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617 points EvgeniyZh | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.913s | source
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santiagobasulto ◴[] No.43576378[source]
Microsoft (and maybe even Bill Gates personally) generated a strong "dislike" sentiment to the hacker community. But we can't deny that he and Paul Allen were pure breed hackers and helped a lot the development of technology. Of course, we all prefer OSS and we'd pick Linus (or insert OSS dev name here) 100 times over one of the "evil capitalists"/s, but nevertheless they have to be recognized.
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linguae ◴[] No.43577209[source]
I’m a 90s kid (born in 1989), and I remember the days of the anti-trust lawsuit, “Internet Exploder,” the Slashdot Borg icon, and resentment from Mac users, WordPerfect users, Netscape users, and others who strongly disliked the Microsoft monopoly.

Still, there’s something about Microsoft of that era. Bill Gates was “one of us,” a passionate nerd. This was an era where nerds like Jobs, Woz, and Gates ruled. The 1990s and the 2000s felt exciting, and it felt like technology was making the world a better place.

I must admit, even though I was firmly in the Jobs and Woz camp in the 2000s, I also fondly remember Windows 2000, Visual Studio 6, and pre-ribbon Microsoft Office. Contrary to Steve Jobs’ opinion, I believe Microsoft has occasionally exhibited great taste :). For better or for worse, the 1990s was peak Microsoft.

Something happened in the 2010s. It seems like the tech industry has become just like any other industry that has gotten entrenched, and today’s tech leaders simply don’t inspire me like how the leaders of previous eras did. Today’s Web media companies are far scarier than 1990’s Microsoft ever was.

Then again, I was a mere child in the 1990s, and I became an adult in the 2010s, and so I could be looking at the 1990s through childhood memories.

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1. no_wizard ◴[] No.43583153[source]
>It seems like the tech industry has become just like any other industry that has gotten entrenched, and today’s tech leaders simply don’t inspire me like how the leaders of previous eras did. Today’s Web media companies are far scarier than 1990’s Microsoft ever was.

Three letters: MBA

When the MBA's came into the tech industry everything got stale, 'safe' and unexciting as they want to leech their fucking hands over everything in the name of maximal profit.

Private Equity follows MBAs so you see more PE firms getting into tech during the same period. Same story, fucking leeches leeching makes the leeches happy at the expense of society. In fact, it seems PE firms and MBA grads love making the world an actively terrible place

I hate business bros. They ruin god damn everything.

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2. ThrowawayR2 ◴[] No.43589213[source]
As if IBM, the big bad monopolist boogeyman of the '60s-'80s, or DEC or HP or Sun or Compaq or any of the other giants of that era were free of MBAs?
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3. liamwire ◴[] No.43589241[source]
While I agree with your sentiment, I think a useful mental model thinks of business bros/MBAs et. al. as natural consequences of growth-at-all-costs capitalism. By our economy’s very nature there’s demand for more every quarter, with substantial money riding on that more occurring on time and as expected. So there’s of course then demand for the services of professionals specialising in more. One can still dislike them of course, as one might the police as an institution, for example, but I don’t find it useful to hate them as people. Ultimately most of us are drawn by incalculable circumstance and survival pressures into happenstance careers, and alienating other humans doesn’t do anything to progress a cause.

Before posting this I feel it’s worth clarifying I didn’t take you to say you do hate them as people, please excuse the ramble.

4. no_wizard ◴[] No.43589899[source]
The tech industry (well frankly any industry) of the 60s-80s were different entirely. So was the way the government regulated things, and the expectations people had about corporations and their role in society.