
Bold Ambition and Our Core - jdp23
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/ceo/index.html
======
kirinan
After working many corporate jobs over the years, this kind of rhetoric seems
trite and overused. "We are stream-lining our processes and going to empower
our employees to change the world!!!!". So many corporations that fell behind
the trends and are just trying to reinvent themselves to that they can get
back on track use the same words. However, in this case, it seems different.
Microsoft has over the past few months kinda proved that they mean it. Open
sourcing .NET and other technologies, playing nice with many different
startups like Xamarin to help empower and push them forward on their stack. It
really does feel different and for the sake of the technology world, I hope
they do. We need more than 2 giants competing in the consumer market, and we
need people willing to dare to move the needle forward, pushing the bar
everyday. If there is a company with the means and resources to do it, its
Microsoft. I don't work there, but I hope an employee can shed some more light
on the internal changes that are taking place.

~~~
jasode
It may be unfair to Nadella's abilities, but his 3000 word essay reads like
typical techno fluff. This can be a red flag because other innovative CEO's
write in a much more straightforward manner instead of corporate doublespeak:
Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Reed Hastings, Elon Musk.

I read a book[1] about corporate speak and it opened my eyes to the fact that
it's actually the lingua franca of middle managers and not visionary CEOs. I'm
also convinced that practitioners of corporate-speak are truly not self-aware
of how vacuous it sounds.

I wonder if venture capitalists look at corporate-speak from a founder as a
red flag signaling mediocrity.

[1][http://www.amazon.com/Business-People-Speak-Like-
Idiots/prod...](http://www.amazon.com/Business-People-Speak-Like-
Idiots/product-reviews/0743269098)

~~~
danudey
I think that practitioners of corporate-speak are surrounded by so many other
people who corporate-speak that they don't realize how idiotic it sounds to
everyone else. To them, they're normal words that actually mean real things –
because they _are_ normal words that actually mean real things.

I think the real issue it people who use them as buzzwords. They say
'synergize our corporate efficiencies to maximize our value proposition…' in
the same way that someone else might say 'make things better': it conveys
meaning, but only in the most vague and useless of terms instead of going into
specifics.

~~~
o0-0o
That last word really resonates: Specifics.

Why is it so hard for people to boil down their message? Is it fear? Is it
ignorance? Is it lying?

It must be some combination of these for if presented with a life and death
situation I doubt corporate psycho babble would spew forth.

In general, in the words of the late/great Mr. George Carlin, "People tend to
use extra words when they want something to sounds more important than it
really is."

I would encourage everyone at M$, and frankly anyone that hasn't seen it, to
watch George Carlin's bit about the boarding process of airlines. A couple
gems worth note (that could easily be translated to corporate speak):

1\. Please look around your immediate seating area SEAT! 2\. Items you may
have brought on board. Well, I may have brought my tiddly-winks collection,
but I didn't, so I'm not going to look for it!

If I worked at M$, and could roll into work anytime I wanted, take off early
without anyone noticing, two hour lunch breaks, and so on and so forth - I'd
be scared. Layoffs are the next step after letters like these, and you're the
fat.

To sum it up nicely in a way only George could do: "More shit from the bogus
captain!"

------
stiff
So what's the bottom line? They are going to take it to the next level?

Seriously: this is unreadable BS. Quoting Nietzsche and Rilke at the end
seemed almost farcical.

~~~
jimbokun
It was way too long, but I thought this could be Microsoft's rallying cry
going forward:

"We help people get stuff done."

I actually believe this could distinguish Microsoft from the likes of Google,
Apple and Amazon. Google helps you find the information you're looking for.
Apple gives the individual user a great computing experience. Amazon lets you
buy anything at a low price.

But Microsoft is more strongly associated with work than any other software
company in my mind. They should embrace this, and re-envision what it means in
a post-Windows world.

~~~
asakura89
Indeed. When microsoft invented Office, productivity and LOB was their plus
point ever since. Then they push the productivity everywhere with Office365 to
web and mobile. He, Satya, was only helping the company to remember it's core
business line and it's vision. >I actually believe this could distinguish
Microsoft from the likes of Google, Apple and Amazon. I like how they
distinguish themselves from others.

------
aaronbrethorst

        On July 22, we'll announce our earnings
        results for the past quarter and I'll
        say more then on what we are doing in
        FY15 to focus on our core.
    

Ten bucks says there'll be big layoffs. On the plus side of things, I'm
looking at buying a property in Seattle and this should make things just a bit
easier[1].

[1] The incredible influx of new hires at Amazon has made renting generally
_more expensive_ than buying in my neighborhood. Of course, buying sucks too,
as many properties are going for 10+% over list, but I'll be damned if I'm
going to pay $1700 for a 350 square foot studio
([http://www.urbnlivn.com/2014/07/06/sunset-electric-taps-
into...](http://www.urbnlivn.com/2014/07/06/sunset-electric-taps-into-capitol-
hills-energy/)).

~~~
nojvek
Not Really. I work at Microsoft. MS has mountains of cash and they're hiring
like crazy.

I agree Microsoft might not have the sexiest product that make everyone drool,
but they have some products that make a ton of money and not sexy at all. e.g
SQL Server

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I spent four years working on Visual Studio. Your product's management UI is
one of the key things I worked on. You're going to be fine. Your peers in
Bing, MSN or Nokia are not likely to be so lucky.

Also: I bet you ten bucks (USD) that major layoffs are announced by the end of
the month.

~~~
nojvek
Not sure how major, major will be.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I'm hearing numbers ranging from 5-15% of the company. I'd say that a major
layoff is anything as big or bigger than the 2009 layoffs that cut 5,000
people. 5% is about 6,000 people. 15% is about 19,000 people.

------
nmrm
Oh wow, after the first few screens you get an "if I repeat it enough maybe it
will be true?!" feeling :-( Also, this: On July 22, we'll announce our
earnings results for the past quarter and I'll say more then on what we are
doing in FY15 to focus on our core. <screen after screen of corporatespeak>

I wish I cared enough to place a bet that those reports aren't positive...

------
ape4
If everything is cloud and mobile, I hope they don't forget people who want to
user a PC without that. It would be horrible to be required to have a cloud
account to login to my computer.

~~~
kylec
It's not required, but Windows 8.1 pushes you very strongly to log into your
Microsoft account, and to create one if you haven't already. If you don't,
most of the built-in Metro (er, Modern) apps won't work, including some like
Calendar which you'd think shouldn't need it.

Further, if/when you finally break down and sign into your MS account, you
have to use it to sign into your computer from then on, instead of using the
password you set when you created your local user account. So unfortunately,
the scenario you described is pretty much already here for Windows users.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
If Microsoft wants to fix something, fix the thinking behind that.

Microsoft has an awful history of trying to "leverage" assets like Windows to
try to get people to use things like IE or Bing or whatever. But when
Microsoft uses _leverage_ , customers feel _forced_. I don't want Microsoft to
force me to have an online account! I just want to do what I want with my
computer, not what Microsoft wants me to do, and I don't want to have to fight
Microsoft to do it.

I'm tired of having to fight them for control of my computer for the last 15
years. If they want to change, the best change they can make is to change
their attitude about who actually owns my PC.

~~~
lloeki
This time it seems it's the other way around: people are asking for more cloud
and mobile, thereby dragging Windows on PC towards that unified cloud
ecosystem their two leading competitors already have, possibly at the cost of
those not wanting that.

The core of the message is an admission that, while still a massive component
of their business due to sheer inertia, Windows on typical PC hardware is not
what makes Microsoft relevant anymore. IOW Microsoft clearly aims at not
becoming the next IBM.

------
chaostheory
If Xbox is so important, they need to open up its API and app store. It feels
like a dinosaur relic from the last decade.

It's behind Google Play, Amazon and Apple App Stores, and even the Windows App
Store.

~~~
mikelat
They've been trying for the last few years to copy apple's walled garden model
when realistically their greatest strength was the fact that they weren't an
overly restricted platform.

~~~
chaostheory
I'm not talking about Windows. Xbox is different. Xbox has always been a
walled garden. The difference is that Xbox is a lot more exclusive than the
app stores that everyone is now fond of.

------
goodgoblin
props to any CEO who references Rilke in his rally-the-company-speech-that-
gets-forwarded-to-the-world:

'Rainer Maria Rilke's words say it best: "The future enters into us, in order
to transform itself in us, long before it happens.'

~~~
jessaustin
Sounds like a Lady Gaga tattoo to me.

~~~
o0-0o
Sounds like fornication to me.

------
nealabq
My take is that Nadella's Microsoft will push more products that work with
already existing products in a continuing effort to create/enforce a closed
ecosystem. This might be a shift in emphasis for MS, from revenue to user-
experience, but the underlying instinct seems the same as it always was: lock-
in the customers.

And this has proven to be a great money-making strategy in the past. But for
it to work it seems you have to control the dominant platform, and/or have a
few really-great products, and/or have a killer brand. And MS has some of
these: the desktop platform, workplace tools, a pretty-good brand.

But the dominant platform has shifted, the brand is waning, and MS is losing
its lock-in. A truly radical MS strategy would be to build products that
communicate using standard protocols. To build tools that are part of an open
ecosystem. That really would be customer focused.

But it's not gonna happen. It's not a business model MS grew up with. It's not
in their DNA.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Here's the thing: To get to the point where they could start trying to lock
people in, Microsoft _first_ had to build the platform that everybody wanted
to be on. That was 30 years ago, but they knew how to do that, once upon a
time.

 _That 's_ where they need to go now. Not back to locking people in, but back
to building stuff that's so good, everyone wants to use it.

~~~
EdSharkey
Nobody's put more good software into more people's hands than Microsoft. But
since the early 2000's, I feel like they've lost their hardcore productivity
edge. Their software has become this endless march of shiny things and fads. I
rely less and less on their products every day.

The old microsoft that didn't mind being hated was a good thing. They relished
being the target and they drove competition whenever they didn't succeed in
outright squashing it. I can't see how Microsoft can get back to being the big
bad enemy again. Maybe they still are that for folks, I dunno, as a software
guy, I don't feel them in my life and I haven't for years.

------
alaskamiller
Funny how the wheel of time turns.

I grew up with Micro$oft, a dying Apple beset by clones, and an internet that
very few people know about.

Now Apple is one of the most valuable companies on the planet, Microsoft needs
a rallying cry, and everyone thinks they know about the internet.

One thing's for sure, haters back then and still haters now.

------
6d0debc071
Productivity is a bit of an odd duck for Microsoft to focus on. Not that it's
not a worthwhile thing, but there are contradictory demands in that regard
with respect to the expertise of your user. A system that a novice might find
intuitive an expert might find incredibly irksome.

~~~
nealabq
When they say "productivity and platform", I think they mean Office and
Windows. It's probably a code everyone at MS is familiar with.

------
dammitcoetzee
That's the most windows phones I've ever seen in one picture.

------
tathastu
Microsoft: Stop talking, start doing.

~~~
markhelo
Isn't that Home Depot?

~~~
AznHisoka
Or.. Lowe's?

------
jdp23
I wanted to submit the original memo, but unfortunately it's a the same URL
[1] that was used to announce Nadella's appointment as CEO, so already showed
up in another HN story [2]

[1] [http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/ceo/index.html](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/ceo/index.html)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7177388](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7177388)

~~~
skizm
If the content is different enough but the url is the same just tack on a
parameter to the url. Ex:
[http://SomeUrlThatWasAlreadySubmittedBefore.com/?hn=1](http://SomeUrlThatWasAlreadySubmittedBefore.com/?hn=1)

------
ttflee
> First, we will obsess over our customers.

I bet that not every customer of MS wants the mobile-first and cloud-first
experiences. In order to push forward, they have to slam down a lot of
existing models and platforms, e.g., the Windows before 8 and Office before
365, and doing these does not feel painless to MS, IMHO. They must be facing
difficult choices in the years to come.

~~~
rhizome
Does he define who they consider to be a "customer?" This has been a problem
with MS (et al) in the past.

~~~
ttflee
With the bold ambition in the email, I could not possibly imagine it is
defined as a much smaller number of customers than there are today.

------
georgespencer
"Synthesize"

~~~
dictum
More words == more _synergy_.

------
thunderbong
[http://smmry.com/http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/ceo/ind...](http://smmry.com/http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/ceo/index.html#&SM_LENGTH=7)

------
bm1362
I see they're moving in the direction of Amazon regarding company culture,
'First, we will obsess over our customers.'. I wonder if this is due to
companies sharing so many employees over the years.

------
bengali3
pro tip: skip the first 6 paragraphs and read his email To: All Employees

------
dammitcoetzee
calling it: Next significant windows will be windows WX.

------
Thiz
No, fuck you. We don't want you, and the worst nightmare of all for you, we
don't need you, at all.

The world is a better place without microsoft.

Shills can downvote me into oblivion all they want but that doesn't change the
fact that when monopolies don't exist, we vote with our wallets, and both
Apple and Samsung are getting all my money nowadays, Google gets my eyeballs,
Ubuntu gets my love.

Microsoft? my middle finger.

