This is a great read Steven - nice start to the story! A few quick questions:
- It sounds like you werenโt immediately drawn to Bill Gatesโ calling you to do the hard sell for the job. Was he known but not revered yet? Or you werenโt swayed? Wondering what similar person today would be comparable.
- The brochures talking about MSโs campus make it sound quite a bit like Googles 2000s one with all the recreational activities and games etc. Did the brochure paint a rose-coloured glasses picture?
- Would love to know if when you joined and started there, did you know you were somewhere that was really going to achieve great things & some of the future success was almost taken for granted?
Looking forward to the next ones! Seems like Steve Ballmer was a character even back then ;) (the smashing tables / iPhones etc came later!!)
Congrats on the newsletter. It's like we coordinated our launch date! Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Your initial offer makes me feel even better about mine. I was the first designer to get stock options. ๐ฒ And I too had to call my uncle for a primer. ๐
Great start to your story! I love the notion that Microsoft wasnโt as well known as Radio Shack. And the answering machine story. I wonder why, given your Mac credentials, you werenโt assigned to the Mac apps team. Certainly by 1989, plenty of Microsoft folks, including Bill, were suspicious and contemptuous of Mac adherents.
I'm so interested to see the NEXT chapter to learn how you moved from that position to working directly for BillG. I remember that right after that happened, I was at the Software Development conference hanging out with Charles Petzold, Jeff Prosise, and the rest of the Microsoft Press/PC Magazine columnist gang, and you came by and talked to us for a few minutes. Afterwards we all were like "who IS that guy and how did he get THAT job?"
I left the Bay area for The Seattle area in '83, because I read an article in Esquire that Seattle was a good place in which to disappear. That didn't last long. A few years later('87, I think), I was riding down an elevator at Seatac with only Gates and Balmer. Gates was upset and screeching at Balmer: "Don't they know it's about communication!" As a subscriber to Infoworld, Byte, PC, PC Week, and others, I guessed they just got back from IBM and were referring to OS/2. Balmer noticed I was paying attention and shushed Gates. Funny to think now, but Gates and Balmer were not expecting to be recognized back then, at least until Gates got a full-body foldout in PC World.
I joined in โ93 and also tried (unsuccessfully) to negotiate salary... i joke that in retrospect what I should have asked for is 50 more options... after splits and the stock rise in the 90s, that would have been worth it! I also remember that time when tech wasnโt everywhere โ I can remember if you heard someone talking about code or computers on a bus, youโd look at them to see where you knew them from. Great stories, looking forward to the next installlment.
What a great story. Thank you so much for sharing!
What struck me as amazing was that Bill Gates was already the CEO of a 3,000-person company that did business in 50+ countries with $800m in sales and $3b in market cap when he *personally* called you - repeatedly - to convince you to join Microsoft!
Clearly Steven Sinofsky was a special talent that Microsoft absolutely had to hire :)
Brings back memories! I graduated college with BS in Chem but went to work at Radio Shack (Tandy Business Products), where I had earned money during school. I dreamed of working for MS. I got certified in MS Xenix!
Great start - can't wait for more. One misconception from your first post ... by the time you joined MSFT stock had already quadrupled from the IPO in a little over three years. Unprecedented.
So much of Microsoft's success depended on hiring the right mix of people, and keeping them happy at their job. Thatโs a given in tech these days, and Microsoft is still at it, but back then it wasn't so obvious.
Thanks for pulling this all together. So many fun memories!
This was great. It's so interesting to contrast with my experience in 1981. Not so different even after going public! The brochure when I was recruited had the memorable tidbit that "Bellevue has no parking meters!"
001. Becoming a Microsoftie [Ch. I]
This is ๐งจ๐.
Applying to Microsoft via mail, from an address on a box.
๐คฃ๐คฃ Getting told by Bill Gates that working for government is for when you are old and stupid.
Thank you so much for writing this and sharing this brilliant photos.
Who are those people on the recruiting poster?
Richard Ward juggling (I think)
Hans Spiller jousting
Rick Powell, Tom Saxton, and Ben Waldman golfing in the Swing Around the Wing (tm)
This is a great read Steven - nice start to the story! A few quick questions:
- It sounds like you werenโt immediately drawn to Bill Gatesโ calling you to do the hard sell for the job. Was he known but not revered yet? Or you werenโt swayed? Wondering what similar person today would be comparable.
- The brochures talking about MSโs campus make it sound quite a bit like Googles 2000s one with all the recreational activities and games etc. Did the brochure paint a rose-coloured glasses picture?
- Would love to know if when you joined and started there, did you know you were somewhere that was really going to achieve great things & some of the future success was almost taken for granted?
Looking forward to the next ones! Seems like Steve Ballmer was a character even back then ;) (the smashing tables / iPhones etc came later!!)
A little nitpick - did not realize that the chapter/post ended with the line "Explaining what software was and that Seattle was not just a forest.".
Maybe a line in the end or something obvious that the post is done? Had to click through to the website to make sure I did not miss anything.
This read is engaging and has great detail which makes it very special - looking forward to reading more of it!
Congrats on the newsletter. It's like we coordinated our launch date! Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Your initial offer makes me feel even better about mine. I was the first designer to get stock options. ๐ฒ And I too had to call my uncle for a primer. ๐
Great start to your story! I love the notion that Microsoft wasnโt as well known as Radio Shack. And the answering machine story. I wonder why, given your Mac credentials, you werenโt assigned to the Mac apps team. Certainly by 1989, plenty of Microsoft folks, including Bill, were suspicious and contemptuous of Mac adherents.
I'm so interested to see the NEXT chapter to learn how you moved from that position to working directly for BillG. I remember that right after that happened, I was at the Software Development conference hanging out with Charles Petzold, Jeff Prosise, and the rest of the Microsoft Press/PC Magazine columnist gang, and you came by and talked to us for a few minutes. Afterwards we all were like "who IS that guy and how did he get THAT job?"
Mr Sinofsky is hilarious I'm looking forward to reading more
I left the Bay area for The Seattle area in '83, because I read an article in Esquire that Seattle was a good place in which to disappear. That didn't last long. A few years later('87, I think), I was riding down an elevator at Seatac with only Gates and Balmer. Gates was upset and screeching at Balmer: "Don't they know it's about communication!" As a subscriber to Infoworld, Byte, PC, PC Week, and others, I guessed they just got back from IBM and were referring to OS/2. Balmer noticed I was paying attention and shushed Gates. Funny to think now, but Gates and Balmer were not expecting to be recognized back then, at least until Gates got a full-body foldout in PC World.
I joined in โ93 and also tried (unsuccessfully) to negotiate salary... i joke that in retrospect what I should have asked for is 50 more options... after splits and the stock rise in the 90s, that would have been worth it! I also remember that time when tech wasnโt everywhere โ I can remember if you heard someone talking about code or computers on a bus, youโd look at them to see where you knew them from. Great stories, looking forward to the next installlment.
What a great story. Thank you so much for sharing!
What struck me as amazing was that Bill Gates was already the CEO of a 3,000-person company that did business in 50+ countries with $800m in sales and $3b in market cap when he *personally* called you - repeatedly - to convince you to join Microsoft!
Clearly Steven Sinofsky was a special talent that Microsoft absolutely had to hire :)
Brings back memories! I graduated college with BS in Chem but went to work at Radio Shack (Tandy Business Products), where I had earned money during school. I dreamed of working for MS. I got certified in MS Xenix!
So real... (best part is the trnsparency)
Great start - can't wait for more. One misconception from your first post ... by the time you joined MSFT stock had already quadrupled from the IPO in a little over three years. Unprecedented.
So much of Microsoft's success depended on hiring the right mix of people, and keeping them happy at their job. Thatโs a given in tech these days, and Microsoft is still at it, but back then it wasn't so obvious.
Thanks for pulling this all together. So many fun memories!
This was great. It's so interesting to contrast with my experience in 1981. Not so different even after going public! The brochure when I was recruited had the memorable tidbit that "Bellevue has no parking meters!"