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Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power

uk.reuters.com

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Re: Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power

#21

Post by NickPollard »

panacea wrote: post #18
meaty wrote: post #8

Probably throws chairs at them... To be serious, this is normal in most corporates. It starts when you let the MBA* with the personality disorder in, you're fucked. I've watched three companies fall at the hands of such people. * This is not true of all MBAs, but I seem to see a trend where there are more borderline psychopaths.

What's in a title? Imagine if you could come out of a computer science or design course with "Master of...[domain]" appended to your name. The grandiouse title giving should probably be reigned in.

You don't need to imagine; just look at any MSc or MEng.

Re: Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power

#22

Post by meaty »

panacea wrote: post #18
meaty wrote: post #8

Probably throws chairs at them... To be serious, this is normal in most corporates. It starts when you let the MBA* with the personality disorder in, you're fucked. I've watched three companies fall at the hands of such people. * This is not true of all MBAs, but I seem to see a trend where there are more borderline psychopaths.

What's in a title? Imagine if you could come out of a computer science or design course with "Master of...[domain]" appended to your name. The grandiouse title giving should probably be reigned in.

The MBA seems to attract a certain type of person, which is my point.

I'm an MEng myself but I don't see that type of person around the whole engineering scene.

Re: Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power

#23

Post by stonemetal »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #19

Is Microsoft the last big company? They had to grow to that size to handle the marketing and distribution globally - their most obvious successor is Google who operate at a similar reach but something like 1/10 of people It might be an inevitability - or it might be that giant companies are just of their time and giant will now be in the thousands not the hundreds of thousands Anyway it's not news.

Microsoft is much more diversified than Google. If Google becomes as diversified as MS then there is a good chance they will catch up on head count.

Re: Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power

#24

Post by rpm4321 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #19

Is Microsoft the last big company? They had to grow to that size to handle the marketing and distribution globally - their most obvious successor is Google who operate at a similar reach but something like 1/10 of people It might be an inevitability - or it might be that giant companies are just of their time and giant will now be in the thousands not the hundreds of thousands Anyway it's not news.

Interestingly enough, Larry Page is on record recently talking about the possibility of Google scaling up to a million employees:

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Lar...

Re: Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power

#25

Post by chris_wot »

rpm4321 wrote: post #24
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #19

Is Microsoft the last big company? They had to grow to that size to handle the marketing and distribution globally - their most obvious successor is Google who operate at a similar reach but something like 1/10 of people It might be an inevitability - or it might be that giant companies are just of their time and giant will now be in the thousands not the hundreds of thousands Anyway it's not news.

Interestingly enough, Larry Page is on record recently talking about the possibility of Google scaling up to a million employees: http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Lar...

... and thus causing massive destabilization in whole economies. No thanks!

Think about it. If a corporation employs 1 million employees, and that company fails, then the economy will most definitely take a hit. On top of this, that company would hold far too much power and could use the power of the number of people working for it to force governments into doing things that it wouldn't do for the greater good. It happens already now with big business, but just imagine what it would be like with a million employee business!

Re: Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power

#26

Post by andyjohnson0 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #19

Is Microsoft the last big company? They had to grow to that size to handle the marketing and distribution globally - their most obvious successor is Google who operate at a similar reach but something like 1/10 of people It might be an inevitability - or it might be that giant companies are just of their time and giant will now be in the thousands not the hundreds of thousands Anyway it's not news.

There are many companies that are much larger than Microsoft in terms of number of employees. Microsoft employs 94,420 people worldwide [1], but by this measure it isn't even in the top 100 of the Inc 5000 according to [2].

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/inside_ms.aspx#Employmen...

[2] http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/top/employee-count

Re: Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power

#28

Post by bhousel »

meaty wrote: post #8

Probably throws chairs at them... To be serious, this is normal in most corporates. It starts when you let the MBA* with the personality disorder in, you're fucked. I've watched three companies fall at the hands of such people. * This is not true of all MBAs, but I seem to see a trend where there are more borderline psychopaths.

Steve Ballmer does not have an MBA.

Re: Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power

#29

Post by 16s »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #26
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #19

Is Microsoft the last big company? They had to grow to that size to handle the marketing and distribution globally - their most obvious successor is Google who operate at a similar reach but something like 1/10 of people It might be an inevitability - or it might be that giant companies are just of their time and giant will now be in the thousands not the hundreds of thousands Anyway it's not news.

There are many companies that are much larger than Microsoft in terms of number of employees. Microsoft employs 94,420 people worldwide [1], but by this measure it isn't even in the top 100 of the Inc 5000 according to [2]. [1] http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/inside_ms.aspx#Employmen... [2] http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/top/employee-count

Intel has more than 100k employees.

Re: Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power

#30

Post by meaty »

bhousel wrote: post #28
meaty wrote: post #8

Probably throws chairs at them... To be serious, this is normal in most corporates. It starts when you let the MBA* with the personality disorder in, you're fucked. I've watched three companies fall at the hands of such people. * This is not true of all MBAs, but I seem to see a trend where there are more borderline psychopaths.

Steve Ballmer does not have an MBA.

I should have made the more generic point "MBA types" (high business, executives etc). Not specifically MBAs.
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