Top all-time · #2003
Mini-Microsoft
Personal blog · minimsft.blogspot.comcareerbusiness
Mini-Microsoft is a personal blog at minimsft.blogspot.com about career and business. Since 2008, 40 different Hacker News readers have linked it 52 times, most often “Mini-Microsoft”. The last post was in 2014, but the archive is still widely read.
Most-linked posts?
- Mini-Microsoft8 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2010-07-07
- The KIN-fusing KIN-clusion to Microsoft KIN4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2010-07-07
- Microsoft's New Review and Compensation System - Now With More Cash3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-04-21
- Microsoft Stack Rank as a Popularity Contest (2004)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-03-15
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-01-23
What Hacker News says?
Microsoft annual bonuses used to be a lot more stock and less cash, but in 2011 they shifted towards the current model of cash++, because the stock was low and nobody wanted it. (At the same time they did an across-the-board 10% raise - from memory, both these moves were made because Amazon Google Facebook were becoming much more serious competitors for Seattle employees. http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2011/04/microso…
Comment linking /2011/04/microsofts-new-review-and-compensation.html
on “Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon”Submitted 18,000 Microsoft Jobs Gone Eventually? as a story · 54 points
HN discussionFor those unfamiliar with what "calibration" is in Microsoft: http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2011/04/microsofts-new-review-a...
Comment linking /2011/04/microsofts-new-review-and-compensation.html
on “Windows NT Kernel Contributor Explains Why Performance is Behind Other OS”Submitted Microsoft Has Turned The Corner as a story · 46 points
HN discussionYou should look back through the history of http://minimsft.blogspot.com Microsoft is worse than most because its ranking system actually encourages you to compete within your team not just outside.
Comment linking /
on “What it's Really Like Working with Steve Jobs”Submitted A Microsoft Without Sinofsky? as a story · 39 points
HN discussionThis seems like a good place to mention the original stack-ranking critic, Mini-Microsoft (still going!): http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2004/07/microsoft-stack-rank-as...
Comment linking /2004/07/microsoft-stack-rank-as-popularity.html
on “Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant”Submitted Mini-Microsoft as a story · 32 points
HN discussionBallmer may be the best example of a Shaved Gorilla currently living, but I think he became the official scapegoat of Microsoft when they put him in charge. Things were already going horribly wrong, and they put a despot in charge to soak up the blame for all of the terrible things his peers, subordinates and predecessors were already cocking up. The next person has a comparatively easy job of leading a Renaissance,…
Comment linking /
on “Reflections on My Career at Microsoft”Submitted Rumors of Upcoming Microsoft Cut-Backs as a story · 28 points
HN discussion"Stack ranking system was harmful:" whoa! I didn't know Google practiced stack ranking. There is a lot of unnecessary stress generated at Microsoft due to this[1]. I would have thought the Google folks would be wise enough to avoid it. As for ".... SVP response: “If you wanted to get promoted for these non-engineering tasks, move into management" heh! How big company ish is that? The best way to join Google these da…
Comment linking /2005/07/microsoft-stack-ranking-is-not-good.html
on “Google Engineering Management Mistakes”Submitted Steve Ballmer is Going to Frickin' Retire From Microsoft as a story · 11 points
HN discussionYes, the purpose was to measure the unmeasurable, which, since it's impossible by definition, created the secondary effects you describe. For details on the daily workings of stack ranking at Microsoft, the venerated Mini Microsoft is still up and available in all it's 15 year old glory. It's one of the true documents of contemporary tech work, and I'm glad it isn't just buried in archive.org (long live archive.org)…
Comment linking /
on “Jack Welch has died”Submitted Mini-Microsoft: Windows 7 and a Grab Bag of Microsoftness Before FY10Q1 Results as a story · 11 points
HN discussionThere was plenty of news coverage of the Windows test team being eliminated at the time of Microsoft's 2014 layoffs: " Under the new structure, a number of Windows engineers, primarily dedicated testers, will no longer be needed. (I don't know exactly how many testers will be laid off, but hearing it could be a "good chunk," from sources close to the company.) Instead, program managers and development engineers will…
Comment linking /2014/07/18000-microsoft-jobs-gone-eventually.html
on “Microsoft suggests command line fiddling to get Windows 10 update installed”Submitted Microsoft Company Meeting 2011 as a story · 8 points
HN discussion18,000… wow. Did that actually materialise? http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2014/07/18000-microsoft-jobs-go...
Comment linking /2014/07/18000-microsoft-jobs-gone-eventually.html?m=1
on “Microsoft has started layoffs today”Submitted The KIN-fusing KIN-clusion to Microsoft KIN as a story · 6 points
HN discussionYou don't even have to go back that far: http://minimsft.blogspot.com/ The Encyclopedia of Stack Ranking, and IIRC this blog was one of the motivators for MSFT to drop stack ranking. The original Michael O. Church, if you will.
Comment linking /
on “Uber is designed so that for one employee to get ahead, another must fail”Submitted Mini-Microsoft: Microsoft Annual Review 2010 as a story · 5 points
HN discussionHey Jon - I don't think I've seen you since you ran those Ad Astra hackathons inside MS. Hope you're doing well! Huh, just noticed this: http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2007/11/low-hanging-late-harves... It looks like you and I left Microsoft in the same week. Funny timing.
Comment linking /2007/11/low-hanging-late-harvest-fruit.html
on “Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent”Submitted Microsoft FY10Q4 Results from Mini-Microsoft as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI was working at Microsoft shortly after 9/11 and one of their main goals was hoovering up talent let go by other companies. Ballmer (or maybe it was the head of HR can't remember her name) mentioned the strategy in a company-wide email. The largesse worried existing softies so much that someone created the "Mini MSFT" movement, culminating in the blog: http://minimsft.blogspot.com/
Comment linking /
on “YC Updates and Additions”Submitted Microsoft's New Review and Compensation System - Now With More Cash as a story · 3 points
HN discussionMaybe something's changed in the four-and-a-half years since I left, but people were pretty ok with Lisa Brummel when I was at Microsoft. People gently made fun of the fact that she always wears shorts, but there was never anything mean-spirited in that. She was seen as a huge step up from the guy she replaced, who was rumored to have been having an affair with an underling[1] at the same time that he recorded a vid…
Comment linking /2006/06/locked-doors-martin-taylor-markz-and.html
on “Microsoft employee on stack ranking and its 'most universally hated exec'”Submitted Microsoft FY11Q2 Results as a story · 3 points
HN discussionExcerpts from infamous mini-msft blog (in 2005 another msft employee venting anonymously): "I mean, what has he done or not done that is impacting the stock?" - along with Gates, made decisions that resulted in the company being found guilty of breaking the law twice(and counting)resulting in fines, restrictions... - along with Gates, invested over $10B of cash in failed telecom investments that ended up being writt…
Comment linking /2005/03/old-school-competencies.html
on “What I Learned Working for Steve Ballmer”Submitted Microsoft open sourcing Windows? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe source of the conflict is summed up here. > The central thread here is collective action by principled people who will use copyleft primarily as a tool for rights of users and for the improvement of copylefted projects. Joint stock companies are about hierarchy and control. Free software is very much not about that. Free software is a syndicalist movement by software developers . Software developers have taken c…
Comment linking /2005/06/bob-herbold-fiefdom-syndrome-and-bobs.html?m=1
on “It Matters Who Owns Your Copylefted Copyrights (2021)”Submitted Thoughts on Wrapping Up Microsoft's FY10 as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
