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Bill Gates' Management Style
replicant108 wrote in to give us Tom Evslin's fascinating account of working for Microsoft in the early 90s. "So you're in there presenting your product plan to billg, steveb, and mikemap. Billg typically has his eyes closed and he's rocking back and forth. He could be asleep; he could be thinking about something else; he could be listening intently to everything you're saying. The trouble is all are possible and you don't know which. Obviously, you have to present as if he were listening intently even though you know he isn't looking at the PowerPoint slides you spent so much time on.
At some point in your presentation billg will say "that's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft." He looks like he means it. However, since you knew he was going to say this, you can't really let it faze you. Moreover, you can't afford to look fazed; remember: he's a bully."
Linux?
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
...And we can be sure he gets to hear a lot of dumb ideas.
But why greenlight them, bill?
you had me at #!
I wouldn't last very long at Microsoft, by the sounds of it.
"that's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft."
And 'Clippy' was a great idea?
Maybe you should've spent less time on the PowerPoint slides and more time thinking about how your idea was going to (figuratively) grab Billg around the throat and shake him until he said, "That's the best idea I've ever heard since I've been here at Microsoft."
I mean, shit, do you really think you're going to impress the CEO of Microsoft with a PowerPoint presentation, of all things?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
After a State Dept. staffer turned in their first report to the big boss, it would frequently come back with a scrawled note indicating it was totally unacceptable, slipshod work, etc. The staffer would go back and spend the next couple weeks furiously researching and revising before submitting a completely rewritten draft. Back would come the comment that it was "not good enough -- should be much more thorough". After another three weeks of research, the staffer would add a cover letter to the latest rewrite begging the boss to specify where the report fell short, since the staffer had now spent practically all of their waking hours over the past two months working on it, etc.
"In that case", Kissinger would say, "I'll read it".
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
This is usually the problem within any organization - people with good ideas but bad presentation skills can either develop the ideas and ask forgiveness later or forget about the whole idea unless they can get the idea to someone that's a good presenter.
It will be far better management style to actually give constructive criticism, but that is also a lot harder.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
msshill: "So Bill, this world wide web thing is really starting to take off in the academic world. I think it's time we started making our own browser and include it with all installs of Windows."
billg: "That's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft."
Yep, sounds about right...
This guy's the limit!
Reminded me of Joel on Software's first BillG review and how he handled it.
But not everyone can be a champion. You have to have followers to have leaders. Just because you are a follower doesn't mean you aren't smart, or not worthy of working on X project. You know what happens to corps where the leader/follower ratio is skewed? DOWNSIZING.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
"And Bill Gates isn't even the CEO of Microsoft anymore. He is the chairman."
I thought steve ("I'll fucking bury them") is the "chair-man" ...
Bill Gates' dad is a lawyer. He came from a family where "cross-examination" in a legal sense probably went on from time to time (i.e. questioning a hostile witness). It sounds like he was inculcated with the culture.
Also, when dealing with judges, particularly when the witnesses or jury are out of the room, lawyers can face something that can be pretty similar to what was described here. So, ok, it's hard on the computer scientists, but welcome to what lawyers get to deal with all the time. It's an accepted practice.
Long and short of it--make sure your thinking is done BEFORE you present. Otherwise, as is to be expected, you're toast, whether the "toasting" is done by the CEO or a judge.
True enough. Though if you found this article interesting, you should try reading Barbarians Led by Bill Gates. It's an insider's perspective on the going-ons inside of Microsoft in the early days. It's especially freaky to learn that they started coding much of Windows in BASIC. (Which I suppose comes as no surprise given that the Microsoft of the time was known as "the BASIC company".) Just like in this article, Gates was described as the King of the Hill with whom very few of the developers wanted to tangle.
:-P
A particularly amusing anecdote was when the author was working on a clock application for Windows. He found the BASIC flood-fill routine to be buggy and quite poor, and set about to rewrite it. He then headed for Gates' office to tell him that he wanted to replace the existing flood-fill routine "because it was crap". (Or something to that effect.) Some of his coworkers tried to warn him off, but he headed straight in and showed off his work to Gates. After forcefully championing his work to Gates, Gates agreed to allow the fix. As he came out of Gates' office beaming, one of the coworkers said to him, "You know who wrote the original flood-fill routine, don't you?"
Yep, it was Gates. And the author had just told him that his code was crap to his face. Doh!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Only, being naive and not realising this was just challenge #101, I left, joined a small company which just grew and grew, then left after a difference of opinion with the CEO, then joined a startup which just grew and grew. Interestingly, our CEO is able to motivate people without a single swearword.
It's nice for Microsoft that it is so big and all, but (as Scott Adams notes somewhere, I think) all the really smart people prefer to live in Switzerland as compared to the US, i.e. to live somewhere where even politics is truly local and individualism is valued versus somewhere where the driving forces in society are completely out of your control and individualism is just having a different alignment of ballpoints in the pocket protector.
It must have been really exciting and creative to work for Microsoft - once. Perhaps some of the pent up anger in the founders, if it is reported accurately, is simply because, even for them, it's no fun anymore.
Pining for the fjords
There's a distinct difference between expecting someone to champion their project and being a bully and abusing them verbally. Telling every person that their project idea is "the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft." is just being downright mean. Especially when you just glare at them coldly after they defend themselves (as the article points out).
And then you get people who'll imitate the behavior without the smarts to back it up, so it becomes nothing BUT abuse. (Middle management for example.) I think Bill's management technique explains a lot about Microsoft's behavior over the years and why they're so disliked in the technical community. In fact looking back at how MS acted during their two biggest trials (the US anti-trust and EU anti-trust) you can see this "bullying" all over the place. Acting like a bully when you're the defendant in court is not a good idea. It'll just piss the judge (and possibly the jury) off, and they're the ones passing judgment on you.
Besides, it's not like this technique has worked incredibly well for MS, especially in areas like security. MS has also put out some really lousy stuff over the years, like MS Bob, that were apparently "championed" all the way to release, then bombed. Maybe if Bill had developed a culture less focused on bullying they could have avoided some of those things, and saved money. When you force every one of your employees to defend their projects in such a manner then how many are going to be willing to listen when people point out problems with them? You can't have any second doubts if you have to defend your projects constantly, so people will stop listening to any criticism, leading to lower quality all around.
It's a pretty common tactics to throw your presenter off guards. Some people use this as a way to gauge the competency of the presenter. I know one university professor who is famous (or notorious, depends on your perspective) for using this tactics.
Read TFA. "That meant that I and the other product managers...". Not everyone has to walk into a meeting like this with billg and stand this trial by fire. If you're a product manager, you should be the ultimate champion of your product.
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." --Bertrand Russell
melindaf: So I've got this great idea, it's this little smiley face that helps you manage your tasks and do your work!
...
billg: That's the dumbest-
melindaf: You want some tonight or not?
billg:
melindaf: How about we call it Bob.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
It was a test. And you failed. All of us.
Like I was telling my daughter yesterday, the appropriate thing to do when you meet such a person is to drill them in the nose with your knuckles as hard as you can, unless they outweigh you by a significant margin, in which case you should hit them with a chair until they crumple to the ground.
This is how you deal with bullies.
You certainly don't turn yourself one after another into his bitch and make him rich as reward for his antisocial behavior.
I bet Bill wears an "Everything I needed to take over the world, I learned from the bully in kindergarten" T-shirt to bed as a nightie.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Don't let me get in the way of everyone's dogmatic Gates-hate, but Linus Torvalds operates in a similar way.
"I'm always right. This time I'm just even more right than usual." Torvalds, Linus (2005-07-14). Message to linux-kernel mailing list. Retrieved on 2006-08-28.
"If you still don't like it, that's ok: that's why I'm boss. I simply know better than you do." Torvalds, Linus (1996-07-22). Post to comp.os.linux.advocacy newsgroup. Retrieved on 2006-08-28.
That's all, return to your ranting.
I've never understood why people don't just leave in workplaces like that. It' s not like you have some good reason for company loyalty if the management is indeed a bunch of irrational fucktards. Don't just quietly leave, explain clearly why you are leaving. You like the job and the pay is fine, but there is too much internal bullshit to make the job worthwhile. When Billg says "That's the dumbest idea I've heard ..." respond by saying "You are wrong, it is an excellent idea. Your criticism is niether constructive, nor professional. I will be taking my ideas elsewhere." Then immediately leave the room, perhaps the building. So before you present your idea to Billg you should look for a new job. Hopefully you won't need the new job if Billg actually does see the value of you idea, but much more importantly he will also have to acknowledge the value of you. Sure, he still might want you to prove your idea to him, but Bill Gates is smart enough to be able to come up with insightful questions without being rude. I can only imagine this technique is an artifact of Bill Gates being, on some level, scared shitless of the size and responsiblity that MS has become. It's a "trick" that might work with some reliablity, but it's something he should have outgrown long ago. Management can only treat employees like shit when we let them, they need us at least as much as we need them. Following these princples I've doubled my income (and respect from managment)in the last three years. No, not all of this happen with one employer. I did have to walk away from one stable, but poor quality of life, job.
We are all just people.
billg: "that's the dumbest fucking idea i've heard..."
presenter: "this is madness!"
billg: "THIS IS MICROSOFT!!!" *looks at steveb and points to a chair*
Melinda French was the product unit manager for Bob, Publisher, Encarta, and other "user-friendly" products. The project leader for Bob was apparently Karen Fries, and a quick search indicates a lot of research into things like "anthropomorphic" software, so it most likely was Karen Fries' idea.
That story of the Flood-fill rewrite makes Billg sound like a great manager. So does being the richest guy in the world...
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
This parable illustrates how personal defects get in the way of quality. If the code is crap, the code is crap, no matter who wrote it. If politics or sensitive egos block improvements, quality suffers. Compare EgolessProgramming.
This "my code is perfect" attitude is alive and well. A friend of mine started a new job recently and found that his boss:
you had me at #!
"And the soldier had just told him that torture was against Western values to his face. Doh!
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Let me guess - that's the dumbest f***ing icon you've seen in all your time on Slashdot?
It's not just mean; it's stupid. (And not just because being mean to people when you don't have to is stupid, although that's also true.) Kind of a "boy who cried wolf" thing -- if your boss tells you every single thing you come up with is stupid, sooner or later you're going to stop paying attention to his judgement at all, and just go ahead and do your own thing regardless of what he says. OTOH, if he tells you that your smart ideas are smart, then when he tells you that one of your ideas is stupid, you'll pay attention.
... and also the general bug-ridden bloat of pretty much all their software, even the stuff that (unlike Bob) succeeds on the market. If no one has any yardstick by which to judge their work, then course most of their work is going to be crap.
Yes, I think this explains Microsoft's behavior in court
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
When billg says, "That's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft," what you should reply is, "Bullshit, how could it be any dumber than a talking paper clip?"
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
There's a world of difference between telling everyone that their idea is "the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft." and testing potential hires on how they'd fine-tune a bubble sort. One's belittling and demeaning along with being untrue (and known to be untrue by the person saying it) most of the time. (You simply can't say this and it be true every time, also it's not just saying it's a bad idea, but the worst idea he's ever heard, making it much more difficult for the statement to be true.) The other one is seeing how creative someone is technically. In Google's case they're using this to judge the quality of potential employees before deciding whether to hire them or not. They're not alone in testing potential hires in such a manner, although they do seem to go above and beyond what most companies do.
As far as adapting, Google seems to adapt better than Microsoft, at least so far. MS tends to ignore certain markets/new directions until it's completely obvious they were wrong and missed the boat. (The infamous move to go after the Internet is one good example of this.) MS also seems to be better at following others than leading, for example in Internet search and online advertising most recently. This is not to say that MS isn't ever innovative (I think their Live service for Xbox has been innovative at least in some areas), but that that they seem to follow other's innovations more than they innovate themselves. Google has a big advantage for adapting because of their letting employees spend 20% of their time on personal projects. When those projects become useful they can be launched as a company project/product and more people assigned to them. That allows them to try out tons of different directions continually. Also they keep improving their products and do so at a quicker rate than MS does, although MS is more hampered with their traditional release cycle for products like Office and Windows. Gmail is a good example there, new features still get added even though it's no longer considered beta, and the product today is far more useful than it was at launch.
As far as Google Apps goes the whole point is that it's an online app, I wouldn't expect to see an offline component anytime soon. I do expect to see them offer servers that you can run on your local LAN/WAN with versions of Google Apps on them that'll address some of the concerns about losing access to the apps if your Internet connection goes down. You can get a local search appliance now, so I think it's just a matter of time. I suspect they've not worked out all the details yet on how they'll maintain those Apps Appliances and keep them updated and that's why they aren't offering them already.
Forget it. The chair would get to within a foot of Bill's nose before being parried by Darth Balmer's lighting counterstrike. Bill would then begin a wide gaped laughing as their pair of you batter each other back and forth across the meeting room to a backdrop of animated powerpoint slides and starfield screensavers.
Two important facts stand against you
1) Balmer is not related to you
2) There are no impossibly deep shafts nearby.
Even if your friends managed to get the firewalls down, how are they going to get all the way into the heart of Redmond campus to save your fallen ass? You gave into your anger. Such is the reward of the dark side.
May the Maths Be with you!
I'm not so sure about #1. He did suggest using a chair as a weapon...
"French" and "Fries" worked together? Who knew?
>> Exchange Server did more to make email a reality for corporates than any other product.
Not at all.
Many companies had unix-based email WAAY before Exchange even came out. Then when it did, some non-technical higher-up usually decides the company should 'upgrade' to Microsoft exchange.
I've been at several companies where exactly this happened and exactly the same result too: Before the upgrade, we had an email system that just worked, and never needed any maintenance. After we switched, we needed to hire a whole office of support staff to deal with the day-to-day issues of ongoing Exchange problems.
I'm always surprised how long its taken them to come round to moving back to Unix/Linux solutions, but they all did in the end.
To one degree or another and how choose to interpret things, you just described just about everyone in society.
American society maybe. America definitely is a fear-driven society. But there are other ways to live. Unfortunately, many politicians in Europe now also choose to frighten and bully their people. No wonder terrorist threats are up.
-- Cheers!