? That got over 10 million views! [Note: It was more than 20 million.] Well how good are these guys at blocking things, where once something got the 10 million views and everybody was talking about it, they didn’t delete the link or the searchability? So it was meaningless. They claim, “Oh, now we don’t have it.” What effect did that have? Anybody can go watch that thing! So I am a little bit at odds with the way that these conspiracy theories spread, many of which are anti-vaccine things. We give literally tens of billions for vaccines to save lives, then people turn around saying, “No, we’re trying to make money and we’re trying to end lives.” That’s kind of a wild inversion of what our values are and what our track record is."

Re: Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice

#19

Post by miketery »

thekyle wrote: post #10

I do expect TikTok to lose users after Microsoft acquires it. But not because of anything Microsoft might do. TikTok just seems like a fad social network that will inevitably lose the cool factor eventually.

Not to mention the psychological effects it has. Research has shown Instagrams rise strongly correlated with rise in teen suicide rates. TikTok seems worse. Only a matter of time before people realize it's like cigarettes if not worse.

Re: Bill Gates calls Microsoft’s TikTok deal a poisoned chalice

#20

Post by xoxoy »

I agree in the sense that TikTok is a trust and safety disaster at the moment and I’m not sure Microsoft realizes the investment required to clean it up and make it truly safe.

One of the most disturbing features to me is that you can be logged out and download nearly any video to your phone. It would be naive to think pedophiles are not actively downloading videos of minors dancing provocatively and sharing it.

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