6 ms·

"I don't know what it means to "own website issues"" made me irate. It was very clear! Read the issues and be accountable for fixing them?

TulliusCicero 9d ago
From what I know about MS, I can understand what they mean. Microsoft famously had teams at odds with each other, so if you "own" something across multiple teams and can't get them to actually work together or take a particular issue seriously, then you just have the shit end of responsibility without the authority to make stuff happen.
- hylaride 9d ago
  For awhile under Balmer, Microsoft implemented a lot of Jack Welsh management philosophies. This included stack ranking, but also encouraging "internal competition" under the idea that it'll drive people to excel. In real life that caused friction, politics, sandbagging, and other problems that were not in the company's best interests. It's fine to be competitive, but in some competitive situations (team sports, companies, etc), the whole point is for the team to win, not individuals. Sadly, even though most of these philosophies have been discredited over the long term (stack ranking can be fine if you do actually need to do layoffs, so long as you realized there are exceptions to the rule), other bad management practices have also taken over. We're now squarely in the depths of all the worst aspects of "product driven" development, where nebulous metrics are measured for success (such as the bad VSCode decision to append copilot in commit messages, which makes it look like copilot is more heavily used than it is).
  - gigatree 9d ago
    Exactly. Jack Welsh’s management philosophy just further incentivizes doing what you can to bring everyone else (ie the company) down to make yourself look better.
  - marcosdumay 9d ago
    Ironically, they could have learned from Jack Welsh to separate the product divisions and make redundant teams on each one to solve the ownership issues. When people compete internally on Microsoft, what are they competing on if everybody works in a different horizontal?
- ayewo 9d ago
  > Microsoft famously had teams at odds with each other, ... Instantly reminded me of this especially apt comic: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyJfRwHWYAI0_yt?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyJfRwHWYAI0_yt?format=jpg [1] Also available here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6jw33z/internal_structure_of_tech_companies/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6jw33z/int...
  - siddbudd 9d ago
    I am either misreading it or it almost makes me want to work at Facebook. If only their product wouldn't be so utterly disgusting.
    - disgruntledphd2 8d ago
      This comic was made a loooooonnnnnnggggg time ago (back when I worked at Facebook). It was actually a great place to work then, but that company no longer exists in any meaningful sense.
  - TulliusCicero 9d ago
    Exactly what I was thinking of too lol
ytoawwhra92 9d ago
Well, except then the person who volunteered to "own website issues" clarified that they meant one specific issue (download links) among the five or so that Gates identified.

TulliusCicero 9d ago

From what I know about MS, I can understand what they mean. Microsoft famously had teams at odds with each other, so if you "own" something across multiple teams and can't get them to actually work together or take a particular issue seriously, then you just have the shit end of responsibility without the authority to make stuff happen.

hylaride 9d ago
For awhile under Balmer, Microsoft implemented a lot of Jack Welsh management philosophies. This included stack ranking, but also encouraging "internal competition" under the idea that it'll drive people to excel. In real life that caused friction, politics, sandbagging, and other problems that were not in the company's best interests. It's fine to be competitive, but in some competitive situations (team sports, companies, etc), the whole point is for the team to win, not individuals. Sadly, even though most of these philosophies have been discredited over the long term (stack ranking can be fine if you do actually need to do layoffs, so long as you realized there are exceptions to the rule), other bad management practices have also taken over. We're now squarely in the depths of all the worst aspects of "product driven" development, where nebulous metrics are measured for success (such as the bad VSCode decision to append copilot in commit messages, which makes it look like copilot is more heavily used than it is).
- gigatree 9d ago
  Exactly. Jack Welsh’s management philosophy just further incentivizes doing what you can to bring everyone else (ie the company) down to make yourself look better.
- marcosdumay 9d ago
  Ironically, they could have learned from Jack Welsh to separate the product divisions and make redundant teams on each one to solve the ownership issues. When people compete internally on Microsoft, what are they competing on if everybody works in a different horizontal?
ayewo 9d ago
> Microsoft famously had teams at odds with each other, ... Instantly reminded me of this especially apt comic: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyJfRwHWYAI0_yt?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyJfRwHWYAI0_yt?format=jpg [1] Also available here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6jw33z/internal_structure_of_tech_companies/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6jw33z/int...
- siddbudd 9d ago
  I am either misreading it or it almost makes me want to work at Facebook. If only their product wouldn't be so utterly disgusting.
  - disgruntledphd2 8d ago
    This comic was made a loooooonnnnnnggggg time ago (back when I worked at Facebook). It was actually a great place to work then, but that company no longer exists in any meaningful sense.
- TulliusCicero 9d ago
  Exactly what I was thinking of too lol

ytoawwhra92 9d ago

Well, except then the person who volunteered to "own website issues" clarified that they meant one specific issue (download links) among the five or so that Gates identified.