Getting behind the myths

I just saw Craig Burton's “A thousand tornadoes deep“. Craig has been around. We've had a hundred conversations over the years, and I truly admire his ability to see uderlying taxonomies.

Craig was the one who, a number of years ago, taught me not to prejudge Microsoft – and explained his “ten tornado” theory (he has since – I think rightly – adjusted it by two orders of magnitude).

So his vote of confidence means a lot to me:

“There are good people with vision and integrity at Microsoft. Kim Cameron is one of those people. You can't go wrong working with Kim.”

I like the wit and wicked incision in his comment that:

Each tornado (or hailstorm if you like) has its own path, thinking and objective. They seldom cross paths and are too busy dealing with the issues at hand to even talk to each other.

That, in fact, says a lot about the real Microsoft – and is much more realistic than those who talk about plots. I wish we, as a company, allowed more visibility into our nature, which is close to the one Craig describes.

Then he concludes:

Microsoft bashing aside, when two people like Marc and Kim get together and collaborate, expect good things to happen that go beyond the history of giants — even the giant of all time — Microsoft.

I look forward to seeing what they can do.

And, I have to say, I do too.

In order that this conversation on identity can go forward, I have so far edited out (or is it just that I have “not mentioned”) Craig's “one further” comment that:

“Microsoft is an unabashed bully. The leaders of Microsoft– Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer — lead the bully behaviour.”

It's so wierd. As though I had caught myself sleeping through the first half of some dream (or in fact wasn't there for it), and now that I'm in the second half, I can't quite follow the plot. In fact, maybe that's what has happened.

Although I don't know Steve and can't comment on what he's like from first hand experience, I have spent a fair amount of time with Bill. He is a remarkable and uniquely generous person, witty – a real engineer of great breadth and depth, as well as a deeply disruptive thinker. I just can't recognize him in his demonized form. (Don't get the idea we go fishing together – we don't.)

Anyway, to make a long story short, many many moons ago, Craig and Bill didn't seem to, er, really hit it off together. But I still like them both a lot.