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Comment by aluminussoma | Hacker News Reader

I worked at Macromedia with many people who worked for Elop before he rose to executive heights. All had very nice things to say about him. One speculated that he might even serve as Canada's prime minister one day.

Reading him branded as the worst CEO in the world makes me feel bad for him considering all the nice things I've heard about him. It is easy to throw around insults and labels, but let's remember that the truth can be nuanced and not so simple to explain.

Edit: fixed the political title based on comment below

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I will never understand what his line of thinking (and argumentation towards the board) was to go Windows-exclusively on phones.

Back then, Windows had about 2% share in the mobile phone market. Betting literally Nokia's entire future on Windows Phone seemed reckless, given that the competition (most notably Samsung) was being so successful with Android.

And this exclusivity was one-way: Nokia would commit to Windows Phone (or death), but Microsoft would continue to happily supply Windows Phone to Nokia's competitors, like Samsung.

So while Samsung, HTC, and the others were building both Android and Windows Phone devices, Nokia was going to go down the Windows path exclusively. How was that ever supposed to work out?

I look forward to reading this book, because Elop's decision bet Nokia's future on 2%-market-share-Microsoft is something that I have never understood. And I may be arm-chairing, but Nokia's demise went exactly as I expected it to go from day 1 of this announcement.

This, so much. Maybe Elop brought more to the table than meets the eye, but the Windows choice stinks so heavily given his history, Microsoft's history with OEMs, and the specifics of the deal that it almost doesn't really matter if there was some kind of logic that didn't make it out into the popular world. Nokia may have been in a bad position but like you, I anticipated the trajectory things took. If they were going to take the risk of trying to make any platform a third major player, it should have been one they owned the upside of. Failing that, buying into the Android ecosystem (maybe with a bid to extend it, bring in rockstar S60 emulation and/or better native Linux support) and competing on their hardware capabilities and reputation is the only thing that made sense.

I also don't understand the line of reasoning 'Nokia had no choice, they were already way behind Android and iOS". Why, oh, why did Elop have to choose "differentiation"? Nokia could have simply said, "oh, so we all have the same OS[+] now? Fine. Let the best industrial design, carrier relations and manufacturing prowess win! Oh and BTW our phones come with offline navigation".

WinMo was a _very_ risky bet with little upside and huge downside.

[+] Android, ofc.

If I remember correctly, he went to Nokia, killed MeeGo, made the deal to make Nokia produce Microsoft phones, then left to become a Microsoft exec => I hated him for doing all that.

Even Microsoft didn't have a place for Elop after all his Nokia wreckage and in 2016 he ended up in Australia working for Telstra, last I heard.

I suspect people labeling Elop as "worst CEO" are largely same group of people who ultimately led to Nokias downfall. Completely misreading and misunderstanding the market and the trends of mobile at the time and wanting to shift the blame to others who do not appreciate the genius of their products.

> ...are largely same group of people who ultimately led to Nokias downfall.

I think the people who ultimately led to Nokias downfall worked at 1 Infinite Loop where the iPhone was developed. Prior to the iPhone, Symbian was the dominant "smartphone" OS in Europe, or at least competitive with Blackberry, but the carriers shut Nokia out of the high-end phone market in America. I think Elop's strategy was to win over the American carriers/market but the strategy backfired and accelerated the exodus to iPhone/Android in Europe while not gaining a foothold elsewhere.

Apple left the door open for one or more alternative smartphone vendors. Nokia and Blackberry dropped the ball and Google filled the gap with Android that Verizon marketed splendidly. I'm not sure if Elop's strategy could ever have worked but it certainly had no chance when both Nokia's employees and customer base resented the approach.

I have not read the book so I'm not sure if my views mesh with what was written there.

> Nokia and Blackberry dropped the ball and Google filled the gap with Android that Verizon marketed splendidly.

Agreed wholeheartedly. If you want to know more about Verizon's kingmaking process to go all in with Droid over their previous partner RIM, see the book 'Losing the Signal', an excellent read on the rise and fall of RIM.

> I think the people who ultimately led to Nokias downfall worked at 1 Infinite Loop where the iPhone was developed.

I always found those reports about the iPhone causing Nokias downfall to be not credible. Nokia's vast majority of sales were in price segments where the iPhone didn't even compete.

The iPhone destroyed its North American competitors at that time, Blackberry, Palm, etc.

Nokia was clearly destroyed by Android. Surveys at that time found Nokia customers mass defecting to Samsung and other Android vendors.

> I think Elop's strategy was to win over the American carriers/market

A foolish plan, something Nokia never had accomplished even in the heyday of Symbian, when it dominated the rest of the world..

If you're talking about Nokia's customers, they weren't actually involved in the decisionmaking at Nokia, as they were not employed there. Nobody is complaining about their products, they're complaining about a CEO who publicly told the market that all of the products that Nokia was currently selling were obsolete dead-ends, followed that up by killing the only thing they were working on, transitioned them to a loser OS in Microsoft, and ultimately sold the entire devalued division to them.

> ultimately sold the entire devalued division to them

For which he received a $25.5m bonus, 70% of which was paid by Microsoft [1].

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-19/nokia-s-e...

The "poor Elop" narrative is bizarre. He trashed a company in exchange for a vast amount of money. Now we're supposed to be sorry for him because he can't be Canada's PM. I do not understand the (neo)liberal love for failures. I'm sure he's a nice guy over brunch. I'd rather have a PM who has been successful at something other than accumulating money.

A strange interpretation. Here in America we're experiencing the opposite - nearly half are worshipping a sociopathic failure. And its not 'neo-liberals'.

Prime Minister. In canada a Premier is the head of a province (ontario, alberta etc).

While we're recalling daydreams, I remember a Globe & Mail "Report On Business" glossy insert from Elop's impending Nokia takeover that had all the hallmarks of a Microsoft PR product. Its probable the following article is sourced from that publication, although the byline date is odd:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/c...

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