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Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

danluu.com

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Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#271

Post by casey2 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #254
itake wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But in this culture that Steve exists within, those positions are paid mostly by tips. False. Presumably this was in WA, employers have to pay full wages. there is no carve out "tipped" wage (most) of the rest of the USA has. Currently, min wage in Redmond (King County) is $20.29/hr. Many businesses in King County do not allow tipping.

Even in states with a lower tip worker's minimum wage, they are still guaranteed to make the standard minimum wage if the tips don't make up the difference. Serving up food you didn't even cook isn't an intensely difficult or skilled job. Nobody should expect a 20% cut for doing that. It is not a customers responsibility to ensure unskilled service workers are rolling in largesse. Just making minimum wage is fair for…

>Serving up food you didn't even cook isn't an intensely difficult or skilled job.

Then it should be easy to automate, but the best I've seen is a conveyor belt or a box on top of a roomba. In reality it's a very skilled job, it's just that most everyone is capable of doing it. And "fair" is any wage were you can live and increase the quality of your life over time as much as your work has increased the quality of others.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#272

Post by bjoveski »

If you want to learn more about MSFT during Ballmer era, i highly recommend the acquired podcast:

https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/microsoft-volume-ii

They come to the same conclusion as Dan - that Ballmer did a ton of things right and he was actually a much better CEO than the credit he's given today.

Part 1 of the podcast focuses on Bill Gates' era - both episodes are super engaging, the research and preparation they do is remarkably good.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#273

Post by ugh123 »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #151
carabiner wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Servers make minimum wage in WA, but you weren't a server. I also don't tip if I order at a register.

> Servers make minimum wage in WA, but you weren't a server. I also don't tip if I order at a register. And I assume you do not expect any non-required service from those transactions. Which is understandable, yet different from: >> We'd even have it ready for him before he showed up so he never had to wait! If this additional service were provided during your patronage, would that warrant a tip even though interacti…

>If this additional service were provided during your patronage, would that warrant a tip even though interaction was at a register?

Sounds like a convenience for everyone involved. Maybe they should have tipped him?

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#274

Post by stouset »

neeleshs wrote: post #177
stouset wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Isn't that shifting responsibility to the customer?

The responsibility is already on the customer. It shouldn’t be, and restaurants should have to pay their workers minimum wage. But it isn’t that way, and stiffing service workers isn’t the way to fix it.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#275

Post by EasyMark »

unixhero wrote: post #162
not_a_bot_4sho wrote: post #124

Funny story. I used to see Steve almost every weekday for a couple of years. I can't speak to his business skills, but I can attest that he never once offered a tip for his daily black iced tea. We'd even have it ready for him before he showed up so he never had to wait! He would pay with cash, and I'd hand him his change and drink, and that was that. It's funny to me now: one of the richest men in the world and he n…

Tipping for a convenience item at the till really really sucks. Am I the only one sane on this? Best regards Norway

Baristas in Norway get paid far more than here in the USA except in the fanciest of coffee shops. Tip culture is simply a part of the restaurant scene here, while I don’t agree with it, I don’t see hurting the baristas/waitstaff as an option either. I may not give exorbitant tips, but I give a reasonable 10-15%

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#276

Post by not_a_bot_4sho »

avazhi wrote: post #257
not_a_bot_4sho wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a coffeehouse in Redmond. Tipping baristas has been a common thing for the past 50-60 years or so on the west coast of the US. And no, I don't think we "should" have received a tip. Most regular customers did tip occasionally. He was an outlier but only notable because of his wealth. Other customers who do never tipped were treated the exact same.

So you seem to think that simply because of his wealth he should have been tipping you? The corollary would be the notion that regardless of where you were working at the time, you would have expected a tip from him simply on account of his wealth? There's a huge difference between tips being a thing certain patrons do every once in awhile, and something being an established norm - are you trying to say that in Seatt…

> So you seem to think that simply because of his wealth he should have been tipping you?

No. But it's funny that he, of all people, didn't. It's the juxtaposition of wealth and frugality that are amusing.

> are you trying to say that in Seattle at the time tipping baristas was literally a well-established norm?

Yes. Without a doubt. But the norm was to tip infrequently, and not everyone did it. Those that did tipped once a week or 1x/2x a month. And it was usually just their change, significantly less than 10%.

> I can't imagine any baristas finding it odd to the point of mentioning if a patron, even a repeat patron, never put money in the jars

No one blinked an eye at the regulars who didn't tip. It wasn't a concern. The only exception is when it was a famous billionaire. It's notable.

> why you'd feel the need to cast aspersions on him

How so? I shared an objective observation. And I made clear that there was no ill will. Not even the slightest bit upset.

I feel like a lot of commenters are working through their own issues with tipping that surfaced with this light hearted story. Tipflation sucks, I get it. But this story isn't that.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#277

Post by [deleted] »

turtlebits wrote: post #250
not_a_bot_4sho wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree to disagree. We learned his schedule, we made sure to make his drink so it would be ready on time while also handling the hundreds of other orders in the morning rush. This is something we tried to do for every regular customer with a fixed order. I'd argue that this sort of thing is well within the bounds of what was 'tippable' service back then. But to be clear, tips weren't expected then like they are now. I…

Unless he specifically asked for that kind of service, I wouldn't tip either, and I refuse to tip a pickup order regardless of net worth, out of principle (unless I am making a non-standard request).

[deleted]

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#278

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

greggyb wrote: post #265
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know who you'd buy it from, certainly not me. If that's what you've read into my comment, that is reflective of your perspective, not mine. IE was never that good. It was bundled with the predominant operating system, so had massive market share. As soon as Microsoft had to open the OS more and draw a line between OS and IE, it was pretty much inevitable that there would be other browsers. And too-aggressiv…

> For example everyone agrees that Intel is a failed company, but if you actually look at them they still have majority marketshare of x86 CPUs in both client and server. So would you say that they successfully defended their traditional business or would you call them a failure? I do not think we live in the same world. As one data point, the majority of analysts still list Intel as a buy or a hold.[0] In the very s…

What does analyst have to do with anything? Intel can still be a buy even if it's failed because it's either very cheap or there's the possibility of geopolitics or acquisitions. In fact being failed sometimes makes it even easier to buy.

It's obviously failed even beyond the massive share loss in the semi industry. It's stock price is down 60% since 2018 (not even a particularly interesting year), and its value is now literally lower than its book price. That's when you know everyone agrees it's a piece of junk.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#279

Post by senderista »

Nevermark wrote: post #186

> Microsoft under Ballmer made deep, long-term bets that set up Microsoft for success in the decades after his reign This is no doubt true. Under Ballmer, Nadella "led a transformation of the company's business and technology culture from client services to cloud infrastructure and services." [0] But the number of failed mobile (phone, small PC) initiatives and products, from long before the iPhone to multiple waves…

Are you remembering Windows Mobile? That sucked, but Windows Phone did not (and was famously built by a totally different team). But it was too little, too late.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#280

Post by HaZeust »

keyle wrote: post #264
godelski wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone, chill Regardless of how you feel about tipping culture we're not talking about the average person nor are we talking about the average * experience* . The dude is worth north of $100bn, and is making nearly $10k per minute![0]. Someone who cannot spend his wealth. Someone who'd have to spend tens of millions of dollars every single day just to stop his wealth from growing. Someone who makes money faster tha…

"Everyone, chill" then proceeds to drop emphasis , F words and other strong words. Maybe take a page of your own book.

The substance of his comment is still well-intentioned though. I agree with him.
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