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Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

danluu.com

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Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#571

Post by [deleted] »

pjmorris wrote: post #552
toyg wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now the company seems fully baked I to LLMs with everything they do chasing that Them along absolutely everyone else . ChatGPT was an iPhone moment.

> Them along absolutely everyone else. ChatGPT was an iPhone moment Nice analogy. My sense of things is that the iPhone was a win for all of its users. While ChatGPT may make some/many of its users more productive (see Ethan Mollick's work), the driving force behind 'AI! AI! AI!' in the corporate world is an executive hope that complacent AI can replace expensive people. That's not a win for all of its users.

[deleted]

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#572

Post by atomicnature »

exmicrosoldier wrote: post #555

I disagree with Dan due to my experience as an low level employee under Ballmer. He encouraged political infighting and backstabbing and dog eat dog internal competition, while praising and desiring tight integration between teams. He wanted "cloud first, moblie first" - two firsts! The culture at the time was built around RAID - the internal bug datadbase and that there should be clear prioritization for everything.…

off-topic: Love the username :)

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#573

Post by 486sx33 »

Nadella has been horrible and a huge mistake for Microsoft. They will continue to suffer under his leadership. At least ballmer had goals and pretended to care what customers want. Windows is an unmitigated disaster under nadella and it doesn’t need to be. No new innovation is happening and hardware is more performant than ever. Windows had issues under ballmer because the hardware wasn’t there yet and they were trying new things. Nadella only wants spyware and bloatware and everything as a subscription / service. The leadership can’t change soon enough, hopefully his back room deals with OpenAI come to light and blow up sooner than later.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#574

Post by 486sx33 »

juped wrote: post #334
archerx wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well since Nadella I have been using less Microsoft products and probably won’t be using Windows anymore once my Windows 10 LTSC stops working. I keep hearing praise for Nadella but all he is doing is alienating a lot of customers with his terrible decisions.

Ballmer would never have put honest-to-God advertisements in Windows Solitaire .

Exactly

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#575

Post by cryptonector »

The biggest problem with Ballmer's tenure was stack ranking, which led to the famous org chart where every org in MSFT points a gun at every org in MSFT.

Things like LINQ and VScode are very nice but they weren't created by Ballmer. Ballmer's org allowed them to flourish to the point where they needed serious capital, then the org gave them that capital. Sun was like that too, but ultimately the management at Sun failed in so many ways. It's not just the technologies you choose to invest in -- there's something more needed, and the nicest thing to say about Ballmer is that he didn't ruin MSFT. The nicest thing to say about Satya is that he made it a nice place to work at while also greatly growing MSFT's cloud business.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#577

Post by mynameisash »

kristiandupont wrote: post #469
signa11 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh please :) the old ‘embrace-extend-extinguish’ model is what it _truly_ is, f.e. , you cannot take extensions from m$ store and use it. there have been large number of discussions around this topic, and folks have highlighted these concerns more articulately than i could ever hope to do. take your pick.

> ‘embrace-extend-extinguish’ model is what it _truly_ is With this mindset, what could MS possibly create that wouldn't make you say this?

This definitely seems like an unfalsifiable proposition for the MS haters.

Microsoft does something shitty? See, they're a terrible company.

Microsoft does something awesome? Well, we're currently in the "embrace" or "extend", so they're a terrible company.

I'm as (or more) pessimistic than the next guy about the state of tech and capitalism, but at least give credit when and where credit's due.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#578

Post by randomdata »

toyg wrote: post #502
_heimdall wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lately it has definitely felt as though Microsoft is resurrecting Ballmer's old meme as "AI! AI! AI!" I was at Microsoft for the last couple years of Ballmer and the first few years of Nadella. He definitely did change the company and I remember at the time feeling that he handled the change really well, but from where I sat he spent the first part of his tenure evolving Ballmer's final push to move focus from Window…

> Now the company seems fully baked I to LLMs with everything they do chasing that Them along absolutely everyone else . ChatGPT was an iPhone moment.

> ChatGPT was an iPhone moment.

A Blackberry moment, perhaps. There appears to be something there, some groups are latching onto it and deriving value from it, but we haven't yet seen the iPhone come along to transform that initial interest into something that sweeps the world.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#579

Post by dblohm7 »

toyg wrote: post #502
_heimdall wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lately it has definitely felt as though Microsoft is resurrecting Ballmer's old meme as "AI! AI! AI!" I was at Microsoft for the last couple years of Ballmer and the first few years of Nadella. He definitely did change the company and I remember at the time feeling that he handled the change really well, but from where I sat he spent the first part of his tenure evolving Ballmer's final push to move focus from Window…

> Now the company seems fully baked I to LLMs with everything they do chasing that Them along absolutely everyone else . ChatGPT was an iPhone moment.

> Them along absolutely everyone else. ChatGPT was an iPhone moment.

Old guy here, but it feels more like a Netscape moment than an iPhone moment. We'll end up with our pets.com of the LLM age, the whole thing will implode, and the few companies that were actually doing useful stuff with LLMs will survive.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#580

Post by ethbr1 »

71bw wrote: post #375
ethbr1 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between being frugal and being an asshole. If you have enough money that tips are a rounding error for you -- not tipping just makes you an asshole.

It's none of your business to ever tip anywhere UNLESS you explicitly want to thank somebody for their service. How hard is that to understand? It is the workplace's responsibility to pay their staff adequately. NOT YOURS. 0% tip all the way everywhere. No matter if I have $10 or $10k on the bill.

> It is the workplace's responsibility to pay their staff adequately. NOT YOURS.

I don't get this argument, because at the end of the day you're paying both ways.

Either you're paying higher menu prices (because labor costs have increased) or you're paying tips (because labor costs are artificially low and you're supplementing them).

There is no magical "the business pays its employees more, but everything you buy stays the same price."

Especially not with food service margins.

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