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This email was literally BillG sending an email to the people he holds accountable for this, pointing out to them that he believes his experience resulted from

This email was literally BillG sending an email to the people he holds accountable for this, pointing out to them that he believes his experience resulted from a systematic lack of attention to end to end user experience. I’m not sure why you see this as evidence BillG didn’t understand that to be his job.

detourdog 9d ago
Becuase it was a typical MS user experience. MS was shipping their software on 25+ install floppies. Having an install fail on floppy 19 was a nightmare. Getting a fax modem that shipped with the PC to function could also be a problem MS would blame the vendor and the vendor blamed MS. It’s not like his moviemaker experience was a rare occurrence.
- xtracto 9d ago
  People forget the "if Microsoft invented the iPod" parody video." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yvh5k1RWER4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yvh5k1RWER4 It describes the culture of both companies at that time very clearly. I think the difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Steve was a "product" CEO. He would bot only send that email, but in addition he would somehow oversee/sypervise those changes ALL the way until he was satisfied.
wjnc 9d ago
Sorry, but board room or top-50 professional discussions are ment to be a lot more meta. Bill using 500-1000 words to voice his concrete experience in downloading an app, with his directors immediately chiming in for fixes misses the forest for the trees. And Bill starts the quest for the one tree in his choice of words. It was disalignment in his organizational model and the CEO is on the line for that alignment. The happy install flow for moviemaker.exe - who cares… Just look at that thread! Response 3 is already “that’s not my turf”-ing. I’m not saying it’s easy to create a shift in a company of that size, it’s that they weren’t trying when the problem was yelling in their face. (Typing this with a hot lap thanks to Windows update. The agony. Debian solved that 20-30 years ago.)
- jameshart 9d ago
  Most of the thread is lower level staff specifically trying to address the raised issues. We have no idea what conversations this triggered among the exec team about the broader strategic issues Bill raised.
  - wjnc 9d ago
    Every single recipient on the thread was a Vice President, Corporate Vice President, or Senior/Group Vice President. Gates intentionally bypassed lower-level product managers and emailed the executive tier directly to demand accountability for platform-wide usability regressions. If you think this is not missing the forest for the trees, please explain.
    - bluegatty 9d ago
      He bypassed the new CEO, that's the really ugly one there. That's borderline backstabby.
      - jameshart 9d ago
        Probably phoned Ballmer, and Ballmer told him who to send his rant to. The degree of overthinking going on in this thread…
  - bluegatty 9d ago
    Those are all Executives. It's actually funny that you're thinking they are 'lower level staff' because that's how it seems by their reaction, but those are literally top Execs. That's really how these orgs often work. 'Dear Leader Is Angry' will set the whole org into a tizzy. I've seen this countless times - 'XXX said it', and the littlest thing will get moved. Often - this is good, it means the org is responsive to the direction of the founder, but it's 'abused' all the time. I think leaders forget their responsibility and truly believe that 'their whims' are essential. 25% of the US are looking at the insane things POTUS is putting out and believing there's some kind of 5D chess magic, when it's actually -5D - aka extraordinary bad leadership. That's the 'power of power'. 'Self Awareness' is probably the #1 superpower of a leader, because nobody is going to keep them in check.
bluegatty 9d ago
I have struggle to understand how someone could come to that conclusion, maybe I missed something? The email is a 'rant'. It's a 'list of broken stuff'. It's not: 1) identifying underlying first principles of design or UX that have been broken 2) not identifying which parts of the system may have resulted in the negative outcome 3) not reference for either operational or cultural that were braoched or need to be address 4) not at all cognizant of systemic concern at all. 5) didn't allocate responsibility, hint at how to organized a response, what structural issues need to be in place. It's actually a really bad an embarrassing lack of leadership. It's basically 'user rant' - not what one would expect from a leader. He 'made a list of complaints and threw them onto the org.' - who are obviously being 'reactive' and moving in a bit of a frenzy. 'Dear Leader, doesn't like how the picture frames are set in the office! Fire the picture framers, everyone get out your rulers and fix the picture frames'. This is really common and it happens because people have this magical belief that the 'founder' or 'ceo' has 'special powers and insight' and then issues roll down hill among sycophants and yes men, trying to appease. A good example of 'leadership' would start out with 'I take responsibility for this', hinting and the possible source of flaws, where in the process those things should have been caught, an attempt for accountability in certain areas (divide the concern), a requirement to convene on this issues and make sure everyone understands what's important. Especially and including the fact that anyone responsible for a product actually has to 'use it' aka dogfooding or else etc etc..
- russelldjimmy 9d ago
  Thanks for this reply. I learned something today!
- windowshopping 9d ago
  Really good reply, well put
- thinkling 9d ago
  In 2003, Gates was no longer CEO; I think he was President of the Board and something like "Special Advisor"? None of the people involved reported to him, so he may actually correctly have felt he could not tell them what to do?--so he stuck to venting his frustration.
CamperBob2 9d ago
I’m not sure why you see this as evidence BillG didn’t understand that to be his job. As others have pointed out, it's all in the follow-through, and there was no follow-through.

detourdog 9d ago

Becuase it was a typical MS user experience. MS was shipping their software on 25+ install floppies. Having an install fail on floppy 19 was a nightmare. Getting a fax modem that shipped with the PC to function could also be a problem MS would blame the vendor and the vendor blamed MS. It’s not like his moviemaker experience was a rare occurrence.

xtracto 9d ago
People forget the "if Microsoft invented the iPod" parody video." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yvh5k1RWER4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yvh5k1RWER4 It describes the culture of both companies at that time very clearly. I think the difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Steve was a "product" CEO. He would bot only send that email, but in addition he would somehow oversee/sypervise those changes ALL the way until he was satisfied.

wjnc 9d ago

Sorry, but board room or top-50 professional discussions are ment to be a lot more meta. Bill using 500-1000 words to voice his concrete experience in downloading an app, with his directors immediately chiming in for fixes misses the forest for the trees. And Bill starts the quest for the one tree in his choice of words. It was disalignment in his organizational model and the CEO is on the line for that alignment. The happy install flow for moviemaker.exe - who cares… Just look at that thread! Response 3 is already “that’s not my turf”-ing. I’m not saying it’s easy to create a shift in a company of that size, it’s that they weren’t trying when the problem was yelling in their face. (Typing this with a hot lap thanks to Windows update. The agony. Debian solved that 20-30 years ago.)

jameshart 9d ago
Most of the thread is lower level staff specifically trying to address the raised issues. We have no idea what conversations this triggered among the exec team about the broader strategic issues Bill raised.
- wjnc 9d ago
  Every single recipient on the thread was a Vice President, Corporate Vice President, or Senior/Group Vice President. Gates intentionally bypassed lower-level product managers and emailed the executive tier directly to demand accountability for platform-wide usability regressions. If you think this is not missing the forest for the trees, please explain.
  - bluegatty 9d ago
    He bypassed the new CEO, that's the really ugly one there. That's borderline backstabby.
    - jameshart 9d ago
      Probably phoned Ballmer, and Ballmer told him who to send his rant to. The degree of overthinking going on in this thread…
- bluegatty 9d ago
  Those are all Executives. It's actually funny that you're thinking they are 'lower level staff' because that's how it seems by their reaction, but those are literally top Execs. That's really how these orgs often work. 'Dear Leader Is Angry' will set the whole org into a tizzy. I've seen this countless times - 'XXX said it', and the littlest thing will get moved. Often - this is good, it means the org is responsive to the direction of the founder, but it's 'abused' all the time. I think leaders forget their responsibility and truly believe that 'their whims' are essential. 25% of the US are looking at the insane things POTUS is putting out and believing there's some kind of 5D chess magic, when it's actually -5D - aka extraordinary bad leadership. That's the 'power of power'. 'Self Awareness' is probably the #1 superpower of a leader, because nobody is going to keep them in check.

bluegatty 9d ago

I have struggle to understand how someone could come to that conclusion, maybe I missed something? The email is a 'rant'. It's a 'list of broken stuff'. It's not: 1) identifying underlying first principles of design or UX that have been broken 2) not identifying which parts of the system may have resulted in the negative outcome 3) not reference for either operational or cultural that were braoched or need to be address 4) not at all cognizant of systemic concern at all. 5) didn't allocate responsibility, hint at how to organized a response, what structural issues need to be in place. It's actually a really bad an embarrassing lack of leadership. It's basically 'user rant' - not what one would expect from a leader. He 'made a list of complaints and threw them onto the org.' - who are obviously being 'reactive' and moving in a bit of a frenzy. 'Dear Leader, doesn't like how the picture frames are set in the office! Fire the picture framers, everyone get out your rulers and fix the picture frames'. This is really common and it happens because people have this magical belief that the 'founder' or 'ceo' has 'special powers and insight' and then issues roll down hill among sycophants and yes men, trying to appease. A good example of 'leadership' would start out with 'I take responsibility for this', hinting and the possible source of flaws, where in the process those things should have been caught, an attempt for accountability in certain areas (divide the concern), a requirement to convene on this issues and make sure everyone understands what's important. Especially and including the fact that anyone responsible for a product actually has to 'use it' aka dogfooding or else etc etc..

russelldjimmy 9d ago
Thanks for this reply. I learned something today!
windowshopping 9d ago
Really good reply, well put
thinkling 9d ago
In 2003, Gates was no longer CEO; I think he was President of the Board and something like "Special Advisor"? None of the people involved reported to him, so he may actually correctly have felt he could not tell them what to do?--so he stuck to venting his frustration.

CamperBob2 9d ago

I’m not sure why you see this as evidence BillG didn’t understand that to be his job. As others have pointed out, it's all in the follow-through, and there was no follow-through.