
Former Microsoft executive says Ballmer culls internal rivals to retain power - gebe
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/01/22/us-microsoft-book-idUKBRE90L04320130122
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dmk23
I am not sure why this is considered news. Guess just because this guy went on
the record to state the obvious?

Every large company develops internal politics with various degrees of harm to
itself and its performance. If the business is led by a non-founder, non-
technical, non-performing CEO it is a given that he will always feel like an
insecure usurper/impostor more concerned about protecting their job from
rivals than actually leading.

This is yet another data point in support of Andressen Horowitz's thesis about
backing founding CEOs. I might add that's also a strike against promoting a
head of sales to CEO.

~~~
chris_wot
This is not just some sort of non-innovative company well know for it's
vicious internal fighting like EMC. This is Microsoft, an extremely important
and, yes, innovative company.

I think that this really is news - peeling back the covers to see the mess
going on at Microsoft seems to my mind quite interesting.

~~~
tluyben2
You can find/replace Microsoft with Oracle and many other companies though.
Oracle is led by one of the founders and in many ways it's even a bigger mess
there.

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brudgers
Every call for Ballmer's ouster ignores two important points. He is the second
largest shareholder. His college buddy is the largest.

No analyst has clout with the shareholders. Nobody inside does either.

What I see in Sinofsky's departure is a clear signal that the type of politics
which this article assumes to be the proper way of creating succession is
being deprecated within Microsoft. What I mean is that the argument is
premised upon the idea that rivalries at the executive level should be
acceptable.

Just because that is the way most public corporations work, doesn't mean it
ought to be the way. Gates and Ballmer have been running Microsoft for thirty
years. They've got real long term interest in creating a sustainable culture.

~~~
rbanffy
> He is the second largest shareholder. His college buddy is the largest.

Being a college buddy of one of the founders hardly qualifies someone to run a
multibillion dollar company.

~~~
mseebach
It also doesn't disqualify someone. At the end of the day, it's the
shareholders decision.

~~~
rbanffy
No, but it's Ballmer's job to prove himself competent for the job he occupies.
I'd be disappointed if he did that by voting for himself.

~~~
gawker
The company is still afloat and still profitable - he's doing a much better
job than quite a few CEOs out there.

~~~
chongli
Microsoft is losing the new operating system war in a big, BIG way. Just
because the boat is still afloat doesn't mean it's not rotting below the water
line.

~~~
ladzoppelin
I would not be so sure about that. I know a lot of people who like Windows 8
and others eager to get a Windows 8 tablet Pro(Intel). The one OS across
different devices could turn out to be a powerful choice.

~~~
genwin
> I know a lot of people who like Windows 8...

My experience is the opposite. The reaction I see to Win8 is a lot more
negative than the reaction to Vista. They are all power users though, or
former power users considering that none of us can figure out how to do basic
tasks in Win8.

------
codingthebeach
MS revenues have grown by 45 billion dollars under Ballmer
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer>). Without Ballmer .NET would not
have existed and the XBox would not exist as it exists today. I have no great
love for the guy but I've yet to read a convincing argument for his ouster.
Just priggish former executives badmouthing the company that lifted them into
the 1%.

~~~
hkarthik
Saying Ballmer is responsible for the existence of both .NET and Xbox is like
saying Al Gore invented the internet.

There were lots of very smart leaders and engineers involved in the creation
of both of those and their contributions far outweigh Ballmer's decision to
"green light" those projects back in the late 90s.

~~~
nitid_name
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in
creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range
of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic
growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

I don't know, it seems fair to say that the person who made decisions about
the direction of development that fostered the development has a claim on
having caused said development.

~~~
velodrome
I think the question you need to ask is whether the outcome would still be the
same if the "decision maker" did not exist.

It's fair to say that Steve Jobs was a decision maker. Did he not take the
"initiative"? Would Apple exist as it is today without him? Certainly not.

Also, President Bill Clinton ordered Selective Availability for GPS. Basically
allowing for more precise GPS coordinates for civilian use. Do you think this
decision did not help foster the use GPS system in cars?

My point is that decision makers cannot claim FULL credit for the development
of a technology but they can claim credit nonetheless.

------
hzay
This article is a piece of uninteresting, content-free, gossipy garbage and
I'm not sure why it was voted to the front page. This guy doesn't like Ballmer
and he writes a book about it and that's news?

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meaty
Probably throws chairs at them...

To be serious, this is normal in most corporates. It starts when you let the
MBA* with the personality disorder in, you're fucked. I've watched three
companies fall at the hands of such people.

* This is not true of all MBAs, but I seem to see a trend where there are more borderline psychopaths.

~~~
bhousel
Steve Ballmer does not have an MBA.

~~~
meaty
I should have made the more generic point "MBA types" (high business,
executives etc). Not specifically MBAs.

~~~
PeterisP
The vast majority of MBA's are not executives, but work in either mid-
management or finance-specialist jobs (accounting, audit, financing, etc).

Are you sure that MBA-typical people are really what you call "MBA types" ? In
mass media you'd be seeing only a small, very nonrepresentative, very biased
sample of them.

~~~
meaty
Yes entirely. I work in the financial sector and deal with ALL levels of
management that you mention above. In fact, I regularly deal with an
organisation that has 2500 managerial staff.

I've been on the end of management politics for 20 years as well so I know how
it works. I've watched climbers and sinkers and the climbers are ruthless and
have a statistically higher quantity of MBAs between them (it's amazing what
you can suck out of linkedin).

------
chris_wot
There does seem to be a lot of own goals going on at Microsoft at the moment.
But then again, some of the "talent" that has left is still making those own-
goals.

Stephen Elop went to Nokia, and instead of using the one thing that I believe
could have competed in the market - Maemo and then Meego - was dropped in
favour of Microsoft's operating system. That's an own goal, if ever I've seen
one.

So IMO, it's not really just Balmer who is at fault here, there seems to have
been quite a lot of problems with even the executives leaving the company.

~~~
glass-
> instead of using the one thing that I believe could have competed in the
> market - Maemo and then Meego

I owned an N900 and I liked it, because it had a full terminal and could run a
Debian desktop on it if I really wanted to, but normal people don't care about
any of that.

If Nokia had stuck with Maemo and Meego they would be in the same position as
they are now, except their "ecosystem" would have less apps, less Microsoft-
marketing dollars behind it, and Nokia wouldn't be getting $250 million
cheques from Microsoft every quarter.

~~~
chris_wot
I don't consider tightly coupling Nokia with Microsoft a particularly wise
decision.

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f055
Ballmer probably knows it's his last executive position he'll ever get in this
industry. So he's squeezing as much out of it as he can. Or he's just a fanboy
of the "old Microsoft."

~~~
pbateman
His net worth is $15.7 billion[1] so I doubt he's concerned about "squeezing
as much out of it as he can".

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer>

~~~
f055
Good point, but on the other hand rich people have a weird habit of trying to
get even richer. I'm not saying it's wrong btw.

~~~
ianstallings
It's the same drive that everyone has, to progress in their life. They see the
money as a way to count up all their successes. Not an unheard of algorithm.
Not my personal one but not unusual.

------
nanook
In a parallel universe: Gates returns, fires Ballmer and turns MS around.
Reality: He's probably happier solving much bigger problems in the world.

But still, it sucks to see someone drive his company to the ground. Has
Ballmer ever done anything right for Microsoft? I can't think of anything.

~~~
technoslut
He's kept the ship afloat and is good at maximizing profits from MS's
traditional businesses. The problem is that Ballmer isn't the person you need
in a transitional phase for a company.

~~~
bad_user
Gates was that guy.

Remember when they haven't shipped a web browser in Windows 95 and then they
turned around and produced a kickass browser that killed Netscape Navigator?
Or how MS Word took marketshare from WordPerfect like taking candy from a
baby? Or how Win 95 won against IBM's OS/2, even though OS/2 was also binary
compatible with DOS and Win3.11?

~~~
technoslut
Gates used to be that guy. He doesn't care anymore. He's involved in something
greater than even what MS was. Under current conditions, I'm not even sure
that Gates could even do what he once did but he would drive a shot into the
company and the perception of it.

There's no question Gates was as much of a skilled tactician more than a coder
(which he was great at when he did it) but, while I'm sure he still loves MS,
he is a man in the real world looking for a cause to drive him. MS is in the
past.

I can't blame him. A good woman changes you and that's what Melinda did.

------
alisnic
I may be wrong, but I always had the impression on Ballmer as a weird (in a
bad sense weird) and inadequate guy. I also usually give credit to him for all
”WTF MS?” moments.

------
lifeisstillgood
Is Microsoft the last big company? They had to grow to that size to handle the
marketing and distribution globally - their most obvious successor is Google
who operate at a similar reach but something like 1/10 of people

It might be an inevitability - or it might be that giant companies are just of
their time and giant will now be in the thousands not the hundreds of
thousands

Anyway it's not news.

~~~
andyjohnson0
There are many companies that are much larger than Microsoft in terms of
number of employees. Microsoft employs 94,420 people worldwide [1], but by
this measure it isn't even in the top 100 of the Inc 5000 according to [2].

[1] [http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/inside_ms.aspx#Employmen...](http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/inside_ms.aspx#EmploymentInfo)

[2] <http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/top/employee-count>

~~~
arethuza
Probably worth looking at the Fortune Global 500 to see lists of really large
companies:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_Global_500>

e.g. Walmart has 2.2 _million_ employees

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emeidi
Never happened before in any other company.

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George_ns
"They don't need this guy on stage with this fierce, aggressive look" ...yeah
i bet Paul Allen would second that.

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TheLarch
Kempin is of dubious character:

<[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_tri...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_trip_illegally/>);

~~~
TheLarch
Whoops broken linky:

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_tri...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/07/04/ms_execs_hunting_trip_illegally/)

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maked00
Well duh. Find one CEO of any Fortune 500 company who does not.

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guitarhacks
I think this is hillarious, Ballmers best moments.
<http://youtu.be/e8M6S8EKbnU>

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mossplix
CEOs hardly matter in big corporations . I don't see hiring a 35-40 yr old CEO
moving Microsoft in a new direction.

~~~
mossplix
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannirodriguez/2012/08/15/do-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannirodriguez/2012/08/15/do-
ceos-matter-anymore/)

[http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/20/magazines/fortune/stats_CEO_...](http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/20/magazines/fortune/stats_CEO_reading.fortune/index.htm)

for the down votters

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dragansah
That site is awful. Almost all links are broken.

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Tyrant505
M$ is a festering money hub of individuals with indy goals reeking to create
beyond the bounds.

~~~
mynameishere
Goddammit. I accidentally pressed the uparrow on this noise and there's no way
of undoing it. Damn that is a big flaw in this software.

~~~
h2s
Careful now! You wouldn't want to get caught thinking bad thoughts about HN
and get hellbanned to the cornfield! Happy thoughts!

