Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

techemails.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 299 posts

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#101

Post by rolandog »

Dansvidania wrote: post #71
saaaaaam wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Indeed... Their core product seems to be being an unavoidable blackhole of money where they are taxing all of society by virtue of inserting themselves into our lives by having acquired or squashed other competitors

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#102

Post by MBCook »

EGreg wrote: post #19

“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.” That does not sound like something Bill Gates would say…

Why in the world do you think that? It’s an email that came out in discovery for a lawsuit. It’s absolutely him.

Because he doesn’t talk like this in public? I promise you no big executives talk the same in public as they do internally.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#103

Post by russelldjimmy »

bluegatty wrote: post #88
jameshart wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have struggle to understand how someone could come to that conclusion, maybe I missed something? The email is a 'rant'. It's a 'list of broken stuff'. It's not: 1) identifying underlying first principles of design or UX that have been broken 2) not identifying which parts of the system may have resulted in the negative outcome 3) not reference for either operational or cultural that were braoched or need to be addr…

Thanks for this reply. I learned something today!

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#104

Post by EGreg »

MBCook wrote: post #102
EGreg wrote: post #19

“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.” That does not sound like something Bill Gates would say…

Why in the world do you think that? It’s an email that came out in discovery for a lawsuit. It’s absolutely him. Because he doesn’t talk like this in public? I promise you no big executives talk the same in public as they do internally.

Because he's trashing a project he himself oversaw for years? And his own judgment and leadership for all those years?

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#106

Post by antisthenes »

dekhn wrote: post #38
jtwaleson wrote: post #7

Can someone in Microsoft confirm my suspicion that this thread is still going and nothing was fixed?

MovieMaker was discontinued in 2017 and replaced by ClipChamp. MS acquired ClipChamp and it was integrated into windows in 2022. So basically closed, will not fix.

Based on how long corporate email chains go (without clearly accountable people), you're 50/50 on waiting for the feature to get fixed versus the feature becoming deprecated in a few years.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#107

Post by windowshopping »

bluegatty wrote: post #88
jameshart wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have struggle to understand how someone could come to that conclusion, maybe I missed something? The email is a 'rant'. It's a 'list of broken stuff'. It's not: 1) identifying underlying first principles of design or UX that have been broken 2) not identifying which parts of the system may have resulted in the negative outcome 3) not reference for either operational or cultural that were braoched or need to be addr…

Really good reply, well put

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#108

Post by cush »

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.

Those bits are in a completely different set of emails

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#109

Post by bluegatty »

jameshart wrote: post #91
wjnc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but board room or top-50 professional discussions are ment to be a lot more meta. Bill using 500-1000 words to voice his concrete experience in downloading an app, with his directors immediately chiming in for fixes misses the forest for the trees. And Bill starts the quest for the one tree in his choice of words. It was disalignment in his organizational model and the CEO is on the line for that alignment. Th…

Most of the thread is lower level staff specifically trying to address the raised issues. We have no idea what conversations this triggered among the exec team about the broader strategic issues Bill raised.

Those are all Executives.

It's actually funny that you're thinking they are 'lower level staff' because that's how it seems by their reaction, but those are literally top Execs.

That's really how these orgs often work.

'Dear Leader Is Angry' will set the whole org into a tizzy.

I've seen this countless times - 'XXX said it', and the littlest thing will get moved.

Often - this is good, it means the org is responsive to the direction of the founder, but it's 'abused' all the time. I think leaders forget their responsibility and truly believe that 'their whims' are essential.

25% of the US are looking at the insane things POTUS is putting out and believing there's some kind of 5D chess magic, when it's actually -5D - aka extraordinary bad leadership. That's the 'power of power'.

'Self Awareness' is probably the #1 superpower of a leader, because nobody is going to keep them in check.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#110

Post by stackghost »

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…

Agreed. From the comments, lots of people down-thread who clearly haven't worked in large orgs.

They are arguing about not wanting to take ownership because they know the organizational structure is going to be an impediment. The problems Bill describes could not have been solved by Microsoft without a massive internal restructuring. We know this because Microsoft's UX is still abysmal.

Nobody wants to have the inevitable failure hung around their necks by "owning" something that depends on the cooperation and coordination of departments that don't report to them.

Post reply on HN