Anyone think Microsoft will be announcing Scott Forstall joining the company next? Sort of like the Marissa Meyer announcement for Yahoo?
would be great !
Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft
131–140 of 232 posts
Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't get this point. Windows 8 is probably the most connected windows ever. The store, Skydrive ads, all are driven by services behind the OS. I don't think that Sinofsky opposed or didn't get services.
And Windows 7 had none of the services that it should. It's 2012, don't you think it's a bit late already?
Wasn't Windows Vista beyond bad at the time? Windows 7's mission was to retrofit that. Adding more features (cloud, services, whatever) would have delayed the fix to the damages caused by Vista. He's probably more focused in delivering a solution fast then. On that he had succeeded. The lack of services in Win7 was more of a fault of the guy(s) causing the Vista fiasco in the first place.
Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft
#133Here's Sinofsky's letter to employees on his departure http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/windows-leadership-changes... He states that it was a personal decision to leave now, disputing the rumors that he was fired. Although offcourse that doesn't mean he wasn't being pushed.
come on , that's always personal ... that's called PR ! dont you think he has a contract that forces him to keep his mouth shut ?
Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft
#134"Nobody wants to be dubbed the future king while the current king is still on the throne. It’s the quickest way to the dungeon."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-next-ceo-of-microsof...
Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft
#135So I've always wondered what happens to you as a human when you're effectively fired from a high level, high visibility position. How does Sinofsky feel right now, emotionally? How does he feel professionally? Is this something someone shakes off as differences between opinionated guys in an organization? Or is this something that rocks him to his core? Does he go for another job right away? Or does he write a book a…
I'm nowhere near that level but extrapolating from my experience and that of people I know: such abrupt departures are never amiable and are the tip of quite complex political junctures. As a human being, someone like Sinofsky is no longer hurt by lost income, but that's a blessing in disguise because his motivations were for a long time not of financial nature, which means he is hurting in other dimensions. Feelings…
As an aside, I've noticed many of the factors and symptoms you note in members of any sufficiently large corporation. Perhaps in a microcosm of society, the frictions necessary to create psychological tension are amplified with respect to the size of the corporation and the degree of isolation.
In the case of Microsoft, this phenomena may be more pronounced. Software engineers/developers exist in a smaller subset of society than many other professions, and the compounded relative geographic isolation in Washington may make it difficult to see the forest through the trees during times of professional conflict. This is not to say that Seattle is by any means isolated, but the tech community there is indeed smaller than that of Silicon Valley, magnifying the overall degree of professional isolation.
Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft
#136Sinofsky, though seen as highly talented, was viewed at the top levels as not the kind of team player that the company was looking for. Dear lord. This sounds like something from Office Space. What exactly is the kind of "team player" the company is looking for?
I don't know. I found out the hard way that being too good a "team player" will hurt you. People would just shove work to you or to your team. Or take resources from you in the guise of good for the team.
One time in a prior company, an important database/server was under my team's responsibility. Another team needed processing power and asked to borrow some capacity before they ordered their own hardware. Being a team player I agreed since it's good for the company. But over time their processing had huge impact on my tasks and caused performance problems. When I asked them to migrate out, it's always a low priority item, for whatever reason, budget, schedule, or whatever excuses. It took a year to kick them out. I got so fed up that I've contemplated to set up firewall rule to deny access from their machines.
Did people remember I being a team player and helped the other team and the company overall? No, they remembered my server was failing SLA due to poor performance since it's under my responsibility.
Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft
#137Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
But I said it was underwhelming. Underwhelming != failure.
Even as a Mac only guy, I don't see how Surface is thought to be underwhelming. I think the tablet gestures they have, especially using the edges, are steps beyond the iPad and iOS and I expect Apple to copy them at some point in time. And then the actual interface is pretty nice as well: distinct, clean, beautiful. Again, I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple riffing on them.
I like it as a product to disrupt the market. I think the product itself is incredibly underwhelming and would agree with psychotik.
Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft
#139So I've always wondered what happens to you as a human when you're effectively fired from a high level, high visibility position. How does Sinofsky feel right now, emotionally? How does he feel professionally? Is this something someone shakes off as differences between opinionated guys in an organization? Or is this something that rocks him to his core? Does he go for another job right away? Or does he write a book a…
Scott McNealy would occasionally send a note of congratulations on a promotion, typically he would say "One step up, one step closer to the door." That was of course figuratively true, and in the case of building 4 at Sun also literally true since the executive offices were right next to an employee entrance :-) As others have noted departures at this level are always much more nuanced than simply "this was bad" or "…
I'd be curious to read a little more about what happened at Google, why your goals were incompatible and what the “good fight” was.
Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft
#140So I've always wondered what happens to you as a human when you're effectively fired from a high level, high visibility position. How does Sinofsky feel right now, emotionally? How does he feel professionally? Is this something someone shakes off as differences between opinionated guys in an organization? Or is this something that rocks him to his core? Does he go for another job right away? Or does he write a book a…
Scott McNealy would occasionally send a note of congratulations on a promotion, typically he would say "One step up, one step closer to the door." That was of course figuratively true, and in the case of building 4 at Sun also literally true since the executive offices were right next to an employee entrance :-) As others have noted departures at this level are always much more nuanced than simply "this was bad" or "…
Gripping read. Its really rare to read battle ground stories especially from people who have already 'been there' on the ground.
Its really great of you to stand up to what you believe and go that way. I think that's the reason why you are the VP of blekko now.
Any advice to young folks like us, who dream to make it big some day?
P.S: Read your HN profile just today, although i've been reading your comments and replying to them for a while on HN. But that's the beauty of HN isn't it?