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Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

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Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#641

Post by kranke155 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #531
kranke155 wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would press X to doubt just because of profitability. It’s cute that we now have image and video gen AI. Also we have now Turing test passing chat bots (Id say). But although they are very impressive, and I know lots of people who use them for various tasks, I haven’t seen a “killer app” yet. For iPhone the killer app was making calls. It was the best phone you could get. Then it had apps. It was undeniably better.…

I agree generally with what you're saying but feel you were all over the place in your comment. The killer app on the iPhone was not "making calls" — I suspect instead it was Safari, the other 1st party apps, the touch screen and the slick integration of all of that to make it a no-brainer device that even my mom and dad could use (they were approaching their 70's when the iPhone debuted). Your analogy that ChatGPT (…

You're right it is a bit all over the place.

"The killer app is making calls" is me quoting Steve Jobs on the Iphone 1 presentation. I get that it doesn't sound true now, knowing all we can do. It's true Iphone was a lot more, but that was his conviction at the time, and I think it makes sense. Their aim was to make the best phone in the world.

I also think yeah, it is a bit like Macintosh in the sense that this is a new general purpose technology, and I'm not sure we've really figured out what's going to the most transformative about it yet.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#642

Post by randomdata »

krisoft wrote: post #637
randomdata wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you talk about athletics? Because that's what the discussion is about...? Did you forget to read the thread? > Could you possibly express your thoughts without putting down others? If words shown on a computer screen are putting you down, it's time to go outside. You've lost your sense of reality.

> Because that's what the discussion is about...? The thread seems to be about how one would manage baristas. It spawned off where lesuorac pointed out that baristas working for a coffe shop are different from athletes in that they are not competing with each other. > Did you forget to read the thread? > You've lost your sense of reality. I guess that’s a no then. I hope you have a good day.

> The thread seems to be about how one would manage baristas.

What gives you that impression? It isn't not about baristas, but namely about a parallel between baristas and athletics. That was the context that was setup at the head of this particular thread branch, and we haven't change the subject (aside from that irrational attempt related to being "put down", whatever that was).

> I guess that’s a no then.

Correct. There is no logical place for pointless emotions here. Save it for human interactions.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#643

Post by godelski »

kubb wrote: post #332
godelski wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone, chill Regardless of how you feel about tipping culture we're not talking about the average person nor are we talking about the average * experience* . The dude is worth north of $100bn, and is making nearly $10k per minute![0]. Someone who cannot spend his wealth. Someone who'd have to spend tens of millions of dollars every single day just to stop his wealth from growing. Someone who makes money faster tha…

One problem with unbounded capitalism is that people can’t understand how big big numbers are. They think of themselves but slightly richer. So of course people should be able to accumulate the wealth of a city or a country, and there’s no negative aspect to that at all. They just worked like we do. And they should get gains on their wealth just like we do for our retirement. There’s no difference except a couple of…

I'm not against "unbounded" capitalism, but certainly there should be things in place that ensure adequate competition is taking place. So I prefer "unfettered". I think this is of special concern given that the Silicon Valley Model is to literally become a monopoly. That's not good for anyone, including the company.

That said, obviously I have some concerns on the billionaire class, especially the hundred billionaires.

  > can’t understand how big big numbers are.
It isn't just this (though it is true[0]), but that money works extremely differently at this scale. Interest is not a rounding error, or something you think about being influential down the line. Passive income is so great that it gets difficult to imagine. There's those sites[1] that have you try to spend a large fortune and they don't even get to the different part. That being that for people like Elon, anything on that list can be bought by a week's worth of... doing nothing. That the passive income is so high that the problem isn't even that you couldn't spend the money if it was not growing, but that it grows so fast that you can't even spend it if you tried really hard. Spending a static billion dollars is incredibly difficult and you have to get creative. But in the real world with interest, it is exponentially more difficult.

I think the best example of this is MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos's ex-wife. She's been spending her money as fast as she can and she "hasn't lost a dime". Forbes had her starting at $36bn and currently has her at $35.6B[2]. In the time since she has divorced Bezos she's given away nearly $17bn. We're talking less than 5 years.... In But there's also a psychological issue I don't get. What is the point of having so much "fuck you money" if you are not going to tell people to fuck off. Certainly they do at times, but often they don't. To have the wealth to do whatever you want, to be unconstrained, unburdened, and to still have anxiety and concern? To be stressed? I can understand that old habits die hard, but they do die.

[0] I started my academic life in physics. We do giant numbers and tiny numbers. I can with great certainty assert that our brains are not made to actualize these numbers. It is amazing that we have the math to work with them but when you stop to compare and it blows your mind. This is not done enough.

[1] https://www.spend-elon-fortune.com/ or articles like this https://youngfinances.com/spend-1-billion-dollars-you-cant-h...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/profile/mackenzie-scott/

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#644

Post by godelski »

kalaksi wrote: post #331
godelski wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone, chill Regardless of how you feel about tipping culture we're not talking about the average person nor are we talking about the average * experience* . The dude is worth north of $100bn, and is making nearly $10k per minute![0]. Someone who cannot spend his wealth. Someone who'd have to spend tens of millions of dollars every single day just to stop his wealth from growing. Someone who makes money faster tha…

That just means that it wasn't about money for him.

Maybe. Or maybe he still lives like he is poor. If he does, or if he lives in any way where he is considering money as meaningful, then he is delusional. The man has so much money he can buy a mega yacht with less than a week's passive income. If money means anything to him, he is does not understand. If he also doesn't see how he can fundamentally change people's lives in a single act that means nothing to him, what does that say? After all, this is a man who could dump a pile of hundred dollar bills on the table every day, at every restaurant and coffee shop he visits and the act is less of a burden to him than it is for us to hold a door open for someone who's an awkward distance away.

Money is a proxy. Did we forget what it was for?

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#645

Post by coretx »

mynameisash wrote: post #577
kristiandupont wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ‘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.

The destructive EEE strategy is replaced by a constructive poisoning the well strategy. That's arguably moral progress while there is no legal or financial incentive to do so. That's praise for Nadella, not Ballmer.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#646

Post by alsetmusic »

xkqd wrote: post #603
alexawarrior4 wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Ballmer-era Microsoft was the inspiration for Amazon's current culture, I see.

This one’s on Jack Welch - a pioneer in short term gain over long term building. You absolutely can juice a company’s performance by going dog-eat-dog, but inevitably when the smoke clears you’re left with jackals and hyenas stretched too thin. Always worth mentioning that this culturally altered America in a way that we’ll probably never unwind.

> Always worth mentioning that this culturally altered America in a way that we’ll probably never unwind.

I think this about a lot of things, such as certain events in politics or generative AI. I'm curious how you apply this to ruthless cutthroat policies at a handful of (admittedly quite large) tech companies?

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#647

Post by RobRivera »

xkqd wrote: post #603
alexawarrior4 wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Ballmer-era Microsoft was the inspiration for Amazon's current culture, I see.

This one’s on Jack Welch - a pioneer in short term gain over long term building. You absolutely can juice a company’s performance by going dog-eat-dog, but inevitably when the smoke clears you’re left with jackals and hyenas stretched too thin. Always worth mentioning that this culturally altered America in a way that we’ll probably never unwind.

Culturally unwinds corporate america.

Go to any family business that scales a niche and you find golf course dealmaking and nepotism humming along with good ole fashion quiet cartel work.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#648

Post by kwere »

maeil wrote: post #426
wkat4242 wrote: post #108

For me it was more his personality that made me dislike him. He acted like a baboon on stage. Nadella is much more composed and seems more intelligent as a result. I don't like that kind of extreme expression and this is important because I wouldn't respect such a leader at work. See also other stuff like the chair-throwing incident of course. Also something I didn't see covered, this was also the dark age where Micr…

> One thing I don't really like about Satya Nadella by the way, his AI strategy is a mess. They're slamming stuff on the market way too quickly (see the recall fiasco) Google did an even worse job in that regard, Gemini's reputation is still greatly tainted in the tech world despite now being competitive with the other frontier models.

Gemini is currently atrocious compared to Chatgpt, they cant even do a good integration with the data they have on other google products like search, maps, youtube, gmail, calendar.

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#649

Post by fsckboy »

psunavy03 wrote: post #627
fsckboy wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"grading on a curve" is a good idea, and if athletics wasn't run that way, nobody would watch. that doesn't mean it's easy to implement, manage, or impossible to game, or that it plays nice wrt human factors, but to attack the core idea as essentially wrong is anti math, science, and rationality. Microsoft always suffered from rewarding egotists and political animals over people who did actual work.

This is ridiculous. You grade people to a standard, not against each other. Stack ranking Jack Welch-style is basically operating under the assumption that if you had Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos on a team, that one of them would have to get a shitty grade and be fired. All it does is make true talent not want to work with other true talent for fear…

>Stack ranking Jack Welch-style is basically operating under the assumption that if you had Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos on a team, that one of them would have to get a shitty grade and be fired.

no, it's not, you are wrong. It is based on the probability that you will not have all those outliers on one team, a probability that is very very high.

also, it's not used for teams of a dozen people where you can easily know everybody personally, it's used for teams of 1000 people, and Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos 'S jobs would all be safe (if they could get along with each other, which they couldn't, there'd be so much backstabbing productivity would grind to a halt :)

Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

#650

Post by DowagerDave »

xkqd wrote: post #603
alexawarrior4 wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Ballmer-era Microsoft was the inspiration for Amazon's current culture, I see.

This one’s on Jack Welch - a pioneer in short term gain over long term building. You absolutely can juice a company’s performance by going dog-eat-dog, but inevitably when the smoke clears you’re left with jackals and hyenas stretched too thin. Always worth mentioning that this culturally altered America in a way that we’ll probably never unwind.

Combined with the massive popularity of private equity in so many business areas now we're unlikely to see 100-year companies again.
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