At least in the example given, I think it could be worse. The guy said "Bill doesn't really want to review your spec", but he had effectively reviewed it, reading and marking up 500-something pages.

But rather than nitpicking or demanding changes be made, he simply satisfied himself that the guy knew what he was doing and left him to it. In fact he doesn't even give him the marked-up spec! Maybe I'm just too familiar with uninformed (or dangerously informed) management meddling in technical issues.

It sounds a lot like the 'brown M&Ms' heuristic translated to a management style. A strategy grown organically out of a chaotic environment, born out of the need to operate effectively with incomplete information and the inability to properly delegate.

It's not something you can abstract and make into a general management principle because it's effectively a hack. The culture of Microsoft allowed Bill to do this, whereas anyone else in any other organization would have not been able to employ it effectively.

Given the evidence, I wouldn't be so quick to judge. Sure it wouldn't be fun to work for someone like that, but look at the results.

How is that ?