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Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#131

Post by [deleted] »

RIMR wrote: post #46
buran77 wrote: post #14

> Their [n.b Apple's] victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops So nearly all of the (relatively) very few people that are funded by YC have Apple and that's proof of Apple's complete victory over a dead MS. In a year when MS was still on an upward trend, growing by 20% market cap to become double that o…

It is an common theme with PG to write confidently about technology while also demonstrating that he has absolutely no understanding of what he's talking about. I've been commenting about this here for YEARS with constant pushback and excuses for him from the community. "He's a billionaire so he must be smart", "He personally wrote the entire HN codebase", "Nobody really needs a valid SSL cert on their website in 202…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#132

Post by DanielHB »

thesuitonym wrote: post #111
robertlagrant wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reading rich people's blogs reminds me every time that there's a reason wealth is also called "fortune". Because it's more about luck than anything else. And by luck I mean a family golden nugget, or lucky first investment, or both. A superpower that allows one to fail many times and still be able to try again until they hit the next fortune. Most people in the world can't even afford to try. Most of the rest can't…

From Wikipedia: Graham received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in philosophy from Cornell University in 1986. He then received a Master of Science in 1988, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1990, both in computer science from Harvard University. Graham has also studied fine arts and painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. Note that most people can't even afford to go…

Jeez, I suppose we should only allow people in who grew up living under a bridge like you.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#133

Post by ethbr1 »

virgilp wrote: post #113
ethbr1 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with "all use Macs" is that Apple has always been a great hardware company with an underfunded software side. MacOS has so many problems or unsupported features it isn't funny, while Windows was fine. >> I never used Microsoft software, so it only affected me indirectly Hmm. The lesson here is probably don't assume you understand a competitor's strengths and weaknesses via secondhand experience. And the t…

This was not meant to transform into "windows vs mac, which is better". But I happen to have used both, recently, and can tell: no, Windows got closer but is not quite there on the "having a shell" chapter. It still has too many, and too different. Powershell.NET is powerful, but is also "alien" to many people - you have to know .NET! Scripting is meant to be quick & hacky, not "real software that needs a release cyc…

Any of the "ultrabooks" with decent IPS screens, keyboards, metal bodies, and battery life.

Dell XPSs were a decent option for the last decade+ (especially the refurbs), but Dell seems to be going through a rebranding exercise [0], so those will now be Dell Pro/Premium models? Maybe?

[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/01/the-end-of-an-era-de...

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#134

Post by [deleted] »

yellowstuff wrote: post #117

I'll admit that this is a charitable reading of the essay, but I think that MS was dead in 2007 and is still dead in 2025, in the sense that Graham was focused on. In the 90s startup founders were scared that if they started a software company MS would copy their idea and crush them. Bill Gates used to talk about how he wanted to "monopolize" software before the lawyers caught up with him. By 2007 MS was mostly irrel…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#135

Post by behnamoh »

dist-epoch wrote: post #100
behnamoh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reading rich people's blogs reminds me every time that there's a reason wealth is also called "fortune". Because it's more about luck than anything else. At some point they lose touch with reality. I've found their "advice" often doesn't work for young people who wanna become successful like them. Another example is Jensen: "Nvidia doesn't have a long-term strategy, we just think about what to do next. I don't wear…

> I don't wear a watch, because NOW is important That doesn't imply that Jensen thinks he's successful because he doesn't wear a watch. He's not that delusional.

oh he knows... you're telling me the CEO and co-founder of the most valuable company in history doesn't think he's successful?

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#136

Post by fogpudding »

buran77 wrote: post #14

> Their [n.b Apple's] victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops So nearly all of the (relatively) very few people that are funded by YC have Apple and that's proof of Apple's complete victory over a dead MS. In a year when MS was still on an upward trend, growing by 20% market cap to become double that o…

The first time this essay made the rounds, a bunch of people misunderstood his point the same way you're doing: https://www.paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html

He was talking about cultural dominance among people developing new tech, not revenue.

There was a time when being a programmer essentially meant writing C++ on Windows. I still remember getting a Mac as late as ~2013 and having my normie (non-engineer) friends chastise me for it -- "how are you going to get any serious coding done?" -- because that was their genuine impression of Windows vs Macs. Meanwhile, imagine you're the founder of YC in 2007 in a city where all the new tech startups are happening. Everyone's using Macs. Surely it's at least a valid argument or hypothesis that this is a leading indicator of where the forefront of tech is going.

And now if you go to any modern fast-growing tech company, you look around, everyone uses Macs. Even lots of Microsoft employees use Macs. It seems the hypothesis wasn't completely wrong. Incidentally, it's only with hindsight that we're able to refute this somewhat: Microsoft made a nice comeback in the tech world after Nadella became CEO. But that was a big surprise when it happened.

Was it really necessary to turn this into a talking point about rich people and their sins?

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#137

Post by lotsofpulp »

Attrecomet wrote: post #106
lotsofpulp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google leaders were smart to not take on Excel, especially after it was clear Microsoft was moving things to the cloud and spinning up Office 365. There is no way a competitor could sustainably price a competing product against a low monthly or annual cost Excel/Office/OneDrive SAAS option, since the majority of the workforce was already trained on Office products, and everyone is using an edge feature that a…

Where do you find these low monthly cost options? Using Office is considerably more expensive than it ever was for a business, and the profit margins are huge. And if anyone could sustain an office suite until it runs profitably in these circumstances, it must surely be Google...

I don’t know that office 365 is more expensive than before, if incorporating time and stress into the equation. Businesses get to dispense with all their IT staff basically and just let people access everything via a browser. And it’s a lot less technical for the managers to manage users and licenses.

But the problem for competitors is say you are able to make a product just as good as Excel. You start selling it $x, but Microsoft can almost always go down to $x-1 since their marginal cost is near zero.

Maybe Google or some other big company has the cash flow to plow money into subsidizing this bet for many years, I can understand not wanting to make that bet.

Google Docs and whatnot came out all the way back in the late 2000s, but it still didn’t see any measurable adoption by the time office 365 was out. Maybe it is because Google didn’t stick with it and develop it, but I still think it was a long shot.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#138

Post by [deleted] »

ethbr1 wrote: post #65
virgilp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read all of it. Go beyond just the title, and it should tell you that Paul Graham was more right than wrong with this one. - Google was, for a while, the "gorilla in the room" - their decline is recent. But Paul Graham got it right, that Google was more scary than MS. - Microsoft was "dead" in 2007, same as Apple was before Steve Jobs came back. The revival started with Satya Nadella, 7 years later. It is still a sha…

The problem with "all use Macs" is that Apple has always been a great hardware company with an underfunded software side. MacOS has so many problems or unsupported features it isn't funny, while Windows was fine. >> I never used Microsoft software, so it only affected me indirectly Hmm. The lesson here is probably don't assume you understand a competitor's strengths and weaknesses via secondhand experience. And the t…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#139

Post by lotsofpulp »

Etheryte wrote: post #3

I wonder who you'd put in that bucket today, who is the looming incumbent who might just show up and eat your lunch. For some time it was Meta, they definitely strong armed a bunch of small upstarts to sell out rather than compete. Right now I'm not so sure, there isn't any single name that comes to mind.

What upstarts did Meta strong arm? From my recollection, they paid enormous amounts of money for websites and apps like Instagram and WhatsApp.

There were so many threads on this website alone about how much extra Meta was paying and how they would ever see a return.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#140

Post by INTPenis »

Paul got married in 2008 so maybe he has kids now, maybe they can tell him about a gaming PC that most likely runs Microsoft Windows. Or even an Xbox.

I hope the shock of witnessing Microsoft Windows in the wild has subdued with time lol.

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