Microsoft and Anti-Trust

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue May 19 12:46:41 PDT 1998


At 09:40 AM 5/19/98 -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
>At 11:41 AM 5/19/98 -0400, Doug wrote:
>
>>And, speaking of questions about MS ..., just what did Gates contribute to
>the success of the organization? Does anyone know? Is he a technical genius
>and a business genius rolled into one? Or was he just a geek in the right
>place at the right time?<
>
>My reading suggests that BG is mostly a business -- i.e., marketing --
>genius, though he's clearly not some non-computer industry exec brought in
>to whip a computer company into business shape (as happened at Apple).
>Win95, like Win 3.1 before it, is an imitation of the Mac OS, though now
>it's moving into improving on the MacOS. The various parts of MS Office are
>similar. DOS, Win's predecessor, is a version of CP-M (the pre-DOS OS) that
>BG purchased. BG's computing genius seems to be connected with MS Basic, a
>product long since forgotten.
>
>BTW, a lot of evidence suggests that BG has a mild case of autism (a.k.a.
>"Asperger's Syndrome, like Albert Einstein, my son, and many "nerds").

-- snip ---

But does that explain his position? Stated differently, does that mean that anyone with suffcient knowledge of marketing and mild autism will end up in the vicinity of BG?

My own view on the managerial careers is that they are like mosquitos - opportunistic bloodsuckers. Mosquitos cannot suck or pump blood, , their blood intake depends entirely on the pressure in the blood vessel to which they happen to tap. Same with managers and their salaries - right place, righ time and a direct assent to high pressure cash flows. This is evidenced by the fact that there are many people with extraordinary abilities, entrepreneurial talents and what not. Only few with those talents make it to th etop. Moreover, some of those wjo make it have no talents.

In my old counrty, there was the following joke from the central planning era. A new steel mill was built and the search for the CEO was announced. Three people came to an interview: and American, a Russian, and a Jew. They all had to answer the same question: how much is two times two? The American took out his pocket calculator, punched in the numbers and pronounced "Four." The Russian picked up the phone, called Kremlin, asked for their official position on the issue, and upon hearing the answer he pronounced "Four." The Jew replied "It depneds, if we owe them - three; if they owe us - five."

Does anyone know who got the CEO position? The right answer is: the CP secretary's nephew.

Regards,

Wojtek Sokolowski



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