Balmer was a terrible CEO by nearly every measure, but the one that stands out for me is the culture he cultivated where team members would actively undermine one another just for a better performance review.
Under his watch MS missed the smartphone boat, waffled between consumer and commercial products, Windows Vista, Bing, stack ranking employees, organizational silos, pushed a know it all mindset (as opposed to a learning mindset), etc.
27 Comments
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works · 100 pts · 34d
So much coke
dadGPT@lemmy.world · 43 pts · 34d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballmer_Peak
sunbrrnslapper@lemmy.world · 75 pts · 34d
Balmer was a terrible CEO by nearly every measure, but the one that stands out for me is the culture he cultivated where team members would actively undermine one another just for a better performance review.
jaschen306@sh.itjust.works · 53 pts · 33d
I worked under him. We gamed the system by doing a round robin of bad reviews with the understanding the next review will be a huge improvement.
sunbrrnslapper@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 33d
Genius! I hope you did well there 🙂
jaschen306@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 33d
Yeah, we did really well. It wasn't until Satya came on and after a few weeks he laid my entire department off.
rumba@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 33d
God that's just a slightly newer version of adding loops into Mainframe Cobol so you can increase performance when you needed to prove you were busy
jaschen306@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 33d
Honestly it's sorta a known tactic in this industry. I got the idea from old coworkers at Intel. They do the same shit.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 34d
What other measure is there?
sunbrrnslapper@lemmy.world · 45 pts · 34d
Under his watch MS missed the smartphone boat, waffled between consumer and commercial products, Windows Vista, Bing, stack ranking employees, organizational silos, pushed a know it all mindset (as opposed to a learning mindset), etc.
The next CEO did a lot of cleanup for many years.
piccolo@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 33d
Yeah? But how much money did he earn the shareholders? Innovation doesnt matter if your making bank already
nightwatch_admin@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 34d
His net empathy was -53647863919406 but it never went up, so it was not a usable measurement.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 2 pts · 34d
How much money they made shareholders.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 34d
I believe he was Microsoft's single biggest shareholder, after Gates diversified.
HaiZhung@feddit.org · 2 pts · 33d
https://danluu.com/ballmer/
Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip · 30 pts · 34d
Why is he so sweaty...? ಠ_ಠ
MeatPilot@sh.itjust.works · 41 pts · 34d
Coke
Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip · 19 pts · 34d
He do coke, (so he can work longer... so he can make more money... so he can do more coke)
BeUnique@lemmy.zip · 35 pts · 34d
You try and say Developers that many times in a row without getting an uncontrollable erection while sweating profusely!
protist@retrofed.com · 16 pts · 34d
I shit, I should not have tried this at work
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 19 pts · 33d
White. Rich. Twitchy. Too much energy. Sweating profusely. On edge. Weird shit with jaw.
Stimulants.
Close to the 1980s?
Cocaine.
C-Suite in tech? COOOCAAAAAAIIIIINNNNNEEEEE (and young children)
FoxyGrandpa@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 34d
Booger sugar
rimu@piefed.social · 25 pts · 34d
This is my favorite Balmer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WW2JWIv6G8
At 0:23 it looks like he injures himself but carries on anyway.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 21 pts · 33d
Amazing that this freak's first public appearance wasn't his last day of employment.
Really shows how much privilege can elevate and protect the incompetent and repulsive 🤦🏻
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 15 pts · 34d
I am just imagining him saying "Tech CEOs, tech CEOs, tech CEOs!" which was probably not the intention.
luxadazy@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 34d
i prefer the remix
notoftenthat@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 33d
Words just aren't enough
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 34d