TechDaily
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2020–2022
3:40 · 45K views · Jan 12, 2018
A short compilation of Steve Jobs giving his opinions on Microsoft, including calling it opportunistic and lacking taste. It also touches on the role of big tech companies in showing what is possible.
Cited in discussions of Microsoft's standing and culture as Jobs' blunt critique.
3 comments from Hacker News
Welcome to the opinion zone. You mention market caps, but I don't think that is really the reason why certain companies enter the mindshare of people. I think the reason that Netflix became a part of the acronym is because, like its counterparts, all of them are leaders in a big space that others have a hard time competing with, with products that seem innovative (also explains why the giants of FinTech don't have much mindshare). This kind of industry leader at enormous scale results in high compensation for individual emoloyees and it becomes convenient to lump these companies together because everyone is going for it regardless of whether they care about any individual workplace. Netflix essentially bootstrapped and proved the market for streaming. For a really long time, people weren't sold by the idea of streaming their shows instead of getting millions of commercials on cable TV. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft is a great company that operates at a massive scale, winning many enterprise hearts like Microsoft Office (slowly losing relevance), but if I think about it harder, I just don't think there's much for Microsoft to claim as a leader. It has the largest gaming and PC markets, but those markets don't have the same nearly infinitely scalable potential profit that Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, or Google do. They don't quite lead hardware, software, or "platforms". Windows is pretty good, but really more just a data platform at this point and hasn't done much movemen
Microsoft's biggest failure was Windows Mobile. If they got Mobile right hands down they would be on a highway to $10T company but otherwise they are riding the wave of cloud, AI and gaming. Like Steve Jobs[0] said they are strong opportunists, they have no taste, they don't have original ideas and they don't bring much culture into their product but they keep on coming. Microsoft uses its big cash pile to either acquire companies or to copy them. [0] this video
That doesn't mean Microsoft shouldn't be pro active That reminds me of an interview with steve jobs, the mass doesn't necessarily know any better, the role of microsoft, apple and other big companies is to show people the impossible is possible Speed, efficiency, fanless design without perf penalty, are a possibility, M1 is showing that to people this video