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- Hacker News
- This is a good and bit surprising one. I have a hard time believing the CEO of Palantir has this many generational points I agree with, Zuck too, but I do.
https://www.techemails.com/p/mark-zuckerberg-peter-thiel-mil...
by techteach00 - > For Millennials, authenticity, agency, autonomy, idealism, altruism etc all seem to be top of their list of desirable virtues – for better or worse, they are difficult to reconcile with Silicon Valley these days. (Nick Clegg)
For better or worse. Right. It is incredible that one can list those five words and say that with a straight face.
- Holy crap, Thiel is using deep brainwashing techniques in his mail to Zuck and his people. If you know, you know ..by MomsAVoxell
- For all the pontificating, Zuckerberg is disliked more than Musk. According to this 2025 survey: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/19/how-ameri...by rawgabbit
- Zuck:
> While our company has a special role in the lives of this generation, this is likely particularly important for how I show up because I am the most well-known person of my generation.
My god these people… I didn’t even know you could be that self-absorbed. It’s jarring.
by 9dev - this is my favorite bit
>So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?
>So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated
by ripvanwinkle - Can someone in Microsoft confirm my suspicion that this thread is still going and nothing was fixed?by jtwaleson
- No one from Microsoft will ever confirm, but the status of Windows "OS" says it all.. ;)
- MovieMaker was discontinued in 2017 and replaced by ClipChamp. MS acquired ClipChamp and it was integrated into windows in 2022. So basically closed, will not fix.by dekhn
- I feel like if he said, I feel like firing someone immediately for this issue would have sprouted a surprising level ownership to find the people or team (or teams) to be blamed.
At the top level most people are not designed to get shit done. They are accountable for only reporting. So, even if you want to get things done finding the team or person from that point high is impossible as they are not designed for that.
But as I write this I realized that even that wouldn’t work...as they will create a committee and hire an consulting agency whose exec was in the same sorority as them. And the consulting agency will recommend teams to be laid off. And then the same exec will come in pitching the board to buy a startup which has a great team and apparently was invested by a VC who went to same class of Wharton of that exec.
by wqtz - > I feel like firing someone immediately for this issue would have sprouted a surprising level ownership to find the people or team (or teams) to be blamed.
I’d be ducking away from an issue that had just got someone fired.
Tangent: The irony in Microsoft making a product called ‘Teams’. It works about as well as their teamwork.
by lostlogin - I love the fact that 2 days after the ceo surfaced basic usability issues there was still no tangible action plan.
It’s insane how much runway a monopoly can buy you.
by whatever1 - I honestly think that "doing nothing" was actually their best outcome. If they had actually been serious about solving it, it would have been something like
Situation: there are 14 competing and incompatible ways to obtain Windows software (owned by 23 different teams) Ridiculous! We'll come up with a single unified interface (After 3 years of development and delays) Situation: there are 18 competing and incompatible ways to obtain Windows software (owned by 31 different teams) - >So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated
And it get worse from there. This is funny as hell. Billg eating his own shit.
by u1hcw9nx - Unix philosophy: tools should be simple and composable
Windows philosophy: don't get sued by AT&T
by Zambyte - I often wonder how CEOs and executives fail to notice how obviously broken their products are. This e-mail thread is quite illuminating. Most "work" in there is figuring out who will be blamed for it and why it shouldn't be your team.by pu_pe
- Even today Microsoft can't get their shit together on a decent user experience. Tried to use Azure since I needed to code sign a binary on Github. My two previous accounts setup on Azure errored out with obscure errors and there was no way to fix them. I had to create a new account just to sign up for Azure Artifact Signing (which is now waiting for Microsoft to approve - no updates in a week). I don't know how anyone figures any of this out without reading pages of documentation. I honestly believe that no one actually cares about their products or user experience at Microsoft.by Flux159
- at least you managed to sign up to MS. Many people can't even get that done in MS websites.by akoculu
- Azures brutal in terms of UX. One of the best things about AI is that it has made dealing with Azure a heck of a lot easier.by keithnz
- Read it.
Stopped halfway through thinking "Damn, this Mike Beckerman is a piece of work. Doesn't understand English grammar let alone software development."
Looked him up...
>Michael Beckerman is an American lobbyist who is vice president at TikTok.
Not surprising at all.
- For sure. This is consistent with how I would expect the TikTok generation to communicate. I would also add that not only does he know nothing about software development, but he knows even less about the basics of using his own computer.by waltwalther
- That must be a different Michael Beckerman. This one was an executive at Microsoft in 2002...by kylecazar
- Wrong Michael Beckerman. Source: I know the TikTok Beckerman, but not the MSFT one.by colinhb
- I've been around these execs outside of professional settings. All they care about is their status (money) and getting blowjobs from their aides. I am not exaggerating. They do not give a damn about how software should work. The execs with humble beginnings often get sucked into the culture and eventually exhibit the same characteristics as the others within 5-10 years. As they say, dopamine is a hell of a drug.by y-c-o-m-b
- Read the whole thing and all I saw was zero accountability, zero ownership and zero consequences.
That’s how great products die or become a nightmare. Every team keeps on passing the ball to other team and nothing gets fixed or done or improved.
- Really? You’ve got this guy Dave Fester on there saying he was going to own the website issues and was coordinating everything to do with how the products surfaced on the web. That seemed like pretty clear accountability and ownership to me. What do you want? Some more performative mea culpas?by jameshart
- Those bits are in a completely different set of emailsby cush
- But it didn’t. And Microsoft is worth $3.5 trillion. So maybe actually everyone should take a leaf out of the Microsoft book.
When something is on fire, pass the buck to other people and stand around saying “that thing is on fire… wouldn’t it be great if someone called the fire brigade? I have the number here. One of you guys, give them a call.”
by saaaaaam - They think it's 'some issues' :) :) :)
It's a fundamental, cultural and systemic lack of concern for those issues.
An 'afterthought' that should be 'integral'.
That Gates did not realize that means it's 100% on him.
1000% actually.
He was struggling with the language of design and usability in 2003, not even realizing even the implications of what he was seeing (because it would require total rethink).
Like a cars coming out of the factory with missing parts ... blame it on the guy on the line?
No. Something is deeply wrong.
I really like Gates - but it's beyond shocking how these cultures work and how myopic they are.
I worked for a Fortune 50 - and it's pretty amazing to watch how an army of actually smart people with 'one eye' can be so competent many ways, but blind in others.
I don't like to put Jobs on a pedestal but obviously this is something he understood (even then with gaping holes).
by bluegatty - How exactly do you think Bill Gates at peak Microsoft is going to fix this given "it's 100% on him?" And do you think the guys on the line are the ones on this email thread?
This is immensely more "ownership"/initiative than the vast majority of middle managers at any tech company would willingly take to solve a minor UX/CUJ failure, that's surely literally why he started the email thread and including the ones he did, to model that behavior for the the other middle management bozos and to try to instill a culture of caring about their work/whether it actually accomplishes the intended goals.
by weitendorf