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Amazing how wrong Paul Graham was on this despite claiming to be an expert in tech companies.

ksec 2y ago
I am not sure if he is wrong. Or are you implying PG is wrong just because of the headline and not the content?
kif 2y ago
It's almost as if we shouldn't treat their words as gospel. By them I mean people who were in the right place at the right time and had the right amount of luck, which is what success looks like usually.
- localfirst 2y ago
  Typical cargo cult behaviour: People here idolize him and associates because they think it increases the chances of selling their company for billions of dollars one day.
Ygg2 2y ago
To be fair to Paul, Microsoft does seem to be a zombie like company, at least the Desktop division.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  That is because Azure, XBox, Microsoft 365, Github are pumping money. Money that lands on Rust Foundation, Python, Go, Linux, FreeBSD, Java, VSCode.
- dartos 2y ago
  It’s a holdings company. The end state for all big tech.
- xcv123 2y ago
  Microsoft earned $22B net profit in the past quarter alone, and their debt is only $40B. That's not a zombie company.
  - Ygg2 2y ago
    Sure but it feels it's in same place IBM was 20 years ago.
    - TeaBrain 2y ago
      In what way? IBM wasn't prominent in as many areas 20 years ago as Microsoft is today. Today Microsoft has the leading business social media platform with linkedin, owns a leading consumer git platform with github, has a growing share of the enterprise cloud market with azure, now owns several of the most recognized game publishers with their acquisition of Activision and Bethesda, develops two of the top 10 most used programming languages with TypeScript and C#, and still has the leading os.
    - xcv123 2y ago
      "Feels"? What is that about? MS has $3.5 Trillion market cap. Same as Apple. Azure is catching up with AWS and could take the lead. Nothing like IBM 20 years ago. Windows is a small fraction of their business. Azure is bigger than the Windows, Office, and Xbox/Gaming divisions combined.
- joelthelion 2y ago
  A zombie company ? Exactly what competition does windows +office have in the enterprise?
  - slater 2y ago
    BYO + Google Docs...?
    - gus_massa 2y ago
      A few years ago I thought Gmail was scarry. Now I'm more worry about Google Docs. Diaclaimer: I use both, and everyday I pray my Google account is not baned due to an error in their system.
    - joelthelion 2y ago
      How many fortune 500 companies primarily rely on that?
- aj7 2y ago
  I don’t know. I just had to buy, and use, a Windows 11 pc. Remarkably, it shares a desk with a new M3 iMac, side by side. And equally remarkably, they’re set up so they behave almost identically, except that Windows 11 is a little snappier and has a few fewer keystrokes than the Finder for most operations. (And search works!). I quickly acculturated to it after a decade away. Entirely unexpected.
  - jb1991 2y ago
    Are you noticing ads within Windows? I haven't used windows in over a decade and hear there are a lot of ads you see throughout the OS, which is something you don't get on macOS.
    - magicalhippo 2y ago
      I use Windows 11 Professional at work, and I haven't seen a single ad. There might be sponsored apps installed or something, but I don't care. I open the start menu, search for the application I want and run that. They're not getting in my way, if they are there. That said, I prefer late-Windows 10 to current-Windows 11. But I hated Windows 10 when it launched and they fixed the key annoyances, so there's a chance they'll do it with Windows 11 as well. They've already fixed some, like the centered task bar.
    - qsdf38100 2y ago
      I don’t even know what people are referring to exactly when they say Windows is full of ads. Windows 11 is my main OS, it’s the basic Home edition. The only ads I see are when I mistype in the start menu, and get some web search results including ads, just like when I google something. Inline web search results is a crappy feature to me, but it didn’t bother me enough to go regedit mode and disable it. It only appears when the computer search can’t find anything, it kinds of fall back on web search. It seems the most outraged people are those who never use Windows and rage at the fact that it’s still a popular desktop OS. Or maybe I’m just lucky and I don’t get the horrible in your face ads everywhere, for some reason.
      - 2y ago
- wongarsu 2y ago
  Windows is in cash-cow mode. It's a mature product that dominates a slowly shrinking market. And in terms of revenue it's not even that great compared to everything else they do. There is no point investing a lot of money. That money goes elsewhere: pivoting MS Office to the cloud and pushing MS Azure - both by improving Azure and by improving developer tools like VSCode or languages like C# and the rest of the .Net ecosystem. And on the side they have minor projects like Github and LinkedIn.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
mattmaroon 2y ago
You’re amazed that someone wrote a bunch of articles about opinions on the future of technology and they didn’t all turn out to be true? An expert’s opinion being wrong one time invalidates the expertise?
mnky9800n 2y ago
There's no such thing as right or wrong, only fun or boring. ~ the_plague, Hackers Paul Graham is great at saying non boring things. That's all.

ksec 2y ago

I am not sure if he is wrong. Or are you implying PG is wrong just because of the headline and not the content?

kif 2y ago

It's almost as if we shouldn't treat their words as gospel. By them I mean people who were in the right place at the right time and had the right amount of luck, which is what success looks like usually.

localfirst 2y ago
Typical cargo cult behaviour: People here idolize him and associates because they think it increases the chances of selling their company for billions of dollars one day.

Ygg2 2y ago

To be fair to Paul, Microsoft does seem to be a zombie like company, at least the Desktop division.

pjmlp 2y ago
That is because Azure, XBox, Microsoft 365, Github are pumping money. Money that lands on Rust Foundation, Python, Go, Linux, FreeBSD, Java, VSCode.
dartos 2y ago
It’s a holdings company. The end state for all big tech.
xcv123 2y ago
Microsoft earned $22B net profit in the past quarter alone, and their debt is only $40B. That's not a zombie company.
- Ygg2 2y ago
  Sure but it feels it's in same place IBM was 20 years ago.
  - TeaBrain 2y ago
    In what way? IBM wasn't prominent in as many areas 20 years ago as Microsoft is today. Today Microsoft has the leading business social media platform with linkedin, owns a leading consumer git platform with github, has a growing share of the enterprise cloud market with azure, now owns several of the most recognized game publishers with their acquisition of Activision and Bethesda, develops two of the top 10 most used programming languages with TypeScript and C#, and still has the leading os.
  - xcv123 2y ago
    "Feels"? What is that about? MS has $3.5 Trillion market cap. Same as Apple. Azure is catching up with AWS and could take the lead. Nothing like IBM 20 years ago. Windows is a small fraction of their business. Azure is bigger than the Windows, Office, and Xbox/Gaming divisions combined.
joelthelion 2y ago
A zombie company ? Exactly what competition does windows +office have in the enterprise?
- slater 2y ago
  BYO + Google Docs...?
  - gus_massa 2y ago
    A few years ago I thought Gmail was scarry. Now I'm more worry about Google Docs. Diaclaimer: I use both, and everyday I pray my Google account is not baned due to an error in their system.
  - joelthelion 2y ago
    How many fortune 500 companies primarily rely on that?
aj7 2y ago
I don’t know. I just had to buy, and use, a Windows 11 pc. Remarkably, it shares a desk with a new M3 iMac, side by side. And equally remarkably, they’re set up so they behave almost identically, except that Windows 11 is a little snappier and has a few fewer keystrokes than the Finder for most operations. (And search works!). I quickly acculturated to it after a decade away. Entirely unexpected.
- jb1991 2y ago
  Are you noticing ads within Windows? I haven't used windows in over a decade and hear there are a lot of ads you see throughout the OS, which is something you don't get on macOS.
  - magicalhippo 2y ago
    I use Windows 11 Professional at work, and I haven't seen a single ad. There might be sponsored apps installed or something, but I don't care. I open the start menu, search for the application I want and run that. They're not getting in my way, if they are there. That said, I prefer late-Windows 10 to current-Windows 11. But I hated Windows 10 when it launched and they fixed the key annoyances, so there's a chance they'll do it with Windows 11 as well. They've already fixed some, like the centered task bar.
  - qsdf38100 2y ago
    I don’t even know what people are referring to exactly when they say Windows is full of ads. Windows 11 is my main OS, it’s the basic Home edition. The only ads I see are when I mistype in the start menu, and get some web search results including ads, just like when I google something. Inline web search results is a crappy feature to me, but it didn’t bother me enough to go regedit mode and disable it. It only appears when the computer search can’t find anything, it kinds of fall back on web search. It seems the most outraged people are those who never use Windows and rage at the fact that it’s still a popular desktop OS. Or maybe I’m just lucky and I don’t get the horrible in your face ads everywhere, for some reason.
    - 2y ago
wongarsu 2y ago
Windows is in cash-cow mode. It's a mature product that dominates a slowly shrinking market. And in terms of revenue it's not even that great compared to everything else they do. There is no point investing a lot of money. That money goes elsewhere: pivoting MS Office to the cloud and pushing MS Azure - both by improving Azure and by improving developer tools like VSCode or languages like C# and the rest of the .Net ecosystem. And on the side they have minor projects like Github and LinkedIn.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

mattmaroon 2y ago

You’re amazed that someone wrote a bunch of articles about opinions on the future of technology and they didn’t all turn out to be true? An expert’s opinion being wrong one time invalidates the expertise?

mnky9800n 2y ago

There's no such thing as right or wrong, only fun or boring. ~ the_plague, Hackers Paul Graham is great at saying non boring things. That's all.