This is the same guy that forced XBOX to increase profit margins to 30% and therefore destroyed any hope that Xbox would be a legitimate choice for gamers going forward.
This is the same guy that shoved AI down the throats of millions of Windows users that forced me to just turn off Windows updates and add bazzite in dual boot.
I remember a long time ago I was talking to an executive that worked at a startup that was eventually acquired by Cisco. After the acquisition, the executive team got coaches to train them to be "inspirational" leaders. One thing that was common was adding a quote from say Marcus Arelius in the signature of their emails to make them sound wiser.
We need to stop this hero worship. Microsoft built a moat, and capitalized on it. They used their connections to block others from coming into the fray.
I don't care what their theory of success is, their definition is cancerous; a malignant one.
Some of that is extremely bad advice and explains why MS is in the pickle it’s in.
“Don’t come whining that you don’t have the resources you need. We’ve done our homework. We’ve evaluated the portfolio, considered the opportunities and allocated our available resources to those opportunities. That is what you have to work with.”
Right out of the gate they’re telling you that your judgment is irrelevant to the scope of the problem. Immediately the chances of success are reduced quite a bit because the SME is not trusted to help craft the terms of engagement. If you aren’t at the table to help draft the terms of engagement, to help define the scope and to help define the resources needed, you’re always going to be working from someone else’s plan. Success is defined by not by your ability to execute, but someone else’s ability to plan. They’re telling you that you may be the SME, but they’re the ones who will be making the judgement calls. Politics has risen above engineering and above business strategy.
“You only have 2 controls: 1) The clarity, culture, and energy you give your teams ; and 2) Resource allocation .”
Except we’ve determined you don’t get much of a say in resource allocation, they’ve allocated the resources you get. If you determine the way to win with the plan you were given is to change that, you have to convince other people why their planning was wrong, and that’s rarely easy.
And you, as a leader, have far more than “clarity, culture, and energy”, too.
This shows that some of the major flaws that drove me out of a cushy role in MS in 2004 are still there today. I think Nadella is a better leader than Ballmer in knowing how to respond to markets, but this speech explains to me with crystal clarity why the AI push has gone so poorly. They think they can still dictate the terms of engagement with the market.
Anyone could solve every problem in the world, if only they had the resources. However, it's also an extremely convenient and versatile excuse. I think removing this excuse is more important than any downside you mention.
At my company I see people hiding behind the "I don't have the resources" excuse literally several times a day.
Nadella and Microsoft are both clowns. His enduring legacy will be fumbling the window Microsoft had two years ago to catapult itself into AI-assisted search and Microsoft was primed to be at the front.
Today? All anybody except for Microsoft’s C suite execs want Copilot to do is turn itself off.
He’s an idiot. Ballmer 2.0, except even Ballmer got some cloud stuff right.
I've watched it happen at two orgs now. Lay off 500 people because you fucked the company for 2 years then congratulate each other for making the decision to write off all the accumulated debt by getting rid of all operating costs. Then come up with some new bullshit vision. Rinse, repeat while extracting wealth from gullible investors and treating staff as expendable.
> Achieving the Senior Executive status is often mistaken for a comfortable reward, a final destination with enhanced perks and support. A more fitting analogy is reaching the NFL Super Bowl. You are now part of an elite team where nothing less than peak performance is acceptable. As the Navy SEALs put it...
I'm sure Microsoft is and has been host to some incredibly smart technologists and designers over the years, OP included.
But this only serves to reduce my confidence that much more in the ELTs which have sired the modern incoherent shiny-object-obsessed ecosystem that is Windows and MS at large.
I trust this is getting attention and votes for the same reason I'm paying attention here -- to highlight the absolute mediocrity and blah-ness of this whole thing.
Like this was some deep insightful journey and not your entirely typical cheerleader corpo-speak.
Yeah valuations are up but the business and products are looking progressively more fucked every month. If there's anything I've seen it's there are barely any people without macbooks coming out of university now and they are the next wave of influence over the whole sector. No one in the sector wants half the stuff that changes - they just want it to work and stay working. No longer a guarantee. Literally there are teams of people all over the planet all trying to simultaneously unfuck Satya's entire vision to keep their businesses from going down the toilet.
That is not someone you should not take advice from.
> Revolting sycophancy is not a good sign for the leadership culture.
IME, it's the status quo. We all would do well to keep that in mind whenever we read something they write, listen to an interview or speech they give, or get their "wisdom" repeated to us second- or third-hand.
Satya has succeeded greatly in transitioning Microsoft to the cloud and open source coexistence. These successes alone make him one of Microsoft’s great leaders.
Satya has also completely fucked Windows and has been unable/unwilling/uninterested in making it a product that people love. Satya has led to people hating Windows.
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This is the same guy that forced XBOX to increase profit margins to 30% and therefore destroyed any hope that Xbox would be a legitimate choice for gamers going forward.
This is the same guy that shoved AI down the throats of millions of Windows users that forced me to just turn off Windows updates and add bazzite in dual boot.
I remember a long time ago I was talking to an executive that worked at a startup that was eventually acquired by Cisco. After the acquisition, the executive team got coaches to train them to be "inspirational" leaders. One thing that was common was adding a quote from say Marcus Arelius in the signature of their emails to make them sound wiser.
We need to stop this hero worship. Microsoft built a moat, and capitalized on it. They used their connections to block others from coming into the fray.
I don't care what their theory of success is, their definition is cancerous; a malignant one.
I'm no MS lover, but this is the same guy that increased the MS share price tenfold.
Well, this is a good example of "Shareholder value != customer value".
Finish your thought. MS share price tenfold - what do you conclude from what? What did you want to say?
Pretty much all of the major tech stocks have risen by 10x since 2014.
Is it a software and infrastructure company or an investment scam?
Same guy who touted Microsoft's progress on climate goals, then went all-in on AI.
Some of that is extremely bad advice and explains why MS is in the pickle it’s in.
“Don’t come whining that you don’t have the resources you need. We’ve done our homework. We’ve evaluated the portfolio, considered the opportunities and allocated our available resources to those opportunities. That is what you have to work with.”
Right out of the gate they’re telling you that your judgment is irrelevant to the scope of the problem. Immediately the chances of success are reduced quite a bit because the SME is not trusted to help craft the terms of engagement. If you aren’t at the table to help draft the terms of engagement, to help define the scope and to help define the resources needed, you’re always going to be working from someone else’s plan. Success is defined by not by your ability to execute, but someone else’s ability to plan. They’re telling you that you may be the SME, but they’re the ones who will be making the judgement calls. Politics has risen above engineering and above business strategy.
“You only have 2 controls: 1) The clarity, culture, and energy you give your teams ; and 2) Resource allocation .”
Except we’ve determined you don’t get much of a say in resource allocation, they’ve allocated the resources you get. If you determine the way to win with the plan you were given is to change that, you have to convince other people why their planning was wrong, and that’s rarely easy.
And you, as a leader, have far more than “clarity, culture, and energy”, too.
This shows that some of the major flaws that drove me out of a cushy role in MS in 2004 are still there today. I think Nadella is a better leader than Ballmer in knowing how to respond to markets, but this speech explains to me with crystal clarity why the AI push has gone so poorly. They think they can still dictate the terms of engagement with the market.
> you don’t get much of a say in resource allocation, they’ve allocated the resources you get
..and your job is to allocate the resources you have been given.
I completely disagree with you.
Anyone could solve every problem in the world, if only they had the resources. However, it's also an extremely convenient and versatile excuse. I think removing this excuse is more important than any downside you mention.
At my company I see people hiding behind the "I don't have the resources" excuse literally several times a day.
I'd like to thank and applaud Satya for finally ushering in the year of the Linux desktop.
Nadella and Microsoft are both clowns. His enduring legacy will be fumbling the window Microsoft had two years ago to catapult itself into AI-assisted search and Microsoft was primed to be at the front.
Today? All anybody except for Microsoft’s C suite execs want Copilot to do is turn itself off.
He’s an idiot. Ballmer 2.0, except even Ballmer got some cloud stuff right.
I've always thought c suites probably give each other applause and tell each other how great they are. Now I know it's true.
I've watched it happen at two orgs now. Lay off 500 people because you fucked the company for 2 years then congratulate each other for making the decision to write off all the accumulated debt by getting rid of all operating costs. Then come up with some new bullshit vision. Rinse, repeat while extracting wealth from gullible investors and treating staff as expendable.
> Achieving the Senior Executive status is often mistaken for a comfortable reward, a final destination with enhanced perks and support. A more fitting analogy is reaching the NFL Super Bowl. You are now part of an elite team where nothing less than peak performance is acceptable. As the Navy SEALs put it...
I can't believe anyone actually wrote this.
In my experience, so many execs love their sportsball and war metaphors.
I'm sure Microsoft is and has been host to some incredibly smart technologists and designers over the years, OP included.
But this only serves to reduce my confidence that much more in the ELTs which have sired the modern incoherent shiny-object-obsessed ecosystem that is Windows and MS at large.
I trust this is getting attention and votes for the same reason I'm paying attention here -- to highlight the absolute mediocrity and blah-ness of this whole thing.
Like this was some deep insightful journey and not your entirely typical cheerleader corpo-speak.
The speech is great and all but cmon, don't tell me that Microsoft is "delivering outsized success".
Have you seen the recent windows update bugs, the enshitification of office, recall, bing, etc..
I don't know who else to blame but Nadella for all of that.
Seems more like the guy would be a great politician, great speech to inspire fresh employee, but delivers nothing in reality.
Yeah valuations are up but the business and products are looking progressively more fucked every month. If there's anything I've seen it's there are barely any people without macbooks coming out of university now and they are the next wave of influence over the whole sector. No one in the sector wants half the stuff that changes - they just want it to work and stay working. No longer a guarantee. Literally there are teams of people all over the planet all trying to simultaneously unfuck Satya's entire vision to keep their businesses from going down the toilet.
That is not someone you should not take advice from.
How can anyone look at Microsoft’s products and consider their leadership to be good?
Literally the only metric that’s been good has been market cap, but that will not last forever if they continue with their current trajectory.
> Every single line, every sentence, every phrase contained within Satya’s speech is a critical lesson, a foundational principle, and vital insight.
Revolting sycophancy is not a good sign for the leadership culture.
Maybe this is why execs love LLMs a little too much? It's probably not unconnected at the very least.
> Revolting sycophancy is not a good sign for the leadership culture.
You seem to think this guy is going to go ask Nadella "hey, did you read my blog post?"
> Revolting sycophancy is not a good sign for the leadership culture.
IME, it's the status quo. We all would do well to keep that in mind whenever we read something they write, listen to an interview or speech they give, or get their "wisdom" repeated to us second- or third-hand.
Is this not satire?
Satya has succeeded greatly in transitioning Microsoft to the cloud and open source coexistence. These successes alone make him one of Microsoft’s great leaders.
Satya has also completely fucked Windows and has been unable/unwilling/uninterested in making it a product that people love. Satya has led to people hating Windows.
Flagged, this slop doesn't belong here.
This comment makes no sense. Flagged? Seriously?
If you feel that a low-effort content-free article that is either AI slop or indistinguishable from it doesn't meet the criteria for a good HN article, you can flag it for deprecation from the front page.
Another useful HN feature is the ability to leave comments to gauge (or influence) other users' opinions, as you've done yourself.
Any other questions?
> Satya was not giving us a pep talk, he was giving us an architecture for success.
His ass was a bit hairy, but damn, it was sweet. /s
Man I thought some teenage girl was fawning over her crush.
I sure don't want to be led by these little girls.