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Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

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Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#71

Post by Dansvidania »

saaaaaam wrote: post #57
sajithdilshan wrote: post #27

Read the whole thing and all I saw was zero accountability, zero ownership and zero consequences. That’s how great products die or become a nightmare. Every team keeps on passing the ball to other team and nothing gets fixed or done or improved.

But it didn’t. And Microsoft is worth $3.5 trillion. So maybe actually everyone should take a leaf out of the Microsoft book. When something is on fire, pass the buck to other people and stand around saying “that thing is on fire… wouldn’t it be great if someone called the fire brigade? I have the number here. One of you guys, give them a call.”

they pivoted a few times since then in terms of what their core product is, though :D

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#72

Post by rawgabbit »

Atreiden wrote: post #58
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I read through it and had a few things I've flagged in my head - the ego fluffing, repeated usage of "Millennial" to the point of redundancy, and the framing of things in terms of "big picture", but can you elaborate on "deep brainwashing techniques"? I'm genuinely interested. This entire email thread feels a bit surreal to me

Thiel says Zuckerberg is special. He is the chosen one. He will lead an entire generation etc. This is a master class in ass kissing.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#73

Post by jameshart »

bluegatty wrote: post #51

They think it's 'some issues' :) :) :) It's a fundamental, cultural and systemic lack of concern for those issues. An 'afterthought' that should be 'integral'. That Gates did not realize that means it's 100% on him. 1000% actually. He was struggling with the language of design and usability in 2003, not even realizing even the implications of what he was seeing (because it would require total rethink). Like a cars co…

This email was literally BillG sending an email to the people he holds accountable for this, pointing out to them that he believes his experience resulted from a systematic lack of attention to end to end user experience.

I’m not sure why you see this as evidence BillG didn’t understand that to be his job.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#74

Post by bluegatty »

WalterBright wrote: post #63
bluegatty wrote: post #51

They think it's 'some issues' :) :) :) It's a fundamental, cultural and systemic lack of concern for those issues. An 'afterthought' that should be 'integral'. That Gates did not realize that means it's 100% on him. 1000% actually. He was struggling with the language of design and usability in 2003, not even realizing even the implications of what he was seeing (because it would require total rethink). Like a cars co…

As for Jobs, I bought a Mac Mini last summer. I wanted to use iMovie to clip the edges off of a movie file. I clipped the edges, but was unable to discover how to save the resulting file, and gave up. Microsoft's Movie Maker has a menu item to save a file. I use the Mini every day, but only via a tty window.

Yes - this is a mind boggling design conceit of Apple that goes back almost 50 years.

They made certain design decisions a long time ago around a lot of things and that's one of them.

They 'conscientiously' designed the UX - which is great - it generally makes it better, but the problem is, when you make a mistake, the mistake is more ingrained.

We all know of 'Arrogant Engineers' thinking their 'Algorithm is more important than anything' - that 'save' thing is a design conceit, heavily instituted into the culture. The designers would look at you like an infidel for suggesting you know something they don't back in the day. Or even today.

I'm basically certain that Jobs himself will have defended that feature 1000 times over the years.

It's probably kept up like a religious ritual, a point of 'differentiation' and 'we're better here'.

Which is very different than a lack of operational rigour, it's where part of the system is overbearing.

"It's just the way we do it here" will be the justification for the next 100 years on that. And changing things that are ingrained is also very heard and risky. It's like changing the constitution, it's pulling a thread on the sweater.

There are quite a lot of weird 'Apple Way' things, most good, many bad.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#75

Post by TulliusCicero »

knollimar wrote: post #69
3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #26

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…

"I don't know what it means to "own website issues"" made me irate. It was very clear! Read the issues and be accountable for fixing them?

From what I know about MS, I can understand what they mean. Microsoft famously had teams at odds with each other, so if you "own" something across multiple teams and can't get them to actually work together or take a particular issue seriously, then you just have the shit end of responsibility without the authority to make stuff happen.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#76

Post by muglug »

johnnyApplePRNG wrote: post #31
kylecazar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That must be a different Michael Beckerman. This one was an executive at Microsoft in 2002...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Beckerman graduated in 2001, although it says nothing of any employment at Microsoft on his Wikipedia page... so you might be right?

It specifically says he worked for the US gov during that period, so your comment needs an edit

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#77

Post by knollimar »

herodotus wrote: post #37
colechristensen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did/do you feel about that?

Good. One of the things I loved about my years working at Apple is that everyone I had dealings with really cared about the user experience.

Was the animation objectively bad? like was it bad for the user and he was right or were you wronged?

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#78

Post by jameshart »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #27

Read the whole thing and all I saw was zero accountability, zero ownership and zero consequences. That’s how great products die or become a nightmare. Every team keeps on passing the ball to other team and nothing gets fixed or done or improved.

Really? You’ve got this guy Dave Fester on there saying he was going to own the website issues and was coordinating everything to do with how the products surfaced on the web. That seemed like pretty clear accountability and ownership to me. What do you want? Some more performative mea culpas?

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#79

Post by danillonunes »

> I decided to download Moviemake and buy the Digital Plus pack r so I went to Microsoft.com

That "r" from "Moviemaker" pushed to the end of "and buy the Digital Plus pack" displays the universally shared experience of writing something, then deciding to come back to add something else and fucking up the first sentence.

I've been there too, Bill.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#80

Post by jameshart »

waltwalther wrote: post #62
johnnyApplePRNG wrote: post #6

Read it. Stopped halfway through thinking "Damn, this Mike Beckerman is a piece of work. Doesn't understand English grammar let alone software development." Looked him up... >Michael Beckerman is an American lobbyist who is vice president at TikTok. Not surprising at all.

For sure. This is consistent with how I would expect the TikTok generation to communicate. I would also add that not only does he know nothing about software development, but he knows even less about the basics of using his own computer.

This was an email Bill Gates sent in 2003. Not sure you can hold the ‘TikTok generation’ accountable for that.
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