Read carefully. I said people who were there (at Microsoft) in 1985 told me about it, and there are striking similarities.
I know it is hard to imagine today that Microsoft was once like this...but they were. In a follow up post I might dive into how they lost that feeling. Personally, I think when the business people started outnumbering the engineering people...is when they started losing their way.
Isn't having too many "engineering people" and too few "business people" the reason why Google hasn't come up with any compelling new products over the past five years, not couting the ones acquired by their "business people" (Android, Grand Central, Youtube, etc.)?
Isn't having good "business people" the reason why every Fortune 500 company pays huge license fees to Microsoft and not to Google?
But wasn't Microsoft's real success due to its business practices versus its technology? For example, it made key partnerships which they were able to leverage very effectively to gain market share.
I know it is hard to imagine today that Microsoft was once like this...but they were. In a follow up post I might dive into how they lost that feeling. Personally, I think when the business people started outnumbering the engineering people...is when they started losing their way.
Don