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Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

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Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#241

Post by acuozzo »

MBCook wrote: post #96
ebcode wrote: post #65

Culture flows from the top. Bill doesn’t take responsibility in his email, so he’s teaching everyone downstream to pass the buck like he does.

That was one thing I noticed. Once they started passing the blame, almost immediately, I would expect the first thing to be a new email from Gates saying “Bob, you’re doing this, Frank, you’re doing that, no excuses, get it done.” Nope. Nothing like that.

"Ballmer succeeded Gates as Microsoft's CEO and maintained that position from 2000 until his resignation in 2014."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#242

Post by bluegatty »

dpark wrote: post #235
throw310822 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see that Gates started a conversation with the execs he believes are responsible for fixing this mess. I think the point here might be that what created this mess in the first place is the structure of the organisation, not the execs that are temporarily embodying it. It's actually quite clear from the follow-ups, there is nobody who can claim responsibility even for the website, never mind any vision or philosop…

I think the real point is that this is a random email that Gates sent to some execs sharing a bad experience with the product, and some people on HN are trying to take it as a much deeper thing than it really is. A leader should be able to send candid communication to other leaders. A culture where execs are unable to communicate candidly to their peers or other high-level leaders is a toxic one. It would be absurd t…

This is not about candor, it's about framing and respecting what kind of power people have, who is responsible for what.

"Hey gang - I know I'm not Dear Leader anymore - and - I don't want to get in the way of your new Dear Leader, but I want to share with you a bad experience I had with this product.

A, B, C, D. E .. was really bad.

After thinking about it - I think much of this lays at my feet. In the Golden Era of MS we didn't think much about design, or 'Whole Product'. I have to take responsibility for that.

But these kinds of outcomes are really bad, and this has to be nipped in the bud now - and in the future.

I suggest this probably happened because Product and R&D criss-crossed here, the Release Managers and Product Marketing dropped a lot in between.

That there was a ball dropped here must be the responsibility at the VP/Executive level at very least, for not ensuring smooth handoff.

Furthermore - that this experience could be so bad means we have to rethink and extend our integration testing all the way to 'end user experience'.

Finally, I think you'll need to engender a culture of design right from the start - that's going to take 2-4 years and a different kind of thinking, that is not a fire that can be put out, or a process to be fixed. I'll have to lave that on the lap of the new Dear Leader.

Keep up the great work.

- BG"

That's how to write a 'candid' note.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#243

Post by bluegatty »

wjnc wrote: post #98
jameshart wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Every single recipient on the thread was a Vice President, Corporate Vice President, or Senior/Group Vice President. Gates intentionally bypassed lower-level product managers and emailed the executive tier directly to demand accountability for platform-wide usability regressions. If you think this is not missing the forest for the trees, please explain.

He bypassed the new CEO, that's the really ugly one there. That's borderline backstabby.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#244

Post by bahmboo »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #233
bahmboo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but the separation of concerns is to put a wall up. Billg was relating his poor experience to the company he oversees. He is strictly forbidden from micro managing at this level. Eg "this is a problem" vs "fix the problem this way". Not his job

Even if he were still CEO, a message of, "This sucks", he does not have to explicitly add, "Fix it, please". That is well implied by the hierarchy. Your boss notes a problem, underlings try to correct. The bear is sticky with honey, and people jump.

I can see why you might think this but I think it is incorrect. Particularly because he's not in the hierarchy. Billg is not the boss at this point and has no meaningful effect on one's job unless you are in the top dozen execs and even then this is just an email about a user experience, it's not a command. Ballmer is your boss and the old man yelling at the cloud can keep screaming into the wind. Point: did anything change from this email? I don't think so.

It is helpful for me to understand corporate dynamics and how they actually work (or as supposed to) instead of a simplified version from outside. My brother is a CEO of a big company so I get to hear it from his side. Doesn't mean I'm right, I'm not the CEO.

[edit: softened the language] [another edit]

Actually he isn't the CEO anymore. Private equity purchased the company years ago and he was made CEO from outside but in the industry. Eventually the PE people wanted to cut everything to make the company look good for a purchaser so that means high earners in the company have to go (this is a highly technical company with PhDs and researchers, etc).

But guess what? Those are the people that make the company special among other things. They demanded he fire some top people. He wouldn't because it would destroy the company's value. So they fired him and put in one of their lackeys to do the slaughter. They kept him on in a different role that I won't say because I don't want to reveal too much. Flash forward the company has not sold and is likely to have lost 50% of its value. I admire him but since they were going to be fired anyway shouldn't he have sucked it up and got a better price for the company? The PE people were total jackasses so working for them another day was poison in his veins.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#245

Post by dpark »

bluegatty wrote: post #242
dpark wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real point is that this is a random email that Gates sent to some execs sharing a bad experience with the product, and some people on HN are trying to take it as a much deeper thing than it really is. A leader should be able to send candid communication to other leaders. A culture where execs are unable to communicate candidly to their peers or other high-level leaders is a toxic one. It would be absurd t…

This is not about candor, it's about framing and respecting what kind of power people have, who is responsible for what. "Hey gang - I know I'm not Dear Leader anymore - and - I don't want to get in the way of your new Dear Leader, but I want to share with you a bad experience I had with this product. A, B, C, D. E .. was really bad. After thinking about it - I think much of this lays at my feet. In the Golden Era of…

That’s not candid. It’s candy.

It borderline infantilizing and buries the message under a bunch of saccharine. I can practically see the fake smile plastered across the face of the manager saying this. I would be insulted if my manager sent a message like this to the team.

Your version also took away literally all of the concrete detail, turning into a generic “it’s bad” that isn’t an actionable. It sounds like you sent it through an LLM.

I would also imagine that there are a lot of other emails flying around that are discussing the general pattern of concern while this is more of a drive-by honest review of a specific experience. This is the kind of blunt feedback that execs do not usually get about their products and probably need more of. This kind of blunt feedback from a respected leader can’t be waived away the way anecdotes from individual customers can.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#246

Post by dpark »

bluegatty wrote: post #240
dpark wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sending the org into a reactive frenzy I don’t see an actual “reactive frenzy” here. I see that Gates started a conversation with the execs he believes are responsible for fixing this mess. And again, these are execs being paid millions. They do not need to be coddled. You are acting as if Gates sent this to a bunch of junior engineers. > ‘taking responsibility' is not 'vacuous corporate speak' - that's a terribly…

-----> "It’s absolutely vacuous to say 'I take responsibility for this' when you are telling a group of people they need to fix their shit." Totally false. It's literally the opposite of vacuous to take responsibility for his failure to set up the culture and system wherein this kind of stuff would not happen - while at the same time starting a fire so that the work is done. Allocating responsibility is one of the mo…

You keep talking about “taking responsibility”. Unless the person taking responsibility is also taking action, which you aren’t even proposing, then it’s just words. It’s more sugar coating. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

> This is a 'put out the fire' type reactionary stuff.

After the fire fighting comes the postmortem where the systemic issues should be discussed. A fire is a great way to spur both short and long term action.

> By 'underling' I mean anyone under him.

I don’t know how you reconcile “accountability” with the idea that the a leader cannot expect members of the team to deliver. Is Gates the only person who has any accountability expected here?

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#247

Post by ytoawwhra92 »

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?

Well, except then the person who volunteered to "own website issues" clarified that they meant one specific issue (download links) among the five or so that Gates identified.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#248

Post by hintymad »

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…

Curious why it is so hard to find an owner to the issue. Gates' experience started with the web UI, then I'd expect that the team who owns the microsoft.com or owns the experience. To them there are only two types of bottlenecks: their web pages (usability, JavaScript performance, ways to get backend data, and etc), and their immediate dependencies. So, they drive improvement on both types of the bottlenecks, and the owners of the immediate dependencies recursively handle their own. For instance, the web team will identify that calling the catalog API has a P99 latency of 5 seconds and the network is fine, then they ask the catalog API to improve the API latency. If the catalog team does not do the obvious, the team's manager gets punished.

Of course, I'm being naive here, as I've seen too many companies fail to achieve such basic ownership. So, curious what I have missed. Of if the ownership is not a clean DAG, well, it goes back to Gates, as he was responsible for both the org charts and the company culture.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install MovieMaker (2003)

#250

Post by lmz »

torginus wrote: post #166
bestouff wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My fav is this : > 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. This is so true, and not only under Windows. Install any modern program under any modern OS and have a look at the filesystem, it's a flaming mess. Nowadays the only solution "smart people" have found…

> I miss the days of simple executables. One of my "santa's not real" moments of computing was realizing how much static and dynamic libraries fucking suck. This cannot be overstated, and is illustrated perfectly by the heroic efforts of software vendors to get away from them. Okay, a few functions like fopen are fine - but even those are syscall wrappers IRL. But every OS seems to have concluded, that in the place o…

> Even DOS didn't really have libraries, you had peripherals mapped to memory at certain addresses, and a set of interrupts, and that was it.

Did I just dream up loading a mouse driver and MSCDEX in DOS?

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