Am I the only one who dislikes Microsoft’s CEO?

[somerandomusername]

I can write pretty long stuff. I’m keeping it short here
I don’t have anything personal against Satya Nadella. I don’t know him. I’m speaking to the fact that he is glorified by some and especially in the technology community as a “visionary.”

He is not visionary. He is not a bad business person, I suppose? I just thought this today, about that he is not “visionary” with this ai assistant stuff. To me, it’s simple: Microsoft is a server farm company. That’s where it makes a lot of money now, not Windows or Xbox or experimental crap like HoloLens. Know what needs a lot of servers for the lowest cost- lowest effort implementation of that stuff? The machine learning algorithms like large language models. Creating demand for a product that is inherently tied to optimizing on an extreme array of servers is not visionary to me. And it seems, although however transparent to me, no one has made this connection and that bothers me. He’s a smart business person, I suppose. But a visionary? No.

 

[somerandomusername]

Apparently lol. Nonetheless someone can explain to me why he should be considered visionary. As it stands, he really isn’t. Microsoft has always been a me too company, a business’s business. If there is talent there, it isn’t allowed to take hold and flourish. Balance sheets always win out over there. Screw that.

 

[Hrafn]

I haven't liked Micro-Soft since the days of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Regardless of who's at the helm. I also disliked Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

 

[Citysnaps]

If I were into Microsoft products I might care about their CEO and their views/qualifications/accomplishments/etc., and like or dislike whoever that is. I know it's Nadella, and that's about all.

But since I'm not... I just can't muster up the energy to care one way or another. For me... there are too many other things I need to be aware of and be concerned about.

Maybe if Nadella was as entertaining and "out there" as Ballmer was, I'd care just from an amusement aspect.

 

[Citysnaps]

The nice thing about Ballmer was his entertainment value. Who says he can't innovate?




This one's classic cringe, even though he's not in it. I'm guessing he got the ball rolling on getting it produced, even though it was released after he left.

 

[rdrr]

I haven't liked Micro-Soft since the days of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Regardless of who's at the helm. I also disliked Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

Aye, I have been dealing with the Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish my entire IT career. Went through too many Microsoft CEOs who promised to integrate their technology better, then change directions and if you don't like it then tough.

I refuse to fall for the banana in the tail pipe trick again.

 

[Citysnaps]

Aye, I have been dealing with the Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish my entire IT career. Went through too many Microsoft CEOs who promised to integrate their technology better, then change directions and if you don't like it then tough.

I refuse to fall for the banana in the tail pipe trick again.

Curious... Was Vista as bad as some claimed in the tech news?

 

[rdrr]

Was Vista as bad as some claimed in the tech news?

Thank god I wasn't ever a Windows Systems Administrator. My Windows Admin counterparts still shudder about the days of Vista. I have only heard stories, but I can make one comparison.

Our environment back then was between 1400 - 1600 virtual guests, and probably 100 - 200 physical systems. I would say the split was 55% to 45%, Unix/Linux system vs Windows. It would take us 1- 2 hours to patch all our systems, and it would take them more than a day to patch all of the Windows environment. That comparison of course is not really an equivalent one, but I would say our environment has just as much if not more of a complexity than the Windows environment. We patched multiple cluster systems running Oracle, Peoplesoft, LDAP, the main web site, and a bunch of off the shelf software supporting multiple departments of the institution.

 

[throAU]

lol. Nobody from Microsoft is a visionary. They haven’t developed anything interesting in house for decades. They buy companies and that’s about it.

Even SQL server started as another company’s product.

 

[Hrafn]

The nice thing about Ballmer was his entertainment value. Who says he can't innovate?




This one's classic cringe, even though he's not in it. I'm guessing he got the ball rolling on getting it produced, even though it was released after he left.

I miss the Zune days of “squirting” data to folks nearby. Cause I’ve “been welcomed to the Social…”

Also: “developers, developers, developers, developers…”

 

[Nycturne]

The nice thing about Ballmer was his entertainment value. Who says he can't innovate?

Honestly, while I can't say too much, I think the biggest problem with Ballmer at the helm was that the c suite deferred far too often to the org executives, and let them all build these fiefdoms. Being in the trenches doesn't give you a great view of the CEO, but I did see that he had two sides. The cheerleader, which is the public persona everyone is familiar with. But also someone who understood what our weaknesses were, and even identified opportunities for things that are commonplace today, but seemed unable to get the fiefdoms to cooperate when it mattered. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you want to build the right thing, if that thing doesn't get built.