
Ask HN: If you were CEO of Microsoft what would you do different? - andrewstuart
What would have done differently and, in your opinion, better than Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates and Satya Nadella?
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higherpurpose
Higher focus on security and privacy, much less "friendlier" relationship with
intelligence agencies, ending the extortion of other companies by abusing a
broken patent system.

Google gets all the crap about violating privacy or "going too far" (for good
reason, though) but Microsoft somehow manages to do much of the same if not
worse, and nobody seems to notice. Read between the lines what they are doing
with Cortana on Windows for instance. Last I checked in the preview you
couldn't even _turn off_ sending your _local_ searches to Microsoft's servers
_without having a Microsoft account_ (so much worse than the Ubuntu/Amazon
privacy scandal - but... _crickets_ ).

Also, I don't think they've removed the part in the Windows 10 privacy policy
that says they can log all your key strokes, and my guess is they will leave
it in for the official version of Windows 10, too, hoping everyone will have
forgotten about it. There are also many other ways in which Microsoft secretly
(as in 99.9% of the users have no idea it's happening) sends data to its
servers, even on current versions of Windows.

~~~
jimbobrink
How would you bring in the next billion dollars?

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tdyen
Id implement a policy of no evil. It would be hard and painful but it would
pay off. Geez even Bill Gates can turn around his image by giving to charity.
Microsoft need to do the IT version of philanthropy. Their single biggest
problem is their image and reputation and Im largely a MS fanboy. Good
products by MS dont get taken up because of it. Live was good but died. They
cant partner with anyone cos no one trusts them anymore. It must be a paranoid
atmosphere in Redmond.

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hoodoof
I would have gotten rid of the registry in Windows.

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philippnagel
Nice try, Satya.

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MichaelCrawford
i would give my workers a decent lunchroom. when i worked there all i could
eat was macaroni and cheese.

