This title does a great job of setting the essay's arrogant tone. Like the Cliff Notes, this essay is written for people who didn't bother reading the original Microsoft is Dead. It's not a walkback, not even a defense, just a summary.

> When I wrote that Microsoft was dead, I didn't mean it literally. I couldn't have. Companies aren't alive, so they can't die.

Companies can go bankrupt.

> In fact "Microsoft is Dead" was what we in the trade call a metaphor. I meant something else.

> What I meant was not that Microsoft is suddenly going to stop making money, but that people at the leading edge of the software business no longer have to think about them.

To say that someone is dead, if not meant literally, means to predict that he's going to die soon. It does not just mean that people no longer have to think about them. Metaphors are not arbitrary. Metaphors, like words and phrases, are usually based on conventions. You can't just write something and then claim that you meant some other thing. That's not how metaphors work. Note also the implication that people who don't understand that saying "x is dead" means that people no longer have to worry about x just aren't "in the trade", don't even know what a metaphor is.

But even the claim that people at the leading edge of the software business no longer have to think about microsoft turned out to be wrong. Maybe it's time for "Microsoft is Dead: The Cliff Notes: The Cliff Notes" to explain that this claim was also meant metaphorically?

I do think that startups worry about Microsoft. Slack worries about MS Teams I believe. So I think Paul Graham looks like a fool on this one. And that’s ok, he knew the risk, and even laid out the terms which would make him look like a fool.

Microsoft had one of the greatest comeback. Just wondering if Oracle and IBM are capable of this ever.

A little weaselly since that can be said about any company.