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Microsoft's 'Cannibalistic Culture'
theodp writes "In the provocatively titled Microsoft's Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant, Vanity Fair offers a teaser for a story that will appear in its August issue on Microsoft's Lost Decade, which promises an unprecedented view of life inside Microsoft during the reign of Steve Ballmer. 'Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed — every one — cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,' contributing editor Karl Eichenwald writes. 'If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review,' says a former software developer. 'It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.' Also discussed is the company's loyalty to Windows and Office, which induced a myopia that repeatedly kept Microsoft from jumping on emerging technologies like e-readers and other technology that was effective for consumers. Having seen an advance copy of the full piece, GeekWire offers its take on what it calls an 'epic, accurate and not entirely fair' tale."
Yeah Microsoft will be like all those big brands like Nokia and Kodak and live on forever.
Oh, "Downfall" is more accurate than you think. Microsoft won't last unless it changes significantly. There are several things working against it: Programmers hate Microsoft. Every university, every professor, everyone works on a unix-based system. This leads them to Linux/Unix. Ballmer then slams those and calls them parasistes (look up his views on the GPL). So where do these really talented programmers go? Unless they can't help it, not Microsoft! So now you have unskilled workers. The best go to Google, then facebook, then amazon, then startups, etc, and Microsoft gets whatever is left. Is it any wonder their technology isn't as good as Google's? It's gotten so bad that even their own employees notice. Do you know what a Microsoft employee uses at home? Linux/Mac. Do you know what they use to listen to music? Maybe a Window's Phone but just as likely an iPhone. What do they read their books on? iPads. How do they send their personal emails? Gmail. An employee at Google would take a bullet for the company. An employee at Microsoft is wondering how long until the next iPad comes out. This might not be a completely fair review on my part, but it sums up my views. And the way I see it, a company like this just CAN'T compete with the rest. The only thing they have going for them is that mixture of Steve Ballmer's bottomless money bag and the fact that the average computer user will just use whatever OS comes with their box and that's going to be Windows. But that's not a solid business plan and they need to change.
Mostly, stack ranking makes employees focus on butt kissing. Reviews are subjective so the manager's favorites get the good ranking regardless of actual performance or value to the company.
Law schools grade this way. It simply adds a very real incentive to undermine those in your group.
And that one fact explains so much about Western culture today that it's scary.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
This is the first time I've heard of stack ranking (you can tell I haven't worked in a corporate environment) and it strikes me as the most stupid, ineffective, counterproductive load of nonsense I have ever heard.
It is instantly obvious that it's a shit idea when you realise that you are obligated to have a set number of results at each grade level, so it will fail the minute you get a team that doesn't fit that perfect theoretical curve (many more good than bad, or all bad etc).
"Seven of you scored well enough to get the top grade, but I'm only allowed to give out 3 top grades, so I randomly picked those top three or simply chose the best ass kissers"
The four who don't get it are now disgruntled and lose motivation, and perhaps start looking for somewhere that appreciates them.
I can't believe this utterly retarded system got past the "throw us a crazy idea!" stage at a management meeting. Oh, management... of course. All is explained.
Yeah it would be more accurate to say "Microsoft's Stagnation". They were the #1 desktop/laptop OS in the 90s and still are today. The problem is that they didn't expand beyond that paradigm, and missed the boat on the cellphone and MP3 player OSes (currently dominated by Google and Apple respectively).
Oh well. BTW Microsoft has never been an innovative company. Never. They won the PC-DOS contract in 1981, overlaid it with Windows GUI 4 years later, and that was about it. It was other companies like Atari, Commodore, and Apple that were doing the innovating..... constantly pressing forward with new ideas like music-quality sound, video-quality graphics, multitasking, mouse-based interfaces, and portable computers. MS just say by and watched.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Now imagine the lowest two of your ten people team just left. Who would you want as replacement? Certainly not anybody who is better than you at their job.
Your odds of surviving thirty years of this is approximately zero. Everybody has an off year eventually. Once people realize that, their commitment also goes to zero.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
That joke keeps getting told, and it has been a fair jab so far. It also is not entirely impossible. 2013? Probably not. 2014? Maybe. Android is advancing fast. On average Google is releasing 2 versions of Android per year. Tablets are already powerful enough to run 90% of the software that 90% of the users need. When Google decides to release a version of Android that works as a desktop, Linux will be showing up on a lot of desktops.
If you will accept the dropping of the word "desktop", we are already way past the 'Year of Linux'. Most people have more Linux devices in their homes than Windows devices.
I find the whole process of stack racking fascinating in a Machiavellian point of way. It really points to incompetent management who have no idea how to motivate staff, how to create effective productive teams and of course how to create a healthy working environment. Basically it screams we have no idea what we are doing so we are going to introduce dog eat dog, into the work environment and let itself sort itself out and blame everything on middle management and take credit for any success.
I would look at stack racking in employee evaluation as a solid indication that a company has psychopathic corporate executives in charge. They enjoy the carnage that results, they revel in the benefits of favouritism, include gifts and sexual favours, the enjoy the ego boost of being able to destroy more competent people and they thrive in the hostile environment created. Insane people driving insanity in order to make themselves appear normal. This certainly explain a lot about M$'s failures in new product lines. No one willing to take risks, top to bottom favouritism and ensure the job permanence of current graders. A top to bottom scheme to ensure the survival of Ballmer and nothing else.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Most companies would beg to have 1/100th of Microsoft's revenue stream, and that revenue stream isn't going anywhere fast. If MS fails absolutely everything, it will still be 20 years before it's actually losing money.
There is no other tech company even a quarter as secure as MS. Apple is exciting, but it's a consumer electronics company now, and their longevity is.... questionable. Apple's been able to throw many cards in the air and have them all turn into aces, and I am in awe of them, but a few big missteps and Apple's 1/10th its current size.
Windows and Office, on the other hand, are a license to print a steady stream of money. Not stock-market exciting because revenues aren't doubling every year, but rock steady.
I'd buy MS an income trust, no problem. It just needs to realize it's Exxon, not Apple.