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    Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

    (danluu.com)
    371 points greggyb | 11 comments | 28 Oct 24 21:48 UTC | HN request time: 1.273s | source | bottom
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    legitster ◴[28 Oct 24 22:41 UTC] No.41977299[source]▶
    Having spent some time at the Microsoft campus, I can tell you this is basically the consensus view from employees today. Ballmer was not a cool, trendy, or fun CEO who people rallied behind - but he more or less "got the job done". He was the captain of a massive ship with a turning radius the size of a continent guiding it through icebergs.

    Azure's success was specifically set in motion under Ballmer. Owed to the fact that it was developed to Microsoft's strengths (enterprise support) that it didn't piss off too many of their partners and sales channels. Same with Office 365 and all of their other successful services. None are glamourous - but all are impressive with how not awful they are given their design constraints.

    Even things like Surface, while considered a failure, did its intended job of getting hardware partners to get their act together and make better consumer products.

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    vjust ◴[29 Oct 24 02:18 UTC] No.41978721[source]▶
    Ballmer hated Linux & open source. He would've driven their cloud division to the ground trying to sell Windows servers in the cloud. It would've taken him another 20 years to accept that Linux was key to the cloud. VSCode (Visual Studio Code) - would never have taken birth. Microsoft survived and thrived once Ballmer had no option but leave.

    In this era of Python development, Microsoft Windows still feels a step or two behind as far as using a Windows laptop for coding in the cloud. Python is the language of AI - not Asp.net, not C#. Ballmer would never have seen the writing on the wall. He would've pushed something wierd, like VBA .

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    1. metadat ◴[29 Oct 24 02:39 UTC] No.41978829[source]▶
    I have as much disdain for the monkey man as the next OSS fan. But VSCode was always closed sourced crap at the arbitrary whims of a soulless zombie corp, and they never promised otherwise in a significant way. It's not relevant and not a good foundational signal or basis for any argument.
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    2. Karrot_Kream ◴[29 Oct 24 07:50 UTC] No.41980508[source]▶
    ... https://github.com/microsoft/vscode? It's MIT licensed. Or are we here to start GPL vs MIT for the 10,000th time?
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    3. signa11 ◴[29 Oct 24 08:23 UTC] No.41980860[source]▶
    oh please :)

    the old ‘embrace-extend-extinguish’ model is what it _truly_ is, f.e. , you cannot take extensions from m$ store and use it.

    there have been large number of discussions around this topic, and folks have highlighted these concerns more articulately than i could ever hope to do.

    take your pick.

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    4. solarkraft ◴[29 Oct 24 08:46 UTC] No.41980998[source]▶
    > they never promised otherwise in a significant way

    It’s commonly promoted as „open source“ and this seems to be commonly believed. Pretty much everyone I tell that the official builds of VSCode are proprietary (and how proprietary they are) is pretty surprised.

    5. smolder ◴[29 Oct 24 10:24 UTC] No.41982111[source]▶
    There's a working build of just the open source part of VSCode (with basically all the same functionality) called VSCodium
    6. cypress66 ◴[29 Oct 24 11:06 UTC] No.41982573{3}[source]▶
    Idk, I use cursor which is a proprietary commercial VS code fork and it just works. So clearly the license/OSS situation is very workable.
    7. kristiandupont ◴[29 Oct 24 11:37 UTC] No.41982822{3}[source]▶
    > ‘embrace-extend-extinguish’ model is what it _truly_ is

    With this mindset, what could MS possibly create that wouldn't make you say this?

    replies(1): >>41984839 #
    8. ensignavenger ◴[29 Oct 24 11:38 UTC] No.41982826[source]▶
    That is Code OSS, MS official binary builds of Visual Studio Code, as explained at the top of the Readme, include proprietary code. MS also has several very popular proprietary extensions. Some of those extensions, older cersions were open source.
    9. mynameisash ◴[29 Oct 24 15:25 UTC] No.41984839{4}[source]▶
    This definitely seems like an unfalsifiable proposition for the MS haters.

    Microsoft does something shitty? See, they're a terrible company.

    Microsoft does something awesome? Well, we're currently in the "embrace" or "extend", so they're a terrible company.

    I'm as (or more) pessimistic than the next guy about the state of tech and capitalism, but at least give credit when and where credit's due.

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    10. signa11 ◴[29 Oct 24 17:25 UTC] No.41987045{5}[source]▶
    a previous discussion about something similar happened here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25719045
    11. coretx ◴[29 Oct 24 18:48 UTC] No.41988014{5}[source]▶
    The destructive EEE strategy is replaced by a constructive poisoning the well strategy. That's arguably moral progress while there is no legal or financial incentive to do so. That's praise for Nadella, not Ballmer.