Did Amazon Induce Vista's Premature Birth?

theodp writes "A recent Amazon SEC filing sheds light on the puzzling departure of Microsoft Sr. VP Brian Valentine in Sept. 2006. Valentine is the Gen. George Patton-like figure charged with pushing Vista developers, who dumped the still not-ready-for-prime-time OS into RC1 status as he bolted for a new gig at Amazon. Having repeatedly assured everyone that Valentine was staying with the company post-Vista, Microsoft backpedaled and explained that Valentine decided to leave since the company had shipped a near-final version of Vista. Not so. Although analysts fell for the PR line, it seems Valentine had actually signed an Employment Agreement way back in June calling for him to be on board at Amazon on Sept. 11 if he wanted to pick up a $1.7M signing bonus, $150K base salary, another $500K bonus, and 400K shares of Amazon stock (now worth almost $30M). Who says you have to shell out $999.95 for MS-Project to come up with accurate planned completion dates?"

Comments

May be the best decision he ever made.

[arizwebfoot]

Can't fault a guy for makin' money.

Re:May be the best decision he ever made.

[AKAImBatman]

It's implied right in the summary. Microsoft didn't want investors to lose confidence in Vista, so they shipped it early to coincide with Valentine's departure. That way it looks like Valentine left because the product was ready rather than leaving because the project was going down the drain.

Think of it this way: What does it say when a coach of a sports team decides to jump ship to another team mid-season?

Maybe the best decision he made... maybe...

[Jack Conrad]

And yes, yes you can fault people for making money.

Amazon made the big mistake here...

[puff3456]

If he is willing to push an unfinished product to market at a huge loss to his company just so that he can leave his current post for a higher paying one, what is to say he won't simply rinse and repeat. People like this are more a liability than an asset.

You miss the point

[EmbeddedJanitor]

People have very short memories. They see the fanfare and forget the 5 year death march.

I've seen this effect before. A manager in a company I worked for was angling for a position in a different business unit in the company. He wanted to show focus, leadership etc so he whitewashed the problems in the project he was directing and pushed for a premature release. He forced design choices that looked OK in the short term (from outside) and ignored the longterm consequences. He got the new job and a big write-up about how he had managed this project so well. Of course the project was flawed, but he did not have to clean up the mess anfd the product got canned a few months later.

Release decisions etc should not be made by exiting managers. They shopuld be made by the new management team that has to keep things going.

Bad title

[t33jster]

If one person leaving company X for company Y and it causes causes company X's bread and butter product to suck, it's not company Y's fault. Company X should have invested in business continuity. BCP is boring, but what if instead of being hired away, he was hit by a bus or (arguably similar to the deal he got at Amazon) wins the lottery? A company 1/10th the size of Microsoft shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket.

May be the best decision he NEVER made.

[infonography]

Hit and run; the consistent meme in corporate strategy. The thing is that he didn't release Vista, just RC1. RC1 isn't the shipping OS. Sounds like someone still at Microsoft is trying to point the blame at someone who left a year before. This isn't Hit and Run, it's Duck and Cover.

Re:150K is not that much

[Shados]

For top notch positions, the yearly salary is just cosmetic. Its not uncommon for high ranked managers and architects to make some silly salary like minimum wadge, but get hundreds over hundreds of thousands in bonus every year. Its a whole different ballbark from the average salaried developer monkey.