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Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

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Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#41

Microsoft needs Bill Gates back, the young, abrasive version of him that didn't tolerate bullshit, to call them out on what they're shipping these days.

This happened under him. ---- Favorite part is Gates' opinion of the entire Windows project: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up." They also know it's shit, they're just gaslighting you.

Peter Principle.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#42

The reason why Apple won is Steve Jobs cared about quality and was an asshole about it and the inertia from that after his death has not entirely decayed yet. The people in that thread need a good Linus Torvalds style rant about their incompetence and several of them should just have been fired.

You don't have to be an asshole to get better quality work. But it's a great way to chase off talented staff that don't need to work with assholes.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#43
I will give Bill this, he does know how to play a typical user. Yeah, MS has some shenanigans (putting it mildly) in its birth and climb, but it was obvious from that that he was a relatively competent nerd, programmer etc., and that he was trying to paint the thought process of someone trying to put together family videos not "hurr, where this go, what this do?" like a Neanderthal.

Amusing watching all the executives try to push responsibility on each other and stay out the spotlist or, if unavoidable, take ownership of the smallest possible part of the problem, and then convene committees (that largely caused the mess) to solve the mess.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#45

This is a good and bit surprising one. I have a hard time believing the CEO of Palantir has this many generational points I agree with, Zuck too, but I do. https://www.techemails.com/p/mark-zuckerberg-peter-thiel-mil...

Holy crap, Thiel is using deep brainwashing techniques in his mail to Zuck and his people. If you know, you know ..

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#46
Big-corporate dysfunction is one of the reasons I like working in early startups.

(Startups that act like startups. Which means neither mimicking nor tolerating big-corporate style dysfunction. Otherwise, you have the worst of both worlds: soul-sucking big-corporate culture and difficulty executing, without the big-corporate paycheck and sometimes resume prestige boost.)

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#48

My favorite bit about this is how none of the execs want to take ownership of the change, but instead trying to put someone else in the hot seat and/or start a Committee. This feels like an email that should have been blasted to the entire company. Top-down, empower employees to think of a more unified experience. Then again, all of the external jokes about Microsoft indicate that every department is fighting for the…

Given that the way the company worked was the cause of the problem, sending the email company wide would have caused more confusion that solve the problem.
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