Someone commented that Wired News didn’t ask me the questions that they really were interested in.
Now that I’m out of Microsoft, what would you like to know? I’ll try to answer each of your questions here in the comment area.
If you’re looking for the bodies, though, they are all in building 7. :-)
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Robert Scoble works at Fast Company.TV (title: Managing Director). Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.
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July 2nd, 2006 at 8:24 am
What’s the one thing your most proud of about your time at MSoft, the one thing you might do differently, and the one thing you didn’t get to do but wanted to?
July 2nd, 2006 at 8:39 am
What is Microsoft’s internal perception of what you did for them, and have the noticed a change in public perception?
July 2nd, 2006 at 8:48 am
Microsoft 7
After reading Robert Scoble’s latest Scobleizer article, I found out that there is, for some reason, no building seven at their Redmond campus.
“For years on end - translation: since 1985 - some new employees have been pranked into looking…
July 2nd, 2006 at 9:18 am
What can you tell us about RSS/OPML/XMLRPC and the internal opinions of Microsoft? (ie. Don’t care so much about RSS readers, dime a dozen)
You switched to WordPress because Matt added OPML support, do you still use Manilla, Frontier or the OPML Editor and are Microsoft doing anything at all within this realm?
July 2nd, 2006 at 9:25 am
Full disclosure for those that don’t know- I work for Microsoft.
Now for a tough question Robert. Do you think Windows is a drag on product teams, not a factor, or a benefit to other product teams? Explain.
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:17 am
Is there a super-duper secret backhannel method for communicating directly to Bill Gates?
Note: I’m kidding, kind of. But not really.
The meta-thought behind this question is how do guys at the top of the leadership chain get information they need, but would not see in the course of ordinary business.
It’s a big problem in that good news migrates up the chain of command rather quickly but bad news not so quickly, if at all. An entirely human trait; and excaberated the larger an organization gets and the longer it’s in place.
How does Microsoft handle this problem
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:34 am
Who’s Mini?
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:54 am
@Jeffrey: Great question ;). But I am sure that Scoble is not going to answer that one, even if he knows the answer!
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:56 am
I’m from Austria and will be in October in San Francisco. Stupid question: Will there be something like a geek-dinner?
July 2nd, 2006 at 11:06 am
Scenario: Robert Scoble is promoted to CEO/Chief Software Architect/etc
Q1: Three things you would change at Microsoft?
Q2: Three companies you would purchase and or merge with?
btw - having a exit interview with your readers is cool :)
July 2nd, 2006 at 11:09 am
What didn’t Microsoft want you to blog about?
July 2nd, 2006 at 11:17 am
Excellent questions, I’ll answer them tonight, keep them coming! Steve Gillmor is coming over, maybe we’ll do it as a Gillmor Daily show or something like that.
July 2nd, 2006 at 12:11 pm
July 2nd, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Does Ray Ozzie have what it takes to change the Microsoft macro development culture from cathedral to bazaar?
July 2nd, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Why do people hate Microsoft?
July 2nd, 2006 at 12:55 pm
It was your “organic and honest” blog that sorta influenced my decision to come work for Microsoft, along with other Microsoft individual bloggers such as Dare Obasanjo.
And ironically, I feel within MS,
- a lot of the folks (including cynical devs) do not even realize the power of blogging,and the visibility it gives to folks even outside the blogosphere.
- I have encountered a rather large sample population within MS, going “Who Scoble”?
- MSDN/ Technet has few credible individual bloggers like Alex Barnett. There are a mishmash of product blogs that are corporatish and have a spin…and are mostly written by PMs and Product Manager types.
- MS has a stellar roster of developers
a) who dont blog enough or
b) do not blog at all or
c) if they do blog, there is no internal visibility about their blogs/who they are.
(Often I find a good blog, and then realize that they indeed work for MS)
-And except for the occasional Ray Ozzie blogs, none of the execs who blog have any techworthy content that befits a software company.
- And scarily enough,a blog was used to announce the death of “WinFS”..a new strategy to control negative PR ?
- And internal blogs…less said the better.
So what are your thoughts about fixing the blogging mess at Microsoft (since now you can really speak your mind ?)
July 2nd, 2006 at 12:56 pm
If you had a good/huge say in the development of Windows Vista: what would be the first thing to be changed, added, …
July 2nd, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Scoble Answers YOUR Exit Interview…
If you’ve ever wanted Scoble to come clean about his Microsoft experiences and you didn’t like the exit interview by Wired magazine, now is your chance. Head on onver to his blog and comment on this post - he says he’ll answer every…
July 2nd, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Who is the person you most wanted to interview for Channel 9 but didn’t get to interview?
July 2nd, 2006 at 1:55 pm
What would you say is the biggest flaw at Microsoft?
If not willing to awnser that, then what was your biggest ‘frustration’ while being there?
July 2nd, 2006 at 2:30 pm
Do you think Microsoft should have tried to be more international and less USA-national?
July 2nd, 2006 at 2:32 pm
Now that you are leaving, are you going to buy a Mac, and only run windows when you absolutely have to?
Will you buy Vista when it ships?
Will you use Vista when it ships?
When will Mac and Windows become one?
July 2nd, 2006 at 4:25 pm
1- http/xml ultimately became known as AJAX last year - and took off - why did microsoft not attempt to promote the technology and publicize it
2- MSN search engine only became a unique engine last year - why did Microsoft go YEARS without attempting to create an individual search engine :?
July 2nd, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Do you have a non-disclosure agreement with MS?, if there isn’t, will you join Google instead of PodTech?
How should Microsoft view its competition-should it focus on the bigger competitors or the smaller ones?
I wonder whether Gates is Mini? because he is not happy but not out yet:)
July 2nd, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Robert, you’ve mentioned Microsoft paid you “less than 6 figures” a number of time on your blog. The actual number isn’t important but I wanted to know if there *was* a number that would have kept you at Microsoft? Did Microsoft ever ask you, “What would it take to keep you?” or were you leaving regardless of what they could have done?
July 2nd, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Call me old fashoned, (and disclosure: I work at Microsoft) but I would ask some traditional exit interview questions which, I hope, would help us understand your experience and do better in the future. So, my questions are:
-Why did you decide to take a job at Microsoft?
-What, if anything, changed your perceptions of the reasons you decided to take a job at Microsoft in the time you worked there?
-What obstacles did you encounter that made your job more difficult than it had to be?
-If you could change one thing about Microsoft, what would it be?
-What made you consider an offer from another company?
-Would you consider working at Microsoft again in the future?
-What advice would you give to your successor?
July 2nd, 2006 at 8:58 pm
What really happened to Longhorn? It was such an ambitious and groundbreaking product around PDC 2003. Vista is NOT Longhorn!
July 2nd, 2006 at 9:14 pm
@16. 60,000 employees, and you find a rather large percentage that have no clue who Scoble WAS or why they should think he mattered? I’m shocked!!! Shocked I tell you!
July 2nd, 2006 at 9:20 pm
Why did you keep whining about your less than $100,000/yr salary? Do you were fairly compensated
for carrying around a camera and interviewing people that actually worked on products that were intended to make money for the company?
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:00 pm
Will you revive “talkingmoose” ?
July 2nd, 2006 at 10:12 pm
For the upcoming generations, like those whom have just graduated from college or high school, would you recommend working at Microsoft? Or would you suggest anywhere else?
July 2nd, 2006 at 11:26 pm
Why did you decide to work at MS?
Did you feel that the noncompete agreement limited you from working where you really wanted to work (upon deciding to leave)?
What advice would you give to a junior employee?
plus the question from poster #31 would be of great interest to me too. :)
Thanks for opening up the floor to questions - looking forward to the answers! This is great!
July 2nd, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Sarah, and everyone else, I’ve now answered all these questions. I think that’s enough. Plus there’ll be an exit interview on Channel 9. OK, I’ve gotten Microsoft out of my system. Heheh.
July 3rd, 2006 at 12:13 am
@28 To Dmad: I said a “sample” population (and not 60k)- please refer back to your Statistics-101.
And a sample population could hypothetically be my building or my division or my lunch group. Or maybe I hang out with the trolls underneath a firewall.
The inference point I was trying to make is : to have a large percent of a sample population not know Scoble surprised me, considering the folks at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ think it is important to read Scoble.
July 3rd, 2006 at 6:23 am
[...] Thanks Robert, Keep doing what you do well…. My Question What can you tell us about RSS/OPML/XMLRPC and the internal opinions of Microsoft? (ie. Don’t care so much about RSS readers, dime a dozen) [...]
July 3rd, 2006 at 10:56 am
Robert, I know I’m a little late getting in on this exit interview game, but if you will take one more question I’d be grateful:
What have you heard about why Mark Zbikowski left Microsoft? I had just watched his Channel 9 interview and then turn around and find out he’s gone. And I LOVED his interview, perhaps my all-time Channel 9 favorite.
If there’s one guy who could have singlehandedly given Microsoft a true-blue-coder friendly reputation, it’s Mark Zbikowski.
And now he’s gone. Jesus Christ. Maybe Microsoft’s best days really are in the past.
July 3rd, 2006 at 11:06 am
Joe: from what I hear he just wanted to retire and enjoy the rest of his life. He’s worked at Microsoft for 25 years. That’s an awful long time. No one stays at a company forever.
Look not at the people who built Microsoft in the past. The most interesting ideas are being done by interns who haven’t even graduated from college yet. My favorite feature in OneNote, for instance, was built by an intern three summers ago.
July 6th, 2006 at 8:34 am
D you use M$ products on a regular basis?