Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

The biggest problem with Ballmer's tenure was stack ranking, which led to the famous org chart where every org in MSFT points a gun at every org in MSFT.

Things like LINQ and VScode are very nice but they weren't created by Ballmer. Ballmer's org allowed them to flourish to the point where they needed serious capital, then the org gave them that capital. Sun was like that too, but ultimately the management at Sun failed in so many ways. It's not just the technologies you choose to invest in -- there's something more needed, and the nicest thing to say about Ballmer is that he didn't ruin MSFT. The nicest thing to say about Satya is that he made it a nice place to work at while also greatly growing MSFT's cloud business.

Intel also had the stack ranking. I think this management technique originated with Jack Welsh at GE. It does pit groups against each other. Even for individuals on the same team, it pays to sabotage each other's work. I heard of managers hiring people so that they could be offered up when layoffs came around. It was kind of like how the Celt's had human sacrifice. Families would adopt people so that they could be offered up if they were chosen to give a family member for sacrifice at a later date.

Amazon is famous for hiring to fire.

I wonder when the business schools will teach that stack ranking was a failed experiment?