https://www.techradar.com/news/almost-37-years-after-its-lau...
In this case they were wrong, but could anyone have known?
Basically, at this point MS already had an understanding what games are a great driver for selling both the OS and apps, but the game market itself was too small to bother with more than being a publisher:
>> In the United States, Age of Empires debuted at #7 on PC Data's computer game sales rankings for October 1997.[36] It secured places eighth and 13th the following two months, respectively.[37][38] By the end of 1997, Age of Empires totaled sales in the country above 178,000 units, for revenues in excess of $8 million. This performance made it the United States' most successful real-time strategy game during late 1997: a writer for PC Gamer US noted that its sales surpassed the combined totals of rivals Total Annihilation and Dark Reign over the same period, and were over four times greater than those of Myth: The Fallen Lords.[39]
Sure, AoE was a great success eventually ($120M revenue, by 2000) but it was a hit which surpassed many, many other games and but it took a lot of time; while this was still a summer of '97.
> I’d worked for Microsoft for nine years by then. My career was in high gear. A year earlier I’d been honored with the Market Maker award as the marketer who “added the most to the (1600+-person) Consumer Division’s bottom line.”
I think it sounds like they were remarkably accommodating. I doubt you'd find many companies these days that would grant the same sort of deal.
I think many people believe this, but how do they know? There are ~7 billion people on the planet. You mean to tell me that only a "handful" are capable of doing a particular job? And not even "CEO of billion dollar company" but "Director of a 200 person org who attends meetings and makes decisions." Really? Only a "handful" of the 7 billion people on earth can do this?
There's only so much room at the top, and you need to spend time near the top to get everything else. Truth is, the everything else is a big part of the package.
I truly believe I could do the job of my grand-boss 4 levels above me on the totem pole, and so could most of my peers. The reason I'm (or someone else is) not there comes down to things like timing, luck, who got where first, and just the reality that one person already being in that SVP position simply blocks everyone else from being there. I really think that a large number of leaf-node employees are massively under-employed compared to what they are capable of. I guess it's kind of a reverse-impostor syndrome.
Out of all tech companies I’ve seen, their moonlighting policy is by far the most permissible one. You fill out a short form, they review it fairly quickly, and then you get an official “you are good to go, this is your project, we aren’t going to have any claims against in the future”email.
I am yet to see anyone who got a rejection on that form (but I also don’t know anyone who would attempt to send the form for their personal project that would be a blatantly direct and significant competitor of a big moneymaker MSFT product).
> I had another conversation with Microsoft execs about my role and the conflict with Valve, and again I was essentially told, “it’s fine, we’re OK, we like where you’re at, don’t worry.”
WOW!