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Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

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Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#31

Post by jdminhbg »

saagarjha wrote: post #26
jdminhbg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's too charitable. I wouldn't accept the vetting of any football-related news by a journalist who referred to the NFL as a "ball management organization."

I would if they cited their sources so I could verify their claims for myself. In my eyes it's OK for the journalist of an article like this to not to be an expert in the field, but they should be able to provide a somewhat coherent summary of a topic and allow readers to perform their own analysis on the parts they care about.

We're not talking about whether or not someone is an expert, we're talking about whether they have even a passing familiarity. What an operating system is isn't esoteric knowledge.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#32

Post by yodon »

stakhanov wrote: post #4

First: A stock can rise for reasons having zero to do with the reality of the business behind the stock, for example mispricing, availability or the lack thereof of alternative investments, inflation, currency devaluation etc. Second: To me it always leaves a very foul aftertaste when the achievements of a team are ascribed to whoever the visible front-person is. I find it hard to believe that among the other 149999…

Bill Gates built an amazing airplane. Steve Ballmer crashed it in the desert. Satya Nadella rallied the survivors, put it back together, and got it flying again. Yes, he absolutely deserves the credit just as Ballmer absolutely deserves the blame.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#33

Post by stopadvertising »

stakhanov wrote: post #4

First: A stock can rise for reasons having zero to do with the reality of the business behind the stock, for example mispricing, availability or the lack thereof of alternative investments, inflation, currency devaluation etc. Second: To me it always leaves a very foul aftertaste when the achievements of a team are ascribed to whoever the visible front-person is. I find it hard to believe that among the other 149999…

Interesting how everyone idolizes Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett and Richard Branson and Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and even Bill Gates for their prolific genius and the amazing, visionary choices they made to grow their companies, but we should bend over backwards to make sure that Satya is NOT the only person recognized here.

Also stock movements are suddenly meaningless so this guy shouldn't get any credit for creating nearly a trillion dollars. Make sure we just talk about the other 14999 employees at the company instead, they are all more important in this one case than the CEO.

Hmmm... I wonder what is different about this guy?

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#35

Post by saagarjha »

yodon wrote: post #32
stakhanov wrote: post #4

First: A stock can rise for reasons having zero to do with the reality of the business behind the stock, for example mispricing, availability or the lack thereof of alternative investments, inflation, currency devaluation etc. Second: To me it always leaves a very foul aftertaste when the achievements of a team are ascribed to whoever the visible front-person is. I find it hard to believe that among the other 149999…

Bill Gates built an amazing airplane. Steve Ballmer crashed it in the desert. Satya Nadella rallied the survivors, put it back together, and got it flying again. Yes, he absolutely deserves the credit just as Ballmer absolutely deserves the blame.

This is a very simplistic view, as the comment you're replying to has been trying to point out.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#36

Post by ozborn »

I absolutely despise these hero worship type headlines, even if the individual made an important contribution. I realize headlines are written by editors (not by the author) so I don't blame the writer (the article is well written) but such headlines contribute to the already awful cult of celebrity worship and CEO salary inflation which doesn't need any more fuel.

Headlines like these are the equivalent of scientific papers with no citations, no coauthors, no acknowledgements - as if the author was solely responsible for creating all the value merely by thinking in the aether. These types of scientific papers don't exist outside crank pot science for good reason - they are ludicrous. Just like this headline.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#37

Post by manigandham »

yodon wrote: post #32
stakhanov wrote: post #4

First: A stock can rise for reasons having zero to do with the reality of the business behind the stock, for example mispricing, availability or the lack thereof of alternative investments, inflation, currency devaluation etc. Second: To me it always leaves a very foul aftertaste when the achievements of a team are ascribed to whoever the visible front-person is. I find it hard to believe that among the other 149999…

Bill Gates built an amazing airplane. Steve Ballmer crashed it in the desert. Satya Nadella rallied the survivors, put it back together, and got it flying again. Yes, he absolutely deserves the credit just as Ballmer absolutely deserves the blame.

If you’re only looking at stock price then Ballmer did exceptionally well.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#38

Post by cheschire »

stakhanov wrote: post #4

First: A stock can rise for reasons having zero to do with the reality of the business behind the stock, for example mispricing, availability or the lack thereof of alternative investments, inflation, currency devaluation etc. Second: To me it always leaves a very foul aftertaste when the achievements of a team are ascribed to whoever the visible front-person is. I find it hard to believe that among the other 149999…

Take him away then. Imagine he just vanished. Took a sabbatical, didn't say where he was going, and just disappeared for a year.

What would happen? Things would function. They'd probably be fine for the first couple months, and they might even pass their first quarterly earnings without anyone noticing he's gone. If the department heads all were quiet and didn't notify the shareholders, things would seem completely fine.

But then the next quarter comes up. Money shifts around a little bit creating a small deficiency here, and a surplus over there. Department heads start to assist each other towards shared goals which may be detrimental to other departments.

Tribalism starts to take hold. Each department head is now their own top dog, and some will start to breed a culture within their areas where they believe they are absolutely more critical than other areas. Some individuals may start to actively sabotage the other departments if they feel it serves to benefit their own dept.

Without a CEO, you no longer have a company, you have a community of companies that are in direct competition with each other.

This doesn't mean the individuals within a company are unimportant. They get plenty of recognition within their own circles, but when you're talking about money, there's a reason the CEO is the focal point.

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